Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey July 2016 – Notable Aspects

The July 2016 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on July 14, 2016.  The headline is “WSJ Survey:  Half of Economists See No Fed Rate Increase Until December.”  As indicated in the article, 60 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 private forecasters on average saw the fed-funds rate at 0.61% at the end of 2016, suggesting one quarter-percentage-point rate increase this year. They expect another rate increase by June next year and a further one or two by the end of 2017, according to the survey.

Financial markets doubt the Fed will move its benchmark federal-funds rate off the range of 0.25% to 0.50% this year, with fed-funds futures on Thursday morning suggesting a 34% chance of rates rising a quarter percentage point by the Fed’s December meeting, according to CME Group.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 21.91%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 1% to 60%.  For reference, the average response in June’s survey was 20.74%.

–

The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2016:  2.0%

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: 1.78%

December 2017: 2.30%

December 2018: 2.79%

____

Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by RevSD, LLC) post of July 14, 2016, titled “The July 2016 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey”

_____

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

—–

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.