July WEO update:
In China, further lockdowns and the deepening real estate crisis have led growth to be revised down by 1.1 percentage points, with major global spillovers.
IMF Downgrades Growth Outlook
Risks heavily weighted to downside, in newest WEO, released today:
Alternative Measures of Output
Treasury’s discussion today of current outlook mentions GDPPlus, which I had not recalled. Here is GDPPlus in addition to GDP, GDI, and GDO.
Does a Downturn in Household Survey Employment Better Presage a Recession than One in the Establishment Survey?
I sometimes see this assertion. It clearly has relevance given the pattern we have as of June 2022 data. The red arrows indicate local maxima.
Nowcast Errors – Atlanta vs. St. Louis
Reader Steven Kopits seems to think the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is the only nowcast of relevance. There are actually quite a few, from the tracking GDPs from consulting firms (e.g., IHS Markit formerly Macroeconomic Advisers) to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, etc. However, for illustrative purposes, here is an easy to do comparison (since the data are at FRED) for nowcasts just before the advance release.
Will Commodity Prices Continue to Sustain Inflation?
Commodity price indexes through June have turned down, excepting energy. Front month futures prices suggests a further abatement of upward commodity price pressure, including in energy.
World Trade, through Trump’s Trade War, Covid/Recession, Russian Aggression
From the Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), world trade volume through April 2022:
GDP Nowcasts
GDPNow at -1.6%, St. Louis Fed News index at +4%, IHS-Markit at -2.0%, and Goldman Sachs at 0.5%. Bloomberg consensus at +0.4% (all q/q SAAR).
If You Think the Russian Government Is Doing Just Fine Because of Oil/Gas Revenues…
Here’s some data, from BOFIT, “Russian federal budget revenues continue to deteriorate,” published today:”
If We End Up Talking about the Global Recession of 2023, What/Who Will We Blame?
As forecasts are marked down (IMF releases new forecasts on Tuesday), here in two pictures is my answer: