Moving on to October…the US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 10/3/2014 was $22.5B following Thursday’s $0.5B deficit and Wednesday’s $27.7B deficit leaving the October 2014 deficit through 3 days at $51B…that’s just $12B shy of clearing out September’s $63B surplus.
Some notes to start off the month. As always…we are adjusting 2013 vs 2014 based on days of the week. So our charts today are comparing 2014 through Friday 10/3 to 2013 through Friday 10/4. This gives 2013 an extra business day for now which it will catch back at the end of the month. So with that in mind…2013 has an extra day of revenues and outlays….what’s most important to focus on is the change over the rest of the month. Right now, revenues are at -4B and outlays are at -3B leaving the deficit at $+1B.
Forecasting this month is a bit tricky. First, we are coming off a pretty good month….was it a one time anomaly or will it continue? Most of the gain came from corporate taxes and taxes not withheld…which is primarily a quarterly event….so we can’t really expect a lot of help in October. The timing of the days is favorable though, so I think beating 5% is a real possibility. The second tricky thing is month end….which falls on a Friday, which means payments due Saturday 11/1 will get pulled forward. It’s not rocket science, but there still seems to be some randomness I’m not great at forecasting yet. So…with last October’s deficit at $87B….I’ll just pick a nice round number at $100B for October 2014. Revenues will be up, but the timing issue will more than wipe this out pushing the October deficit up relative to 2013….and of course the November deficit down. Oh…and looking back to last month….for the record…my initial forecast was a $60B surplus vs the actual of $63B….not too shabby:)
