Predicting business cycles is hard, just ask the experts. For over a year now, Wall Street economists, billionaire investors, and even former Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly predicted an impending economic downturn. But so far, the labor market and consumer spending have remained resilient, inflation is slowly fading, and first quarter GDP growth was just revised up to 2%.
Many have been surprised by the economy’s ability to cope with consistent headwinds over the past few years, from rising interest rates and the Ukraine war to high inflation and banking instability, but not Edward Yardeni. Last June, the veteran market watcher and founder of Yardeni Research told Bloomberg that despite Wall Street’s worries, a recession was far from “inevitable” and inflation was set to fall. And in January of this year, he said that the outlook for the global economy was “improving” in a follow up interview.
