The Us Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 8/19/2014 was $9.6B bringing the August 2014 deficit through 19 days to $105B.
Revenues lost a little bit of ground and outlays were up about $2B.
The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 8/18/2014 was $11.8B, dropping the August 2014 deficit back under $100B to $95B with 9 business days remaining.
Not a whole lot has changed since my last USDD post nearly 2 weeks ago….August 2014 and August 2013 are more or less synced up. 2014 revenue has taken a $1B lead with outlays up only a smidge….rounding out to ~1B YOY improvement so far (charts above independently rounded). From here on out, the deficit should drift gradually higher before Friday 8/29 when a ~$35B deficit pushes the month up to the $160-170B range. Primarily…I’m watching revenues (+1%…hoping for +5%), and to a lesser degree Medicare/Medicaid….which at least at this point do not look like they are on track to repeat last months huge spikes, though they will likely show growth.
Just a heads up…I’m taking some time off so probably no posts until 8/20 or so…when the August Deficit should be right about $100B. Stay tuned!!
This article over at Yahoo caught my attention…apparently Treasury is interested in increasing its cash balance in order to:
“help Washington pay its bills during a crisis”
-according to a senior “official”
They are looking to build the cash balance up to about $500B. So what does that mean? Well…Over the last 12 months, the average cash balance was about $65B. The high was $162B and the low was $17B….so this would certainly be a departure from the status quo.
Looking back a bit further…the above chart shows daily cash balances going back to 2005. Notice anything interesting? Back in early September 2008, the balance was low as ~$10B…before spiking to over $700B by mid October….before being siphoned off by TARP and other spending. But ultimately, the balance came back down and has averages about $75B since 1/2011…though it clearly fluctuates with the day to day/monthly, and annual cycles.
Going back to $500B would be a huge departure, and I’m not sure it makes much sense. At 2% average interest..adding $500B of debt comes at a cost of $10B annually…not much in the big scheme of things….but why?? The whole thing sounds a bit shady to me, but what do I know…
The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 8/5/2014 was $4.6B following Monday 8/4/2014’s $8.0B surplus, bringing the August deficit through 5 days to $59B.
Revenues have made some nice gains in the last 2 days…closing the gap to $-2B. Outlays have also made some gains….nearly catching up to 2013 despite being down a business day.
August Forecast:
I normally like to make this it’s own post….but I’m running out of time. I mentioned a $160B deficit a few days ago and I’m going to stick with that.