US Recession Likely, Soft Landing Odds Max 40%, Fed May Miss Inflation Target

After eighteen years at the helm of JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon still anticipates that the United States is more likely to fall into a recession rather than achieve a soft landing. He also believes that although the Federal Reserve may not be able to truly reach its self-set inflation target of 2%, the Fed will likely cut interest rates soon.

In February of this year, Dimon stated that the market was overly optimistic about the prospects of the United States avoiding a recession, estimating a 70% to 80% chance of a successful soft landing, while he estimated the probability of success to be only half of that expectation. On Wednesday, August 7th, Eastern Time, when asked by the media if he had changed his view from February, Dimon responded that his estimated probability of a soft landing remained the same as at that time.

In other words, Dimon still believes that there is a roughly 35% to 40% chance for the United States to achieve a soft landing. A recession remains the most likely outcome Dimon anticipates.

Dimon also said that he is "a bit skeptical" about whether the Federal Reserve can achieve the Fed's target of reducing the inflation rate to 2%, given that the United States will increase its investment in the green economy and military in the future.

He mentioned that geopolitical factors and quantitative tightening (QT) still bring a lot of uncertainty to the economy. He said:

Advertisement

"There is a lot of uncertainty. I have always pointed out geopolitics, housing, deficits, spending, quantitative tightening (QT), elections; all of these can cause market panic."

Dimon added that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates soon, but "I don't think it's as important as others think."

On the day of Dimon's speech, JPMorgan Chase economists, led by Bruce Kasman, estimated in a report to clients that there is a 35% chance of the U.S. economy falling into a recession by the end of this year, higher than the 25% they estimated at the beginning of last month.

By 2025, or the second half of next year, they expect the likelihood of the economy falling into a recession to remain the same as before, at 45%.

The report stated, "We have moderately increased our assessment of the risk of recession, compared to a larger adjustment in our assessment of the interest rate outlook." JPMorgan Chase economists currently believe that there is only a 30% chance that the Federal Reserve and other central banks will keep interest rates high for a long time, a prediction that was 50% two months ago.Wall Street Journal once mentioned that after the U.S. Department of Labor announced last Friday that the number of new non-farm employment in July was far lower than expected, many Wall Street institutions adjusted their expectations for the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts this year.

Among them, Goldman Sachs said that if employment remains weak in August, there is a possibility of a 50 basis point rate cut in September. Citigroup said that there could be a 50 basis point rate cut in both September and November, and the policy interest rate range will be reduced to 3% to 3.25% by the middle of next year.

JPMorgan Chase also expects a 50 basis point rate cut in both September and November, and believes that before the September meeting, the Federal Reserve has a reason to conduct an emergency rate cut between meetings.

Leave A Commnet

Email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *