Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey November 2015 – Notable Aspects

The November Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on November 12, 2015.  The headline is “Economists Overwhelmingly Expect Fed To Raise Interest Rates in December.”

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 Fed has held its benchmark federal-funds rate near zero since December 2008 to bolster the U.S. economy through a financial crisis, deep recession and slow recovery. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other top officials have long said they expected to begin raising rates sometime in 2015 and just a few months ago, a September rate increase seemed likely. But doubts mounted amid a rise in the dollar’s value and turbulence in financial markets and the Fed decided in mid-September to delay raising rates, though several officials described it as a close call.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 13.56%; the average response in October’s survey was 15.34%.

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The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2015:  2.2%

full-year 2016:  2.6%

full-year 2017:  2.5%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2015: 5.0%

December 2016: 4.7%

December 2017: 4.6%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2015: 2.38%

December 2016: 2.91%

December 2017: 3.50%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by StratX, LLC) post of November 12, 2015, titled “The November 2015 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey”

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StratX, 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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StratX, LLC (stratxllc.com) 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.