by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2018 12:33:00 PM

A few excerpts from Professor Tim Duy at Fed Watch: No, A Recession Is Not Likely In The Next Twelve Months. Why Do You Ask?

Headlines blared the latest recession warning today, this time from David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff & Associates. The culprit will be the Fed:

“Cycles die, and you know how they die?” Rosenberg told the Inside ETFs Canada conference in Montreal on Thursday. “Because the Fed puts a bullet in its forehead.”

I get this. I buy the story that the Fed is likely to have a large role in causing the next recession. Either via overtightening or failing to loosen quickly enough in response to a negative shock.

And I truly get the frustration of being a business cycle economist in the midst of what will almost certainly be a record-breaking expansion. Imagine a business cycle economist going year after year without a recession to ride. It’s like Tinkerbell without her wings.

But the timeline here is wrong. And timing is everything when it comes to the recession call. Recessions don’t happen out of thin air. Data starts shifting ahead of a recession. Manufacturing activity sags. Housing starts tumble. Jobless claims start rising. You know the drill, and we are seeing any of it yet.

For a recession to start in the next twelve months, the data has to make a hard turn now. Maybe yesterday. And you would have to believe that turn would be happening in the midst of a substantial fiscal stimulus adding a tailwind to the economy through 2019. I just don’t see it happening.
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Bottom Line: The business cycle is not dead. The future holds another recession. But many, many things have to start going wrong in fairly short order to bring about a recession in the next twelve months. It would probably have to be an extraordinary set of events outside of the typical business cycle dynamics. A much better bet is to expect this expansion will be a record breaker.

CR Notes: I agree completely with Duy. I don't see a recession starting any time soon.

According to NBER, the four longest expansions in U.S. history are:

1) From a trough in March 1991 to a peak in March 2001 (120 months).

2) From a trough in June 2009 to today, June 2018 (108 months and counting).

3) From a trough in February 1961 to a peak in December 1969 (106 months).

4) From a trough in November 1982 to a peak in July 1990 (92 months).

So the current expansion is the second longest in U.S. history, and it seems very likely that the current expansion will surpass the '90s expansion in the Summer of 2019.

As I noted last year in Is a Recession Imminent? (one of the five questions I'm frequently asked)

Expansions don't die of old age! There is a very good chance this will become the longest expansion in history.

A key reason the current expansion has been so long is that housing didn't contribute for the first few years of the expansion.  Also the housing recovery was sluggish for a few more years after the bottom in 2011.  This was because of the huge overhang of foreclosed properties coming on the market. Single family housing starts and new home sales both bottomed in 2011 - so this is just the seventh year of expansion - and I expect further increases in starts and sales over the next couple of years.

Recently the story has changed, but I still think the current expansion will end up being the longest in U.S. history.