Wall Street experts have been warning for the higher a part of a yr that the U.S. will enter a recession in 2023. What happens to the stock market if that does — or doesn’t — occur?
Various surveys show economists see a minimum of a 60% likelihood of a recession in the subsequent 12 months. One historically reliable predictor of past recessions — The Conference Board Leading Economic Index — is pointing to a recession that will have already begun. Dire forecasts for the economy, together with decades-high inflation, help explain why the U.S. stock market is coming off its worst yr since 2008.
But not everyone seems to be on the identical page. Goldman Sachs economists, who peg the probability of a downturn at just 35%, imagine a recession might be avoided altogether.
Here’s what investors should find out about what a recession, or no recession, would mean for the stock market.
What economic uncertainty means for the stock market
After a yr when the S&P 500, a benchmark for U.S. stocks, plummeted nearly 20%, many investors are longing for relief. But market watchers caution it could be too early to expect stock prices to surge higher until investors have a greater sense of each the timing and severity of a possible recession.
That’s because stock prices and the economy rarely move in the identical direction at the identical time. As an alternative, market participants attempt to predict the pace of economic growth some six to 12 months prematurely, explains Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi. Meaning a low in the course of the market’s recession-era selloff could significantly predate the tip of the economic downturn, she adds.
Wall Street still broadly expects a recession this yr and it’s going to likely be months before it’s obvious if a downturn is a foregone conclusion or avoidable — which implies the fate of stocks will hang within the balance within the meantime, Young says.
“That sort of uncertainty goes to function a brick in the marketplace’s head,” she adds.
Is a recession priced into stock prices?
Provided that forward-looking view of the market, there’s been some debate on Wall Street about whether stocks already reached a recession-fueled bottom. At its worst, the S&P 500 was down greater than 25% in October 2022 from an all-time high earlier within the yr.
The 2022 selloff within the S&P 500 reflected some, though not all, of the danger of a recession, in response to Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank. If a recession is eventually deemed to be imminent and inevitable, he adds, investors might have to further lower their expectations for corporate profits — and, in turn, stock prices.
Historically, the S&P 500 has fallen about 30% during a median bear market — generally defined as a period when a stock or stock index falls a minimum of 20% from its most-recent high, says Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial. And most bear markets overlap with recessions, he adds.
While the market’s decline in 2022 didn’t reach that 30% threshold, the extent of the declines suggests that, barring a more severe economic downturn than most of Wall Street is currently expecting, investors can have already endured the worst of a recession-related market selloff, Buchbinder notes.
“We’ve priced in a good amount of bad news,” he says.
What if the economy sidesteps a recession?
But there may be the potential the economy could avoid a recession altogether this yr. Buchbinder estimates a roughly 20% probability that no recession materializes if a number of the aspects “line up,” including that the economy strengthens, inflation falls and the Federal Reserve pauses its aggressive rate of interest hikes. And a non-recession might be accompanied by a rally within the S&P 500 within the range of 15% to twenty% this yr, Buchbinder adds.
Similarly, Haworth says one challenge in predicting a recession is that much of the danger is driven by the Fed’s policy response to curb inflation somewhat than what’s happening within the labor market and other parts of the economy.
What’s tricky about this stage of the economic cycle is investors are still trying to find reasons to either confirm or deny a recession is looming, Young notes. And until there are clear signs a recession has been averted, she believes the market will likely be constrained.
“There’s a limit to how high it could go,” she adds.
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