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The U.S. economy is expected to continue its slowdown in 2020, but probably not slip into recession as continued strong consumer spending and a mostly strong jobs market stand to offset continued uncertainty over issues including trade, impeachment and the outcome of the next presidential election.
Despite returning to slower growth, the U.S. economy "should avoid recession in 2020," according to J.P. Morgan's Market Insights Investment Outlook for 2020.
In addition, none of the three economists at Capital Group who spoke at that firm's first economic outlook event for reporters, in New York Dec. 5, predicted a U.S. recession in 2020, either.
But several economists and other industry experts said a suddenly ramped-up trade war between China and the U.S. and Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren potentially winning the next presidential election with ultra-progressive policies could be among the black swans that push the U.S. economy into a recession. There's largely agreement, however, among those experts that the trade war won't ramp back up in the next year and that even if Sanders or Warren won the election, he or she would face an uphill battle in Congress to pass their signature proposals.
While many experts do not seem to think a U.S. recession is likely in 2020, Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management, predicted the chance of a recession is as high as "50/50."
However, speaking to reporters during a recent briefing in New York, Miskin conceded of his recession forecast: "I think that is relatively high, versus what the Street probably is forecasting."
Nevertheless, "we do believe that the yield curve still holds merit" and, in general, the "leading economic indicators suggest we're not out of the woods yet, and so we think it could be a coin flip" whether we end up in a recession or not. And that will be "dictated from" what the Federal Reserve does with rate moves, he predicted.
The U.S. economic expansion, now in its 10th year, became the longest ever recorded in 2019. And the consensus seems to be it is only a matter of time before there is a recession, although it probably won't be in 2020.
Meanwhile, although U.S. unemployment has continued to be a positive, there isn't much more that can be expected to improve on that front because we're already nearly at what's generally considered full employment — even if many of those employed have to work more than one job to earn a living wage.
The U.S. economy "likely will remain bifurcated — at least to start the year — with beleaguered manufacturing and business investment, but healthier services and consumer spending," Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said Dec. 16 in her 2020 outlook report.
"Easy monetary policy should carry over to 2020," she said, but warned, "it isn't the elixir to ongoing trade and political uncertainty." On a positive note, however, she said the recently announced "Phase One" trade deal between China and the U.S. "could help stabilize manufacturing/business investment."
Like Sonders, Jared Franz, an economist at Capital Group who focuses on the U.S. and Latin America, told reporters at his company's press event that he sees a tale of two economies in the U.S., where retail sales and industrial production are diverging. We're already seeing a "mini-cycle" in the U.S., where the industrial part of the economy has slowed, but the broader economy, including retail, is fine, he said. While there's some "momentum" in the economy entering 2020, "it's going to be nothing like the big momentum that we had in 2016," he told reporters. One reason why is because he predicted we likely won't be seeing the Fed cut rates like we saw in 2019.
