While many traders are feeling their most bearish since 2016, Nobel Laureate economist Robert Shiller said he believes there’s less than a 50% chance of recession hitting the U.S. by next year, which is still a very high chance of it occurring.
“Whether it’s coming next year, I can’t be sure.”
Shiller, a Yale economics professor, told Financial News in a recent interview that a recession is coming “eventually,” but he can’t say for certain that it will hit in 2020.
“Whether it’s coming next year, I can’t be sure,” he told Financial Times.
With the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, the global economy and U.S. economy to a lesser degree have slowed. The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate in July for the first time in over a decade, down to the 2% to 2.25% range in what Fed Chair Jerome Powell called a “mid-cycle adjustment” at the time, rather than a significant shift in Fed policy.
The Federal Open Market Committee will meet again Sept. 17-18, when it is expected to cut rates again by at least 25 basis points (0.25%). U.S. job numbers posted Friday for the month of August were a bit disappointing, and the manufacturing sector has contracted for the first time in years in other signs the economy is slowing down.
Non-farm payrolls increased by 130,000 jobs, lower than the 160,000 that were expected, according to data provider FactSet.
Shiller is known for his market forecasts, and the economics professor won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2013. He has previously predicted the dot-com bubble collapse in 2000, as well as the housing crisis in 2007.
Shiller said he “wouldn’t be at all surprised” if next year was the first in another recession cycle. However, when comparing current conditions to what we saw in 2000, Shiller said he doesn’t have a sense that a crisis is imminent.
“I’m not a gambler by instinct,” he said, “but I felt more sure then that something was wrong.”
