Sep

6

Do markets lead recessions or do recessions cause markets to drop? I think Larry had a chart on this. Consumer is going to be spending less on discretionary spending. Retailers have already warned us of this.

- Student loan payments are due starting September
- Savings rates are down
- Employment situation is weakening a bit
- Consumer credit is slowing
- Interest payments rates are up on credit cards, cars, homes, etc.

Jeffrey Hirsch responds:

We had our U.S. recession on 2022 with back to back negative quarters of GDP Q1-Q2 2022. "They" changes the rules during Covid. Generally, markets lead recessions. This last time they ran concurrently.

Larry Williams comments:

No recession in sight with the indicators I keep…

Yelena Sennett asks:

thank you Larry, in sight means a few months or so? or a few quarters?

Larry Williams answers:

A year or so I would say.

Hernan Avella writes:

When was the last time the yield curve inversion (with the specific configuration by Campbell Harvey at Duke) didn't precede a recession in the out of sample period? It's a 8 out of 8 record I believe. While one would be foolish to act solely on this, this might be the best of all the bad recession indicators we have. Especially because it was conceived in 1986, has some rationale and we are experiencing the out of sample, Unlike Larry's drawings that are constantly overfitted to the data.

Larry Williams responds:

Me overfit data? Try my best not to but you Y-curvers refuse to acknowledge times of negative curve and massive stock rallies. Here is just one DJIA in red:

Hernan Avella replies:

But Larry, kindly stop straw-manning. The gist of the yc indicator, is the out of sample track record of preceding 8 out of the last 8 recessions. There's no controversy about this. Nobody serious has related this to stock returns. So you are trying to disprove a point that nobody is making.

Larry Williams writes:

Two points: (1) To say the curve has accurately predicted recessions you have to acknowledge it as often lead by 2 years. Wowsa!! Now there’s a real helpful tool. Gee those negative readings are not so precise. but maybe you are happy with that I am not. especially when there are so many better tools. (2) And if the YC and recessions don’t mean much to stocks, why would I care?

Hernan Avella responds:

Who said “predicted”. You keep making stuff up!. I can’t find the source, but the lag for the indicator is 12 or 18 months after 2 consecutive quarters of inversion of 3m-10y. Ignore it if you want. Just don’t straw-man the thing.

Larry Williams responds:

No straw man here—just look a the data its very poor indication recession is coming. now what did I make up???????

Hernan Avella states:

I don’t get it. 8 out of 8 within 18 months after 2 consecutive quarters of inversion….it could be luck, but let it at least fail once. Go to the source: Harvey’s 86’ dissertation.

Larry Williams says:

Curve went negative last April. you are the end of the time zone…better get ready for the sky to fall!

Michael Brush writes:

Yardeni charts yield curve inversion against stock returns. It has a good record but not quite as good as forecasting recessions. Agree no recession in sight.

Gary Phillips writes:

Not every yield curve inversion has been followed by a recession; however, every recession has been preceded by a yield curve inversion.

Larry Williams replies:

Agree but with a massive lead time. I want/need more precise timing and then—its not always market relevant.

Gary Phillips responds:

The clock doesn’t start ticking from the inception of the inversion, rather than when the curve begins to re-steepen.

Larry Williams offers:

Sure just like this:

Yelena Sennett writes:

Thank you for sharing your graphs and your concise points. “And if the YC and recessions don’t mean much to stocks why would I care?” Indeed, YC and recessions don’t seem to be very helpful or timely tools.

Peter Ringel comments:

highly subjective: the last break since July did not felt overly bearish. Low volume , a little deeper than I would like yes, but no gusto. Maybe a big range is developing, but more likely the drift kicks in and carries us higher. The AI - story is alive.

H. Humbert adds:

I agree with Larry that this time the YC inversion will not have forecasted a recession. It usually sparks a credit crisis which then causes recession, the normal procession of events. This time it seems to have only sparked the mini bank crisis which seems to have wound down. Of course we do not know if there will be another crisis that gets sparked. But so far, no, and to Larry’s point it has been quite some time now.


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1 Comment so far

  1. lon evans on September 6, 2023 4:54 pm

    In regards to Mr. Williams ‘YC / 1990’s Dow chart’, is is it possible that the YC isn’t so much a predictor, or, if so, at best a secondary one?

    What of the potential that the inverted yield curve is a merely a response to an overheated market, one in a bubble scenario? And that it is the market itself that best indicates or predicts an incipient recession? What if it is the overheated animal spirits of Pavlovian droolers maniacally ‘buying the dip’ (generally oblivious all indicators foretelling a severe comeuppance) that inevitably leads us into recession? If so, the yield curve is a backward looking indicator of what one can clearly be seen just by firing up the platform and toggling a weekly view of whatever vehicle is ones particular poison.

    The recession that became known as the ‘Great’ one, began in 2006, though it didn’t begin to bite until 2008, and late into that year.

    This is how I call recessions, and I was generally way to early to immediately profit from the analysis, though correct in the evaluation. I did well in 2008, but only after suffering immensely through 2006/2007. In the suffering I was offered a priceless education. This time around I held my fire, only shorting the markets (indices) once the inanity became too thunderous to endure. When a plumber I use for my properties took me aside one day and confided that he was killing it in NQ futures, and that he’d let me in with just a $25,000 investment I knew it was time to pull the trigger.

    So here’s my take, the inverted YC is like the report of the rifle that you take note of as you lie horizontal, bullet to the heart, the weight of the threat already absorbed by the time the thunder announcing it can be dimly registered.

    This said, I’m currently and significantly short in expectation of an ugly recession, which I believe has begun and will become evident in the next two quarters. The little bounce we just exited is little more than the ‘thunderous inanity’ I mentioned earlier, with its rallying cry of “AI, AI, AI” being today’s deluded FOMO equivalent of the oft mocked Y2K’s “Dot Com” of yore.

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