The April 2020 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey

The April 2020 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on April 8, 2020.  The headline is “WSJ Survey: Coronavirus to Cause Deep U.S. Contraction, 13% Unemployment.”

I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in the “Economist Q&A” section.

Two excerpts:

The coronavirus pandemic will cause a severe economic contraction, 14.4 million job losses and a spike in the unemployment rate this spring, with an economic recovery starting the second half of the year, economists forecast in a Wall Street Journal survey.

Business and academic economists in this month’s survey expect, on average, that the unemployment rate will hit 13% in June this year, and still be at 10% in December. The jobless rate was 4.4% in March.

also:

Economists predict gross domestic product will contract at an annual rate of 25% in the second quarter. That is a sharp downgrade from the March survey of economists, when they expected GDP to shrink just 0.1% from April to June.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 96.24%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 15% to 100%.  For reference, the average response in March’s survey was 48.8%.

As stated in the article, the survey’s 57 respondents were academic, financial and business economists.  Not every economist answered every question.  The survey was conducted April 3 – April 7, 2020.

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Economic Forecasts

The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2020:  -4.90%

full-year 2021:  5.08%

full-year 2022:  2.59%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2020: 9.66%

December 2021: 6.54%

December 2022: 4.88%

December 2023: 4.63%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2020: .95%

December 2021: 1.41%

December 2022: 1.83%

CPI:

December 2020:  .62%

December 2021:  2.02%

December 2022:  2.34%

Crude Oil  ($ per bbl):

for 12/31/2020: $34.94

for 12/31/2021: $45.19

for 12/31/2022: $51.74

(note: I highlight this WSJ Economic Forecast survey each month; commentary on past surveys can be found under the “Economic Forecasts” label)

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I post various economic forecasts because I believe they should be carefully monitored.  However, as those familiar with this site are aware, I do not necessarily agree with many of the consensus estimates and much of the commentary in these forecast surveys.

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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation

SPX at 2743.10 as this post is written