17 Scary Numbers From the Third Quarter

The third quarter of 2012 might have been less scary than in years past, but there was still plenty of bad news in the marketplace. Every quarter, I take a look at some numbers that jumped out at me. Here are some notable ones for the most recent three-month period. 

47.6: August reading of the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI, the lowest level in 41 months. The decline in China's important manufacturing sector raises big questions about the country's ability to gracefully shift down to a more sustainable growth path.

2.7%:  FedEx's (FDX) global gross domestic product growth estimate for 2013, down from 3% in the previous quarter. FedEx's management sees headwinds in North America, Europe, and China dragging down industrial production and international trade.

5.9%: Yield on Spanish 10-year bonds. Despite a dip after the European Central Bank's pledge to do whatever it takes to save the euro, Spanish bond yields are once again near an unsustainable level as the market continues to be skeptical that Europe's plan to save itself will go off without a hitch.

0: Euros worth of bonds purchased under the ECB's new Outright Monetary Transaction plan that is meant to support bond yields of indebted countries. The ECB can't act to bring down Spain's borrowing costs until the Spanish government formally agrees to a bailout from the European Commission, something Spain has been pushing off as long as possible.

-0.5%: Congressional Budget Office estimate of 2013 GDP growth if nothing is done to blunt the fiscal cliff. That is allowing for the expiration of a slew of tax cuts and implementing a series of mandatory spending cuts. 

9.1%: Unemployment rate at the end of 2013 if the fiscal cliff isn't tackled according to the CBO.

63.5%: Labor force participation rate in August, down from 64.1% in August 2011 and a rate of more than 66% before the financial crisis. Some of the decline is explained by an aging population, but the sudden decline in the work force seems to point to some structural problems in the job market.

15,000: Net jobs lost in the manufacturing sector in August. Manufacturing had been a big driver of the U.S. recovery, but it appears the sector is beginning to cool down.

9%: Rise in gasoline prices in August from July levels, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pain at the pump isn't going to do wonders for consumer confidence.

$40 Billion: Value of mortgage-backed securities the Federal Reserve will keep buying per month as part of its third round of quantitative easing until the employment situation improves.

5.5%: Unemployment rate that Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president Narayana Kocherlakota wants to see before the Fed begins to stop its easing policies. QE3 could be going on for a long time.

79: Months that the Fed will have held the federal-funds rate at near zero if rates rise in mid-2015, the earliest the central bank says it will act to tighten policy. It's not going to be easy for the Fed to extract itself from its extraordinary measures.

37%: Decline in  Facebook's (FB) stock price during the third quarter. Just a reminder that the most hyped stock isn't always the best one.

55: Out of 56 companies that filed IPO registration since April that used a provision of the new JOBS Act to pare back what they had to disclose to investors before going public.

0.95: Price/fair value of the all stocks covered by Morningstar's equity analysts. After the big runup in stock prices during the last quarter, stocks look to be fully valued. It's getting harder to find cheap stocks. 

$65 Billion: Money investors have pulled out of open-end U.S. equity funds so far in 2012. Despite the stock market's good performance, investors don't feel confident enough to keep money in equities. They continue to run to fixed income.

2%: The low end of  Procter & Gamble's (PG) sales forecast for 2013 as the firm faces headwinds across the globe and management tries to right the ship at this consumer giant. This will be easier said that done. As our analyst Erin Lash puts it,  "P&G overestimated its pricing and brand power of late" and the firm will need to invest smartly to turn things around.