Recession looks a lot less certain

Talk of a recession has dominated headlines for the better part of a year, but experts are coming around to the idea that a major slowdown isn’t going to materialize after all. Why? Two major reasons, The Wall Street Journal reports: Energy prices went down, not up, despite disruptions to natural gas supplies from the war in Ukraine. Perhaps more surprisingly, the economy has shrugged off rising interest rates, with a stubbornly strong job market and buoyant stock and credit markets helping lead the charge.

 

  • Short-term interest rates remain above 10-year Treasury yields, an inverted yield curve considered a recession signal. You can compute interest rates easily with an interest rate calculator. Still, big firms saw that and pulled back on spending earlier than in years past. “Rather than talk ourselves into recession, maybe we merely talked ourselves out of a boom,” the Journal writes.

 

By Saundra Latham, Editor at LinkedIn News

How often in life and in business are we reminded that things don’t always go as planned, predicted or desired? Every day, every week and all the time.

The mantra of a #recession is coming that began 2023 seems to be another illustration of that axiom. (Proof: typing that sentence I learned #recession2023 is trending 😃)

Will another recession come? Sure, like winter follows fall it’s inevitable but it sure seems to me that nothing broad based is happening. Instead, it looks like we’re in a longer period in which 80% of industries are doing great at any point in time while the other 20% have challenges.

This sort of reminds me of every time we go to the grocery store we find 9 out of 10 things we’re looking for while there’s that 1 thing that is out of stock. It happens every day, every week, all the time but never once do we think “Gosh, they didn’t have X so they must be going out of business next week.” #economicoutlook #banking #forecast #2023outlook #wsj #wallstreet #economy #growth #markets

Where’s the Recession We Were Promised?
BY R DAVID REMLY JR.

 

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US → Despite some major struggles, we expect the economy to expand 1.2% in 2023:
Headline PCE inflation increased from 4.2% to 4.4% and core PCE inflation remains uncomfortably high at 4.7%. Hence, we expect the Fed to deliver at least one more 25 bps rate hike, most likely as soon as next month. Hence, the pressure on economic activity will amplify once again. Manufacturing PMI has slipped into a recessionary territory back in September 2022, currently standing at 46.9 (May). But the full impact of rate hikes takes time to reach all sectors of the economy. Looking at the latest records for services PMI, it is now nearing 50-mark threshold, slowly crawling down from 55.2 in January this year to 50.3 last month.
However, while this rate hike cycle hardly feels as a soft landing, we do not expect the US economy to end in a full-scale recession at the end of it. There is plenty of room for expansion in industrial production: as more projects under the IIJA pass the funding stage, the IP index is expected to strengthen in 2024 and boom in 2025-2026. Nonresidential construction has been expanding slowly but steadily this year while housing starts surprised on the upside, jumping 21.7% m/m in May. While part of the problem, tight labour market signals that the economy continues generating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Hence, we expect to see negative quarterly growth in 2023 H2 but, overall, a 1.2% expansion of the US economy this year.
#unitedstates #monetarypolicy #manufacturing #industrialproduction #construction #growthCRU

chart, line chart, histogram
BY  VERONIKA AKHMEDIEVA

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