Recession-Hard/Soft Landing

We do not subscribe to the Goldilocks scenario in which price pressures continue to ease while economic growth remains robust. We expect that softening labor demand will eventually hinder consumption as wage and payrolls growth slows, at the same time that…

Industrial metals have outperformed the broad commodity complex this year and raced above the broad commodity complex even more meaningfully since the beginning of April. Our Commodity and Energy strategists have highlighted that the overrepresentation of…

The Q1 2024 earnings season is drawing to a close with 93% of S&P 500 companies having reported results as we go to press. Three-quarters (two-thirds) of companies have topped earnings (sales) expectations in Q1, according to Factset. Next quarter’s…

Export dynamics from small open economies are bellwethers for global trade and recent export data out of Taiwan and South Korea suggested robust global growth momentum in March. In April, Singapore’s electronics exports, which are particularly sensitive to…

Several economic releases out of China disappointed in April. Retail sales decelerated from 3.1% y/y to 2.3% y/y and fixed asset investment growth slowed from 4.5% YTD y/y to 4.2% YTD y/y. Both were expected to accelerate. Although industrial production…

The Conference Board US Leading Economic Index (LEI) declined by a larger-than-expected 0.6% m/m in April from 0.3% m/m. Deteriorating consumer sentiment and manufacturing new orders led the overall decline. Contractions in the year-on-year changes in this…

An adverse shock is not a recession prerequisite. The empirical record shows that the US economy regularly evolves its way into a contraction with little fanfare. If current cooling trends continue, we project a recession will begin in late 2024/early 2025. …

US industrial production stalled in April against expectations of a moderate pace of growth (0.1% m/m) and March’s growth rate was revised lower from 0.4% m/m to 0.1% m/m. Notably, pro-cyclical manufacturing production unexpectedly contracted 0.3% m/m from a…

According to BCA Research’s Commodity & Energy Strategy service, among the commodity groups, industrial metals provide the most reliable leading signal that the US economy is heading toward recession. Industrial metals’ greater exposure to the very…