Recession Watch

Let's face it. The primary reason the markets have been so crazy for months now is because of a deep-seated fear of impending recession on the part of investors.  Whether this fear is justified or not, Consuelo Mack goes into more detail on the issue in this week's episode of WealthTrack.  

March 16, 2023 Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber, “Financial Strains Always Unfold With Higher Rates.” That was the title of a report sent to clients on Friday, March 10th by this week’s guest, before the broader implications of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse were becoming apparent. Since then the repercussions, both financial and psychological, are being felt throughout the banking system here and abroad. They are still evolving.  In this week’s program noted economist Nancy Lazar identifies several canary in the coal mine examples of financial strain.  The question I posed to her is why is the U.S. economy holding up as well as it is?  Why aren’t we in a recession, or at least slowing down noticeably?  The U.S. economy is stronger than just about anybody anticipated at this point, including the Federal Reserve. In his recent testimony to Congress, Fed Chair Jerome Powell cautioned: “...the latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated.”  As the late renowned academic economist Rudi Dornbusch famously said: “No postwar recovery has died in bed of old age - the Federal Reserve has murdered every one of them.” The Jerome Powell Fed is certainly doing its darndest to slow, if not end this recovery which has been surprisingly resilient, despite one of the fastest, most aggressive bouts of rate hikes in the Fed’s history. It’s even being called the “Godot” recession. highly anticipated, but nowhere to be seen.  Our guest is leading Wall Street economist Nancy Lazar, who is Chief Global Economist at Piper Sandler where she leads the Economic Research team. Before joining Piper Sandler Lazar was Chief Global Economist and Head of Economic Research at the highly respected independent macro research firm, Cornerstone Macro which she co-founded in 2013.  Prior to Cornerstone, she was Co-founder and Vice Chairman of ISI Group, another top-rated independent macro research firm where she hung her hat for more than 20 years.  Lazar has been an Institutional Investor ranked economist since 2001, placing in the top two the past 10 years and ranking #1 in 2015. She has also been on Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance in 2020, 2021 and 2022. And we are delighted to say that she has been a WEALTHTRACK guest for years.  In our exclusive EXTRA feature, we’ll learn what this high-powered, influential economist does to stay at the top of her game.   If you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend, along with our past programs and our guests’ One Investment recommendations. You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify. Have a lovely weekend as we welcome spring, and make the week ahead a healthy, profitable and productive one. Best regards, Consuelo Facebook Twitter WEALTHTRACK Site YouTube Channel As always, if you miss this week’s program, it will be available on our website. Also, I want to thank all of you who are following me on Twitter For those of you active on Facebook: You can connect with us on our Consuelo Mack  WEALTHTRACK  page.