Recession risk: fading, but still real

I’m a bit late to the party on this, but here goes: last week the St. Louis Fed released its U.S. Recession Probabilities chart, which shows the risk of a U.S. recession near zero. I’ve been following the progress of the U.S. economy pretty closely for the past couple years as it has struggled to emerge from the Great Recession and gain a more steady footing, so I’m finding this assessment interesting.

While I believe that the risk of recession is less than it has been in the past few years, I wouldn’t say that it is near zero. Although the recovery does seem to be gaining more traction, that’s happened before. The last couple of Springs, the economy will seem to firm up on a couple of different fronts, whether that’s housing, consumer spending, business investment, industrial production or whatever, only to fallback later in the year because of external or internal issues.

Last year the political uncertainty surrounding the election and the Fiscal Cliff slowed the economy down in the second half, the year before — and the year before that — Europe was the focus of economic fears along with the continuing housing crisis. This year, we’re into Sequestration and the debt ceiling battle is coming up.

Risks from Europe seem to be on the back burner and less fraught than they used to be, but the fact is that nothing fundamental has changed about the European situation except that the European Central Bank is printing a lot of money. Austerity is taking a huge tool, unemployment is sky high and EU leaders are no closer to solving the region’s problems than they were a few years ago.

Anyone of these risks, or a combination of them or other risks that we are unaware of at this time could push the economy into recession. There are a number of positive developments that could continue to keep the economy on a growth track, including the recovering housing market and the brightened employment picture — I’m hopeful because I want a growing economy and it’s benefits just as much as the next person.

Re big picture risk, whether the risks of a recession are low or high, I do believe that we eventually will experience another financial crisis. I actually had an argument on Twitter the other day based on expressing the opinion that another global financial crisis is all but inevitable.

I base that belief on the fact that the fundamental problems in the global economy that lead to the Great Recession haven’t been solved in any meaningful way and that the systems that we have are so complex and interact in so many unforeseen ways that it is a matter of when, not if, another crisis occurs. It could be next month, next year or in five years. I have no idea.

But if you look at economic cycles and the recent history of boom and busts, it is evident that these crises occur periodically and that they are happening more frequently. I would love to be wrong, because the havoc they create causes so much suffering. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Overpriced Financial Markets

With the stock market closing in on new highs, there are legitimate questions about the market being overbought in that it seems to be disconnected with economic fundamentals in the U.S. and overseas. On the heels of that, PIMCO’s Bill Gross is raising new questions about valuations in the credit markets, which he calls “somewhat exuberantly” priced.

First, the stock market: while there is certainly cause for optimism for the growth prospects for the U.S. economy this year versus the past couple of years, optimism is just that. True, housing markets are on the rebound, the job market is inching forward and consumer and business confidence is decent. OTOH, the upcoming sequestration and debt ceiling dramas (the sequester on the table now and the debt ceiling again in August) could potentially trim economic growth and dampen consumer confidence and events in Europe aren’t anything to write home about. Most EU economies are in active recession, even “official” unemployment numbers are alarming and voters are actively rebelling against austerity (see Italian elections).

I honestly don’t see where all this optimism is coming from and what is driving the stock markets to new heights, outside of the fact that the Fed’s low interest rate policies are driving investors into risk assets and overt speculation.

In terms of the bond markets, as interest rates have fallen and stayed at rock bottom lows during the past several years, various sectors have had their time in the sun, most recently, as Gross states, corporate credit and high yield. Before that Treasuries were on fire. He views the bond market at a six on a scale of one to 10 in terms of overvaluation.

The real shadow over the bond markets is the prospect of higher interest rates and inflation. Various pundits have been predicting inflation, followed by higher rates, for years but it hasn’t happened yet. There does seem to be more incipient inflation in the economy this year than in recent years and any inflation spike that is extended could force the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than expected.

All in all, both U.S. stock and bond markets seem to be in frothy territory, where asset prices aren’t supported by fundamentals. Time to be wary…