The August 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey – Notable Aspects

The August 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on August 8, 2019.  The headline is “Economists See Greater Chance of September Rate Cut, WSJ Survey Says.”

I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in the “Economist Q&A” section.

An excerpt:

The overwhelming majority of economists—87.8%—also see risks to the economic outlook as tilted to the downside. That was up from 69.6% last month and the highest level since the start of 2015. Most respondents mentioned trade as the main risk to the economy.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 33.57%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 10% to 65%.  For reference, the average response in July’s survey was 30.10%.

As stated in the article, the survey’s respondents were academic, financial and business economists.  Not every economist answered every question.  The survey was conducted August 2 – August 5, 2019.

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Economic Forecasts

The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2019:  2.21%

full-year 2020:  1.75%

full-year 2021:  1.80%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2019: 3.65%

December 2020: 3.90%

December 2021: 4.04%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2019: 2.01%

December 2020: 2.19%

December 2021: 2.39%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by RevSD, LLC) post of August 9, 2019, titled “The August 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey”

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RevSD, LLC offers the above commentary for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by these outside parties.

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RevSD, LLC is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future weak(ening) economic conditions, and offers businesses and other entities advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to optimally adapt to such challenging, complex conditions.