Recession

Leading To A Recession?

Sep 22, 2022 1 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

Housing Already Hard Hit By Fed Tightening

Sep 20, 2022 1 min read

Fed officials have been saying that they are aiming to raise the federal funds rate from an accommodative level to a restrictive one to bring inflation down. In their latest Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) released by the FOMC on June 15, they indicated that they believe that the neutral federal funds rate is 2.50%, which is the upper end of the current target range. Odds are that it

Ed Yardeni

Major Housing Crash?

Sep 19, 2022 1 min read paid

Billionaire real estate investor Barry Sternlicht said he believes the economy is "braking hard" and that the continuation of rate hikes is likely to cause a "major crash" in housing. The chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group said so in a CNBC interview on Thursday. “If the Fed keeps this up they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs.

Ed Yardeni

Slow Moving Economy

Sep 15, 2022 1 min read

August's industrial production and inflation-adjusted retail sales reports today show that the US economy is growing, but just barely. The former was down a bit, while the latter was up a bit (charts below). Both are included in the Coincident Economic Indicators. Consumers went on a spending spree after the lockdown recession in early 2020. They spent mostly on goods because many services were still not open for

Ed Yardeni

Powell's Fugetaboutit Speech

Aug 27, 2022 1 min read

Fed Chair Jerome Powell did pivot on Friday morning at Jackson Hole in his 8-minute speech on the outlook for monetary policy. He turned much more hawkish than the financial markets expected. In his short talk, he managed to walk back any hint of dovishness he might have conveyed during his previous public appearance in a press conference on July 27. Back then, his often ambiguous off-the-cuff responses to reporters

Ed Yardeni

Flash US Business Indicators Flashing Orange

Aug 23, 2022 1 min read paid

S&P Global released its August flash indexes based on its surveys of US manufacturing and non-manufacturing purchasing managers. They are flashing an ongoing slowdown, especially for the NM-PMI. Our quick take is that the data are confirming our "growth recession" assessment of the US economy in 2022.

Ed Yardeni

Bear-Market Rally Or New Bull?

Aug 13, 2022 1 min read paid

We won't keep you in suspense: We think the bear market in the S&P 500 bottomed on June 16. If so, then we're in a new bull market. Consider the following based on our Blue Angels framework (chart below): (1) Corrections occur in bull markets when investors fear a recession that doesn't happen. The forward P/E drops, while forward earnings continues

Ed Yardeni

Plenty of Sunshine In Q3's GDPNow & July's CPI

Aug 10, 2022 1 min read paid

There's lots of sunshine in the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking model. Today's estimate shows that real GDP is rising at a 2.5% pace (saar) during Q3 (table). Consumer spending is tracking at 2.7%. It is looking like an up quarter for capital spending, government outlays, and exports so far. The downers, so far, are residential investment, imports, and the change in private

Ed Yardeni

No Recession In Truck Tonnage & Employment

Aug 1, 2022 1 min read

The trucking industry didn't get the recession memo yet. The ATA's For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.7% in June after rising 0.3% in May. In June, the index equaled 120.1, rebounding almost back to its pre-pandemic record high. Trucking is a good coincident indicator of the economy, representing 72.5% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and

Ed Yardeni

It's A Banana!

Jul 28, 2022 1 min read

Real GDP fell 0.9% (saar) during Q2, following a 1.6% decline during Q1. That's a "growth recession" in our opinion. It is widely believed that two consecutive quarters of declining real GDP is an outright recession. However, it won't be an official recession until the Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. They might not do so since