Recession warnings have come and gone in recent years without a downturn materializing yet, but for top economist Mohamed El-Erian this time feels different.
The disappointing July jobs report sent recession fears soaring, and markets are now "screaming" two things: growth scare and policy mistake from the Federal Reserve, he told Bloomberg TV on Friday.
That's as the market is fully grasping that the Fed may be late in its easing cycle, El-Erian said, after the central bank kept rates steady at its last meeting on Wednesday.
"This is the first time that I have a growth scare," he said.
The Fed's tightening cycle, which began in 2022, was the most aggressive in 40 years. Rates are now at the highest level since 2001.
As rates shot up, the consensus on Wall Street was that a recession would arrive by 2023. But the U.S. economy continued growing, and the consensus has shifted to a soft landing.
El-Erian, who is chief economic advisor at Allianz, previously thought there was no reason to worry about a recession, but people underestimated the delayed effects of Fed rate hikes, which are hitting the economy harder now.
"I really do worry that we may lose U.S. economic exceptionalism because of a policy mistake," he told Bloomberg TV.
Such American exceptionalism in recent years has been characterized by U.S. outperformance in growth and financial markets. That has contrasted with other top economies like China and the eurozone, which have struggled to revive growth while investors have pulled out their capital and put it in the U.S.
Meanwhile, other economists have said markets are overreacting and don't see a recession on the immediate horizon.
In a note on Friday, Capital Economics said a recession is unlikely and growth will even reaccelerate after a soft patch in the second half of this year.
“So we don’t expect risk sentiment to deteriorate much further,” senior markets economist Diana Iovanel wrote. “The upshot is that we doubt the economy will stand much in the way of the AI-fueled bubble picking up steam again soon.”
