We're Not Already in a Recession! When it comes,... we expect something like the recessions in 1990-91 or 2001, when the unemployment rate went up about 2.0 to 2.5 percentage points, not like the soaring unemployment of the Great Recession or the 2020 Lockdown.
Respect the Bear... given the recent hastening by the Fed in the pace of rate hikes and policymakers' lack of focus on what they really need to do — a targeted and persistent reduction in M2 growth — we no longer think equities are going to reach a new high (an S&P 500 north of 4800) until one of two things happens.
No Hurricane, Yet. The employment report for May confirmed that the US economy continues to grow. Has a recession already started? Certainly not.
Unprecedented! What we really think is going on is both investors and corporate management are having a hard time understanding the real economic impact of “unprecedented” policies. As a result, normal macroeconomic analysis isn’t as helpful.
A Recession Is Unlikely in 2022...market pessimism has gotten ahead of itself and there is room for economic news to come in better than expected in the immediate year ahead.