About RecessionALERT

Dwaine has a Bachelor of Science (BSc Hons) university degree majoring in computer science, math & statistics and is a full-time trader and investor. His passion for numbers and keen research & analytic ability has helped grow RecessionALERT into a company used by hundreds of hedge funds, brokerage firms and financial advisers around the world.
Author Archive | RecessionALERT

Global Growth Roundup – 4Q2018

NOTE : The following charts are extracts from our monthly Global Economy Report available with a standard subscription. Global Economic Activity slowing at the fastest pace since 2011 The cumulative GDP growth for the 4 quarters of 2018 for all 41 major countries covered by the OECD display a stark contrast between the best and worst performers: The G20 and U.S are comfortably above the OECD average, whilst the EU is uncomfortably below average, no doubt due to low growth […]

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U.S Stock Market Valuations continue to warn

We have updated the RecessionALERT Valuation Index (RAVI) forecast models for the SP500 using 4Q2018 data. Stock market valuations continue to pose a “clear and present danger” to positive economic and SP500 returns outcomes, and have worsened since our last warning . One and two year SP500 forecasts continue to offer relatively accurate short-run estimates despite their low overall long-term correlations and both are foretelling mediocre returns (click image for larger view): To this end, as is tradition, we offer […]

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Yield curve inversion forecast update – Feb ’19

Based on the methodology discussed here we hereby update our U.S Yield-curve inversion forecast and subsequent recession and stock market peak forecasts. All the forecast dates have moved foward by 1 month as the yield curve continues to print below its regression mean: As a matter of interest, 60% of all 10 possible term-spreads have now inverted, as shown below with our average yield curve composite of all 10 term-spreads: We have inversions on all the typical early inverters: 5’s […]

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World in depths of business cycle slowdown

On 8th June 2018 we penned a warning that the worlds’ major 41 economies, as tracked by the OECD, were headed for a synchronized business cycle slowdown. You can read the article here : World headed for cyclical slowdown. Indeed, as you can see below, for quite a few months shortly afterward, we bottomed out with less than 11% of the 41 countries tracked having rising OECD LEIs: The percentage of 41 counties with a rising LEI seems to have […]

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WLEI updated and some news

The U.S Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) as at 01 Feb 2019 has been updated to our front page together with historical vintages file. Here is a snapshot of the last few vintages: We seem to be revising down each week but the overall shape of the WLEI still hints at an index attempting to put in a bottom and recover. The percentage of underlying weekly components and the percentage of time the WLEI has historically been above current levels […]

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Yield curve inversion forecast update – Dec ’18

Based on the methodology discussed here we hereby update our U.S Yield-curve inversion forecast and subsequent recession and stock market peak forecasts. All the forecast dates have moved foward by 1 month:

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Yield Curve Inversion Forecast Update Nov 2018

Based on the methodology discussed here we hereby update our U.S Yield-curve inversion forecast and subsequent recession and stock market peak forecasts. All the forecast dates have moved further back by 5 months:

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Stocks valuations pose “clear & present” danger.

Those clients who have been with us since 2010 will know our refrain from issuing unnecessary and/or sensationalist warnings about the economy and markets. In fact, in 2012, the general consensus was that the US economy was about to fall back into recession, a view we opposed to quite some ridicule from certain quarters. Whilst we see no immediate danger signals from the econometric models (apart from the narrowing yield curves in the bond market) we do see danger posed […]

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2nd derivative of WLEI posts warning

The RecessionALERT Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) is essentially a first derivative indicator (rate of change). We can create the second derivative by measuring the percentage of time the WLEI has historically spent above the current reading. The history shows us that this is a good leading indicator for another WLEI metric, namely the percentage of WLEI components in recession territory (we call this the “WLEI Diffusion”): The 2nd derivative is diverging from the  WLEI Diffusion, and as we mentioned, […]

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SP500 was ahead of itself but tailwinds could be back

During the 6 months running from March to September 2018, the SP500 was running counter to the seasonal average returns profile of the 4-year U.S Presidential Cycle: It appears the seasonality averages eventually got their way and the SP500 fell hard in October 2018, in what was supposed to be a strong month. In all likelyhood the tailwinds of one of the strongest periods in the Presidential Cycle will come to bear and we should expect good returns for the […]

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Yield curve inversion & recession forecast

There is naturally a lot of focus on the U.S yield-curve at the moment, as it moves relentlessly toward inversion (when short-term rates are higher than long-term rates.) Can the history of the yield-curve inversion provide for useful forecasting as to the start dates of the next U.S recession? The 10’s vs. 1’s yield-curve and U.S recessions in the post-war era are displayed below, where it is clear that the nine recessions since 1956 were predicted by yield-curve inversion, with […]

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World headed for cyclical slowdown

Despite the U.S leading economic indicators appearing healthy, the global economy appears to be headed for a slow down, with only 34% of the 40 countries we track having leading economic indicators (LEI’s) signalling growth ahead, and the actual GDP-weighted Global LEI growth now below zero: The specific country details are displayed below: The European countries, representing some 25% of world economic output have taken a decidedly worrisome turn : Many of these LEI’s include sentiment data, and its probably […]

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Dealing with a runaway market

Those of you who have been following us since 2010 will identify us a perma-bulls. Even in the depths of the ECRI 2012 /Hussman recession calls we were firmly bullish on the US economy and stock market – quite contrary to the popular consensus at the time. Those subscribers who have been diligently following the RAVI SP500 forecasting model and its consistently accurate bullish forecasts will have noticed this year that all the targets we have set for 3Q2018 have […]

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Negative returns for SP500 in next decade

The RecessionALERT Valuation Index (RAVI) has been updated for 1Q17 and for the first time since 1999, is forecasting negative 10-year total returns for the SP500: The chart on the right shows that the RAVI continues to forecast SP500 decade-ahead total returns with relative accuracy, especially when one considers that the green forecast line has data points that are seen 10 years before the black line depicting actual 10-year returns. Now there have been a lot of valuation models predicting […]

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25 most important US economic indicators animated in 1 minute

Here’s something fun we played with after just compiling our June Long leading US Index report for our subscribers

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Horrific revisions to HWOL data

The Conference Board Help-Wanted-Online (HWOL) program is closely followed by us to get a feel for the labor market. It is one of over two dozen labor indicators we examine. The monthly HWOL data have been produced by the Conference Board since May 2005, replacing the Help Wanted Advertising Index of print ads, which was published from 1951 to 2008. HWOL data contain the universe count of all ads posted online during a month, with a mid-month survey reference period […]

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Revisiting an old favourite

One can examine so many charts during the course of a bull market and only realize upon hindsight how effective some of them can sometimes be. This often happens with the breadth metric derived from the percentage of SP500 shares trading higher than their 50-day moving average. You can find this chart updated daily from the CHARTS>BREADTH>MA50% tab: Clicking the blue round “i” (info) button on the top right of the chart reveals discussion on various uses of this indicator, […]

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Mixed Signals from Labor Market

We keep getting good news about employment and the labor market. But we rarely see the less optimistic numbers. THE GOOD Yellen’s Labor Dashboard (see here) is looking strong with all but 3 of the 9 components above pre-recession levels: The Employment Trend Index briefly wavered but now seems to be picking up steam again Weekly unemployment claims are recovering from a recent near-miss recession call: MIXED SIGNALS The popular unemployment numbers, by many different measures, seem to be bottoming-out […]

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U.S Economy remains vulnerable

It is interesting to see the recent re-appearance of articles relating to flashing warning signals of recession (see here and here and here) It is true that some genuinely troubling signals are starting to make themselves known. Let’s look at some of them. Heavy Duty Truck sales, a reliable long-leading indicator for US recession, has recently tanked: Growth in Total Freight Shipments and Revenues has been negative since early 2015:: The Inventory-to-Sales ratio was one of the first trouble spots […]

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Unemployment more widespread than thought

The Total Non-farm Payrolls data made another solid print for the month of July 2016, leading to the assumption that all is good with employment in the U.S: Similarly, if we examine the countrywide Civilian Unemployment Rate, we also get reassuring signs: However, if we dig deeper and examine the per-state unemployment rates for 52 U.S states from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a very different picture emerges: The average state unemployment rate seems to be putting in a bottom, […]

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  All charts are now zoomable by clicking on them. Once you click on them they will resize to the maximum size to fit onto your screen. The chart image qualities are refined to allow for minimal image quality degradation from resizing.