Getting Harder To Be A Contrarian

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: Since last summer, when conventional wisdom held that a recession was coming, we argued that one was already going on, rolling through the economy in stages instead of walloping it all at once. Now that the consensus view is moving toward no recession coming after all, and relieved investors have driven the stock market higher, our contrarian instincts are on high alert. The no-show recession could still show up, and we are on the lookout. … Today we revisit the main reasons that some respected observers still expect a recession, and we weigh in on each. The upshot: We’re not changing our (recently raised) subjective odds of a soft landing, at 75%, for now.