Torsten Slok’s VTRR (voluntary trade reset recession):
sauce: Slok/Apollo.
Torsten adds a 90% chance to a recession. This is a conditional forecast (customer duties will continue). When the store shelves are empty, that’s when the collapse begins in this scenario.
The betting market is putting 49% in 2025H1 due to the start of a recession a little earlier than the slow speculation.
I thought it would be useful to show the scope of the survey responses on the GDP growth issue and how they matched with the two predictions and some Nowcasts.
Figure 1: GDP (Bold Black), GDPNOW has been adjusted to import gold, including 4/24 (Light Blue Square), GS, 4/24 (Red Triangle), Wells Fargo, 4/25 (Pink +), NY FED, 4/25 (Purple Square), St. Louis FED, 4/25 (Red Circle), IMF April Weo Focus (Invertert Blue Triang) (Teal), WSJ April Survey Average (TAN Line), 20% Trimming Low/High Line (Grey Line), All Bn.Ch.2017 $SAAR. Sources: Bea, Atlanta Fed, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, NY Fed, St. Louis Fed, IMF (April Weo), Piie, WSJ April Survey, and author calculations.
The WSJ prediction at the bottom is Carlton Strong/JP Morgan.
All these predictions are pre-precedential orders that require all truckers to pass the English literacy test. I think this will accelerate the initiation of shortages.
