Financial Insights

As we’ve discussed in our recent market outlook commentary, traditional economic indicators such as shrinking GDP, stubbornly high inflation, and rising interest rates mislead 70% of economists who expected a U.S. recession in 2023. Now that we are three months into 2024, where are these indicators? And what has changed about the outlook? 

At the start of 2023, investors and economists anticipated a challenging year for markets, and according to Bloomberg, 70% of economists polled expected a U.S. recession. Contrary to these predictions, it was an excellent year for the stock market and the economy.

On December 1st, less than 2 weeks prior to the December 13th FOMC meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech that “it would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance, or to speculate on when policy might ease.”