Recalibrating Our Forecasts As Stock Market Roars

Among our main concerns about Trump's Tariff Turmoil was that the drop in stock prices would have a significant negative wealth effect on consumers, especially retired and soon-to-be retiring Baby Boomers, who collectively own about $25 trillion in corporate equities and mutual funds (chart). We raised our subjective probability of a recession this year from 20% to 35% on March 5, and from 35% to 45% on March 31 as stock prices tanked in response to TTT.

We didn't cross over to the dark side subsequently, i.e., forecasting greater than a 50% chance of a recession. Instead, we lowered our recession odds back down to 35% on May 4. Now we are lowering it again to 25%. After today's stock market rally, the negative wealth effect is probably insignificant. We are also raising our S&P 500 year-end target back up to 6500 from 6000. (BTW: According to Polymarket.com, the odds of a recession dropped from 51% on Friday to 41% today.)