Tag Archives: Economy

Dollar steadies as pre-Fed nerves dominate

Bank notes of Euro, Hong Kong dollar, U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, GB pound and Chinese yuan are seen in this picture

y Patrick Graham

LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar steadied against the yen and euro on Tuesday after its weakest day in a week, with markets still uneasy that a Federal Reserve meeting ending on Wednesday may provoke more investors to cash in the greenback’s recent gains.

Barclays was the latest major bank to cast some doubt on a dollar rally extending into a first quarter set to be dominated by the first policy initiatives from the Trump administration.

While investors have bet on the new president taking steps to bolster growth that will push inflation higher, there are also concerns that he may spark protectionism globally, driving cash into traditional safe havens like the yen.

A rise in Fed interest rates on Wednesday, a big reason for the dollar index’s 7 percent rise since September, looks fully priced in and there are also doubts over whether the U.S. central bank will want to send a strong signal that more tightening is to follow.

“We think the meeting may be a catalyst for people to take some profit on long dollar positions,” Barclays analyst Hamish Pepper said.

“The dollar tends not to perform particularly well in December. If you put that together with a well priced Fed meeting plus already long positioning, it is the right set-up for a pullback.”

The yen strengthened to less than 115 yen per dollar in Asian trade before settling at 115.34, down 0.2 percent on the day but almost a full yen stronger than 24 hours previously.

It has borne the brunt of the dollar’s rally in the past month, down 13 percent since early October. But some traders and analysts have begun to wonder if the Japanese currency might benefit next year if global political risks grow.

Barclays forecasts the dollar weakening to 100 yen in a year’s time.

The euro was little changed at $1.0629 having gained 0.7 percent on Monday as German bund yields rose amid signs Italy will bail out Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena if need be.

Sterling inched higher helped by higher than expected inflation for November and comments from finance minister Philip Hammond backing a transition period to smooth the process of leaving the European Union.

“Rates markets are discounting close to five 25 basis point Fed rate hikes by the end of 2018,” analysts from BNP Paribas said in a note to clients.

“With the Fed likely to be cautious in its forward-looking language on Wednesday, those positioned long dollars heading into the meeting may be concluding that risk-reward is not attractive for staying in positions into the event risk.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Energy shares lift Dow, S&P techs drag Nasdaq

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S.,

By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Dow hit record highs on Monday, fueled by energy shares, while the Nasdaq was lower, dragged down by technology stocks, a day ahead of the Fed’s two-day meeting.

Oil prices gained as much as 6.5 percent to an 18-month high after OPEC and some of its rivals reached their first deal since 2001 to jointly reduce output to try to tackle global oversupply and boost prices.

The S&P energy index was the top performing sector with a 1.7 percent rise. Oil major Exxon was up 2.54 percent, providing the biggest boost to the Dow and S&P. Chevron rose 2.2 percent.

President-elect Donald Trump’s expected agenda of economic stimulus and reduced taxes and regulations has fueled a market rally, with the benchmark S&P 500 rising 5.6 percent since Nov. 8 to Friday’s close.

The Dow has closed at record highs 14 times since the election.

“The market has been rising on the incoming administration’s proposals, but how many of those actually pass through Congress remains to be seen,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

“Investors are expecting the Fed to hike rates but are more interested in the tone of the statement.”

Market participants are keeping a close watch on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s last meeting for the year, beginning Tuesday, with a statement from Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday.

At 10:58 a.m. ET (1558 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was up 32.96 points, or 0.17 percent, at 19,789.81, the S&P 500  was down 1.68 points, or 0.074352 percent, at 2,257.85 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 30.87 points, or 0.57 percent, at 5,413.63.

Six of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher.

The consumer discretionary led the decliners with a 0.82 percent fall, weighed down by a 1.24 percent drop in Amazon’s shares.

The industrials sector was down 0.58 percent, dragged down by defense stocks.

Lockheed Martin declined 3.9 percent at $249.22 after Donald Trump tweeted that the company’s F-35 program and costs were “out of control”. Other defense stocks, such as General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, were down between 2.7-4.5 percent.

Viacom fell 8.5 percent to a two-month low of $35.35 after Sumner Redstone’s privately-held National Amusements withdrew its merger proposal for CBS and Viacom, according to a source familiar with the situation. CBS was down 2.7 percent.

Ophthotech slumped 84.9 percent to a life-low of $5.85 after Novartis said a combination of its eye drug along with the company’s did not produce better outcomes.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,793 to 1,058. On the Nasdaq, 1,808 issues fell and 887 advanced.

The S&P 500 index showed 59 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 165 new highs and 16 new lows.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Oil surges to one-and-a-half-year high, Fed rate increase looms

A gas station attendant pumps fuel into a customer's car at PetroChina's petrol station in Beijing, China,

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices surged to their highest since mid-2015 and U.S. Treasury yields hit a more than two-year peak on Monday after the world’s top crude producers agreed to the first joint output cut since 2001.

Coming at the start of a week when the United States is expected to raise interest rates for the only the second time since the global financial crisis, the weekend agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and key non-OPEC states set the markets alive.

Brent oil futures soared 5 percent to top $57 a barrel for the first time since July 2015 and U.S. crude leapt above $54 a barrel to send global inflation gauges spiking as well.

There was particular surprise as Saudi Arabia, the world’s number one producer, said it may cut its output even more than it had first suggested at an OPEC meeting just over a week ago.

“The original OPEC deal pointed to a fairly lumpy 3 percent cut (in production), so this suggests there is a bit more upside for oil prices,” said Neil Williams, chief economist at fund manager Hermes.

On the rise in bond yields, which tend to set global borrowing costs, he added: “The Fed hike is mostly baked in so when we do get it, it will be more about the statement.”

European oil companies jumped more than 2 percent on the oil surge and helped the pan-regional STOXX 50 index add 0.1 percent, having just had its best week in exactly five years.

Bond markets in contrast were under heavy pressure. Euro zone government bond yields were sharply higher with German Bunds up 5 basis points at 0.40 percent as U.S. yields topped 2.5 percent for the first time since October 2014.

“We have seen OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreeing, which is boosting reflation expectations around the world,” said Chris Weston, an institutional dealer with IG Markets.

In another sign of the reflation trade, breakeven rates –the gap between yields of five-year U.S. debt and a matching tenor in inflation-protected securities — were at two-month highs.

Wall Street futures, meanwhile, pointed to the main U.S. indexes barely budging when they resume, having enjoyed an uninterrupted gain of nearly 4 percent over the past six sessions.

FED UP

Focus was also on the currency markets as the dollar rose to its highest since February against the Japanese yen, before what is almost certain to be the first rate hike of the year from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

Japan’s yen also tends to suffer when oil prices rise, since the country is a major importer.

The Norwegian crown, Canadian dollar and Russia rouble were the big gainers from the oil deal. The rouble rose almost 2 percent against both the dollar and euro as Russia shares, which have rocketed almost 90 percent since January, hit the latest in a string of record highs.

Overnight in Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.5 percent after posting its biggest weekly rise in nearly three months last week.

China stocks suffered their biggest fall in six months as blue chips were knocked by fresh regulatory curbs to rein in insurers’ aggressive stock investments and rising bond yields prompted profit-taking in equities.

The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 2.4 percent, to 3,409.18 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.5 percent to 3,152.97 points.

China’s insurance regulator, which recently warned it would curb “barbaric” acquisitions by insurers, said late on Friday it had suspended the insurance arm of China’s Evergrande Group from conducting stock market investment.

Concerns were also rumbling about U.S.-Sino relations after Donald Trump re-ignited controversy over Taiwan.

“I fully understand the ‘one China’ policy, but I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘one China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Emerging markets are already bracing for a difficult run if U.S. rate hikes push up the dollar and global bond yields.

Turkey’s lira has borne the brunt of much of the pressure in recent weeks, and it took another 1 percent hit alongside a sharp fall in Turkish bonds after data showed the country’s economy suffering its first contraction since 2009.

Gold, meanwhile, which had a bumper first half of 2016, hit its lowest level since early February at $1,152 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Saikat Chatterjee in Hong Kong, editing by Larry King)

EU upsets China with new steel price investigation

A worker verifies a product at a steel factory in Dalian, Liaoning province, China

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has launched a new investigation into whether Chinese manufacturers are selling steel into Europe at unfairly low prices, angering China which says Europe’s steel problems are due to the region’s own economic weakness.

The European Commission has determined that a complaint brought by EU steel makers’ association Eurofer regarding certain corrosion resistant steel merits an investigation, the EU’s official journal said on Friday.

The Commission also said it would start another anti-dumping investigation into certain cast iron products from China and India as well as determining whether existing duties on Chinese steel seamless pipes and tubes should continue for another five years.

The EU has already imposed duties on a wide range of steel grades to counter what EU steel producers say is a flood of steel sold at a loss due to Chinese overcapacity and partly the cause of 5,000 British job losses.

A China Commerce Ministry official said Beijing attached a “high degree of attention and concern” to the case and that Europe’s steel problems were due to its own weak economic growth.

Wang Hejun, the head of the trade remedies investigation department, said in a statement on the ministry’s website that Europe should rationally analyze its steel industry’s problems.

“It should not adopt mistaken trade protectionist measures that limit fair market competition,” he said.

The EU investigation begins just days before the 15th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, when the country says new trade defense rules are supposed to kick in.

Until now, the EU has been able to compare Chinese prices with those of another country – in the current case Canadian prices. But, Beijing insists this should no longer be possible from Dec. 11.

If the United States, European Union, and other WTO members begin to take Chinese prices as fair market value, it will be much harder for them to challenge China’s cheap exports.

The European Commission proposed last month a new way of treating China, but its proposals still await approval from the EU’s 28 members and the European Parliament.

Aegis Europe, a group of European industry federations including Eurofer, said there was no legal requirement to change the way the EU treated China on Dec. 11 and that EU’s partners the United States and Japan would not be doing so.

G20 governments recognized in September that steel overcapacity was a serious problem. China, the source of 50 percent of the world’s steel and the largest steel consumer, has said the problem is a global one.

The EU currently has 40 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures in place, 18 of which are on products from China. Twenty more investigations related to steel are still ongoing, including three for which provisional duties are in place.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Yawen Chen and Nicholas Heath in Beijing,; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Jane Merriman)

U.S. jobless claims drop from five-month high

help wanted sign in Colorado

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell from a five-month high last week, pointing to labor strength that underscores the economy’s sustained momentum.

A tight labor market together with signs of a strengthening economy and steadily rising inflation will likely push the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates next week.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 258,000 for the week ended Dec. 3, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were unrevised.

It was the 92nd straight week that claims were below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market. That is the longest stretch since 1970, when the labor market was much smaller.

U.S. financial markets were largely unmoved by the data as investors focused on the European Central Bank’s unexpected decision to cut its asset purchases starting in April.

Prices for U.S. government debt were trading lower, while U.S. stock index futures were higher. The U.S. dollar was stronger against a basket of currencies.

Last week’s drop in first-time applications for jobless benefits was in line with economists’ expectations. Claims hit a 43-year low in mid-November.

Economists had dismissed the recent back-to-back increases in filings, which had pushed claims to a five-month high, as an aberration. Claims tend to be volatile around this time of the year because of different timings of the Thanksgiving holiday.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors influencing last week’s data and that no states had been estimated. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose 1,000 to 252,500 last week.

The labor market is near full employment, with the government reporting last week that the unemployment rate fell to a nine-year low of 4.6 percent in November amid solid increases in nonfarm payrolls.

The Fed’s policy-setting committee meets next Tuesday and Wednesday. Economists expect the U.S. central bank to increase borrowing costs by at least 25 basis points at that meeting. The Fed raised its benchmark overnight interest rate last December for the first time in nearly a decade.

Thursday’s claims report also showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell 79,000 to 2.01 million in the week ended Nov. 26. That followed two straight weekly increases.

The four-week average of the so-called continuing claims slipped 9,500 to 2.03 million.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

Wall Street hits new high as post-election rally roars ahead

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S.,

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s post-election rally showed no signs of fatigue as the three major indexes hit all-time highs on Thursday.

Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president last month sparked euphoria on Wall Street, with investors chasing stocks that are likely to gain from his proposals to spend more on infrastructure and simplify industry regulation.

“Investors are getting excited over the prospects of a new administration, a fresh mindset and a man who knows how to do business,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“While there was also a technical aspect to the move yesterday … the mindset right now is that any pullback is seen as bullish. It’s an opportunity to buy into the market, not sell.”

The Dow industrials, the Dow Transport, the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 indexes closed at record levels on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank unexpectedly reduced its asset purchase plans to 60 billion euros ($64 billion) from the current 80 billion euros on Thursday, but reserved the right to increase buying once again.

Adding to the bullish tone was a report that showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell from a five-month high last week, pointing to a robust labor market and building on a recent spate of strong economic data.

At 9:42 a.m. ET the Dow Jones industrial average was up 39.58 points, or 0.2 percent, at 19,589.2. It hit a record high of 19,592.95 – its 10th since the Nov.8 election.

The S&P 500 was up 2.13 points, or 0.1 percent, at 2,243.48, slightly below its high of 2,243.56.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 8.60 points, or 0.16 percent, at 5,402.36, easing from a high of 5,403.88.

Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were lower, but the losses were offset by a 0.85 percent rise in financials and gains in materials and energy.

Bank of America, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo rose between 0.9 percent and 1.6 percent, boosting the S&P 500.

Investors, however, are likely to tread cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week, where traders see a more than 90 chance of an interest rate hike.

Lululemon soared 17.3 percent to $70.20 following the yoga and leisure apparel retailer’s reported of a better-than-expected quarterly profit.

Costco rose 2.5 percent to $157.86 in thin trading after the warehouse club retailer reported a quarterly profit that beat analysts’ expectations.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,317 to 1,289. On the Nasdaq, 1,141 issues rose and 1,126 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 83 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 173 new highs and five new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Dow set to open at record high; oil hits $55

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – The Dow was poised to open at an all-time high on Monday, as oil prices topped $55 a barrel for the first time in 16 months, and investors shrugged off the defeat of a referendum in Italy for constitutional reforms.

Futures lost ground slightly on Sunday after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign following the rejection.

However, world stocks, including Italian shares, reversed course to trade higher on Monday as investors bet against immediate snap elections in the country.

Brent crude prices were up 0.8 percent, after touching a high of $55.33, taking the total gains to 19 percent since Wednesday, when OPEC and other producers struck a deal to limit output to prop up prices. [O/R]

The Dow will open at a record intraday high, its eighth since Nov. 10, if active trading follows movement in futures. The index has marked four straight weeks of gains, benefiting from investors’ rotation into sectors such as financials, which are likely to gain from President-elect Donald Trump’s policies.

“You’ve got a very split tape with some sectors working well, like the financials and transports, while the rest of the market is not working well,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive at Orlando, Florida-based 50 Park Investments.

However, Wall Street closed little changed on Friday as investors booked profits off bank stocks, despite a strong payrolls report that strengthened the prospects of an interest rate hike next week.

Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were up 73 points, or 0.38 percent, at 8:28 a.m. ET (130 GMT), with 57,797 contracts changing hands on Monday.

S&P 500 e-minis <ESc1> were up 6.5 points, or 0.3 percent, with 249,606 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQc1> were up 17.5 points, or 0.37 percent, on volume of 39,369 contracts.

An Institute of Supply Management report is likely to show activity in the U.S. services sector rose slightly in November from the previous month. The report is due at 10:00 a.m. ET (1500 GMT)

New York Federal Reserve President and permanent voting member William Dudley said Trump’s election had created “considerable” uncertainty on the policies he would pursue so it was too soon for the Fed to judge whether its plan for gradual interest rate hikes needs adjusting.

Shares of Energy Transfer <ETP.N> dropped 6.9 percent to $32 after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned down a permit for the company’s controversial pipeline project running through North Dakota.

FairPoint <FRP.O> shares jumped 14.4 percent after Consolidated Communications <CNSL.O> said it would buy the broadband service provider in an all-stock deal valued at $1.5 billion, including debt.

Chesapeake Energy <CHK.N> rose 4.2 percent to $7.53 after the U.S. natural gas producer said it would sell a part of its acreage in the Haynesville Shale area for $450 million to a private company.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

U.S. private jobs, consumer spending data support Fed rate hike

People shop at The Grove mall in Los Angeles

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. private employers stepped up hiring in November and consumer spending increased last month, the latest signs of economic strength that could further cement the case for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month.

The data on Wednesday also showed income rising solidly and savings climbing to a seven-month high in October, positioning households to boost spending in the future.

“There is nothing in today’s reports that put a roadblock in front of a Fed rate hike in December. The economy continues to move ahead powered by the American consumer who has got the income to both spend and save for a rainy day,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.

The ADP National Employment Report showed that private payrolls increased by 216,000 jobs this month, well above economists’ expectations for a gain of 165,000 jobs. The report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics.

The ADP figures come ahead of the Labor Department’s more comprehensive employment report on Friday, which includes both public and private sector payrolls. Economists polled by Reuters are looking for nonfarm employment to have risen by 175,000 jobs in November after increasing by 161,000 jobs in October.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.3 percent after an upwardly revised 0.7 percent gain in September. Spending in September was previously reported to have risen 0.5 percent.

A third report showing a marginal increase in contracts to buy previously owned homes last month, however, put a wrinkle in an otherwise brightening economic outlook.

The consumer spending and private hiring reports added to data on residential construction, home sales, inflation and manufacturing that have suggested the economy sustained its momentum early in the fourth quarter after growing at its quickest pace in two years in the July-September period.

The government reported on Tuesday that gross domestic product increased at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, driven by strong consumer spending and a surge in soybean exports.

A strengthening economy, together with a labor market that is near full employment could make the Fed comfortable to hike rates at its Dec. 13-14 policy meeting. The U.S. central bank raised its overnight benchmark interest rate last December for the first time in nearly a decade.

The dollar was trading higher against a basket of currencies, while prices for U.S. government bonds fell. Stocks on Wall Street generally rose, with both the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 index hitting record intraday highs.

INFLATION GAINING

Consumer spending could get further support next year if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals to cut taxes and boost spending are approved by Congress.

With consumer spending firming, inflation continued to gain in October. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.2 percent after similar increases in both August and September. In the 12 months through October the PCE price index rose 1.4 percent, the biggest advance since October 2014, after increasing 1.2 percent in September.

Excluding food and energy, the so-called core PCE price index gained 0.1 percent after rising by the same margin in September. That left the year-on-year increase in the core PCE at 1.7 percent in October. The core PCE has increased by that same margin for three straight months.

The core PCE is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure and is running below its 2 percent target.

“The bottoming out in energy prices earlier this year has contributed to stronger overall inflation,” said Gus Faucher, deputy chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh.

“Inflation will continue to pick up over the next couple of years. Stronger wage growth as the labor market continues to tighten will lead firms to raise prices, as will the pass-through of higher energy prices throughout the broader economy.”

The sustained uptick in price pressures, however, curbed the gain in inflation-adjusted consumer spending, which increased 0.1 percent last month after rising 0.5 percent in September. That suggests some moderation in consumer spending this quarter from the third quarter’s solid 2.8 percent pace.

Overall consumer spending in October was supported by a 1.0 percent increase in purchases of long-lasting manufactured goods such as automobiles. Spending on services fell 0.2 percent.

Personal income rose 0.6 percent last month after increasing 0.4 percent in September. Wages and salaries advanced 0.5 percent for a second straight month.

Savings increased to $860.2 billion, the highest level since March of this year, from $814.1 billion in September.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Additional reporting by Dan Burns and David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao)

S&P 500, Dow hit record highs on Black Friday

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Dow opened at record intraday highs on Friday, helped by gains in healthcare and consumer staple stocks at the start of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 47.01 points, or 0.25 percent, at 19,130.19. It hit a record of 19,138.51.

The S&P 500 was up 3.15 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,207.87. It hit a record of 2,208.74.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 3.97 points, or 0.07 percent, at 5,384.64.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)

Illinois fix to unpaid bills may end up as financial time bomb

Illinois Governor Elect Bruce Rauner

By Dave McKinney and Karen Pierog

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Illinois owes a handful of financial consortia more than $118 million under an obscure program intended to speed up overdue payments to the cash-strapped state’s vendors, an analysis of state records shows.

Political feuding between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature has kept Illinois without a full operating budget since July 2015, contributing to a doubling of the unpaid bills backlog. The amount of overdue bills could reach $13.5 billion, or 40 percent of available operating revenue, when the current fiscal year ends June 30, the Rauner administration has projected.

Come fiscal 2022, the backlog is projected to balloon to $47 billion. No other U.S. state defers payments to the extent Illinois does to manage cash flow, credit-rating analysts said.

The one-of-its-kind, bill-payment program seeks to avert the nightmare scenario for a state in the worst financial shape in the country: a shutdown of essential services such as employee health insurance, a disruption of prison food supplies or mothballing of state trooper cars in need of fuel and maintenance.

“I don’t think there is any other alternative for us,” Illinois Central Management Services Director Michael Hoffman told a legislative panel in May.

But it comes at a heavy cost with unlimited late-payment fees now approaching 20 percent in some cases for Illinois’ cash-strapped government, whose general obligation (GO) low-investment grade credit ratings are the lowest among U.S. states.

The state’s negative credit outlook means its $26 billion of outstanding GO bonds could lurch closer to the junk level if the growing unpaid bill pile impairs its ability to provide essential services, affects debt payments and inflates its already huge $130 billion unfunded pension liability.

“No other state or business would operate by incurring obligations to its vendors and setting up a third-party payment structure that dramatically inflates the costs of those services,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based Civic Federation, a non-partisan government watchdog.

Under the Vendor Support Initiative (VSI) program launched last year to replace a similar plan introduced in 2011, state vendors can get paid without delay 90 percent of what they are owed by state-designated financial lenders.

When the state finally pays, the vendors get the final 10 percent, while the lenders keep the late-penalty fees. In Illinois, receivables more than 90 days past due accumulate interest at a rate of 1 percent per month.

BANKS AND INSIDERS

For the lenders, the risk is that the state will not pay up and they will need to fight for compensation in courts, but that has not happened yet.

The firms include financial institutions such as Citibank N.A. <C.N> and Bank of America Corp <BAC.N>, a distressed debt investor tied to a Rauner campaign donor, and political insiders, including Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager and a former two-term Republican Illinois governor.

Lindsay Trittipoe, majority investor of the second-largest consortium, Illinois Financing Partners LLP, told Reuters his group was performing a vital function rather than exploiting the state’s financial miseries.

“Our money is flowing into the market, helping the wheels of commerce to keep working,” he said.

Citi and Bank of America declined to comment for this story and representatives from the largest state-qualified buyer of receivables, Chicago-based Vendor Assistance Program, and some of its investors did not respond to interview requests.

Fees on unpaid bills in the program have been growing by more than $2.6 million per week and could exceed $194 million by June 30, according to a Reuters analysis of state data as of Sept. 28.

By the end of Rauner’s term in January 2019, total interest on unpaid receivables in the program could exceed $351 million if there is no progress in reducing the bill backlog, Reuters calculations show. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2fW1vxj)

That total represents more than what Illinois allocated in operating funds last June to keep seven of its nine public universities open for six months.

NO LIMIT

As of late September, four participating VSI lenders had bought 15,369 unpaid receivables worth $1.12 billion under the program. Late-payment penalties on those billings surpassed $118 million and continue to grow, Reuters has found.

Illinois law places no limit on how long the late fees can accrue and since 2010 the state has spent about $929 million in late-payment penalties, according to state comptroller data.

Three of the four firms now involved also took part in a similar program launched under previous Democratic Governor Pat Quinn. Its current version has sparked questions over how firms were vetted, a lack of up-to-date disclosures about their owners and financing, and patchy accounting of vendor payments.

Additionally, state business registration of one of the firms, Payplant LLC, expired two months before the program’s launch, according to the Illinois secretary of state’s office. A company representative blamed “a procedural lapse” and said it had begun the process in October to reinstate its LLC status.

“The focus should be on transparency,” said Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs, a Democrat. “If we have a program like this, we don’t want to turn it over to loan sharks.”

Using the state data, Reuters calculated the average rate on late payments at 8.14 percent through late September. During that same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average only gained 3.65 percent.

“It seems that (it) creates a real perverse incentive for them to wait as long as they can,” Democratic Representative Elaine Nekritz said about the buyers of vendor invoices.

State spokeswoman Meredith Krantz defended the program, saying it helped vendors “be paid more quickly than the state’s payment cycle would otherwise allow.”

One big non-profit participating state vendor, Chicago-based Safer Foundation, saw no other options.

“Do you want to get nothing or 90 percent now and the other 10 percent later?” said Victor Dickson, the group’s president and CEO. “We chose, ‘Let’s get 90 percent and keep serving our clients.’”

(Editing by David Greising, Daniel Bases and Tomasz Janowski)