Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey August 2016 – Notable Aspects

The August 2016 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on August 11, 2016.  The headline is “Economists See Election-Induced Uncertainty Harming U.S. Economy.”  As indicated in the article, 62 economists were surveyed, although not every economist answered every question.

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 respondents trimmed their forecasts for economic growth over the course of 2016. The panel now expects growth of 1.8% over the course of 2016, down from an estimate of 2% last month and 2.5% at the beginning of the year. Their forecasts for the unemployment rate were little changed.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 20.95%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 1% to 50%.  For reference, the average response in July’s survey was 21.91%.

The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2016:  1.8%

full-year 2017:  2.2%

full-year 2018:  2.1%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2016: 4.7%

December 2017: 4.6%

December 2018: 4.7%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2016: 1.80%

December 2017: 2.34%

December 2018: 2.79%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by RevSD, LLC) post of August 11, 2016, titled “The August 2016 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.