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

The January 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on January 10, 2019.  The headline is “Economists See U.S. Recession Risks Rising.”

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.

Two excerpts:

On average, economists surveyed in the past week as part of The Wall Street Journal’s monthly poll said there was a 25% chance of a recession in the next year, the highest level since October 2011. The probability was just 13% a year ago.

also:

Forecasters are even more concerned about the outlook for 2020. More than half of the economists, 56.6%, said they expected a recession to start in 2020, a presidential election year, while another 26.4% of those surveyed expect a recession in 2021.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 24.80%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 0% to 60%.  For reference, the average response in December’s survey was 22.02%.

As stated in the article, the survey’s respondents were 73 academic, financial and business economists.  Not every economist answered every question.  The survey was conducted January 4 – January 8, 2019.

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The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2018:  3.1%

full-year 2019:  2.2%

full-year 2020:  1.7%

full-year 2021:  1.8%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2019: 3.6%

December 2020: 3.9%

December 2021: 4.2%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2019: 3.10%

December 2020: 3.12%

December 2021: 3.18%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by RevSD, LLC) post of January 10, 2019, titled “The January 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.