According to some of the world’s biggest bond managers from Fidelity International to Allianz Global Investors, the United States is heading for a “nasty” recession. They’re sticking to their forecasts for a downturn that is “inevitable” and advise hedging any bets on risk assets.
“Something akin to a credit crunch is what I’m most concerned about,” said Steve Ellis, global fixed-income chief investment officer at Fidelity International, which manages $663 billion of assets. Central banks’ continued tightening shows they’re “fighting last year’s battle,” he said according to a report by Fortune.
The damage from 10 straight interest rate increases has been done and the collapse of three U.S. lenders in March was just a taste of the bigger crisis to come as central banks stay hawkish until something else breaks. Just last week, Canada and Australia delivered surprise hikes, putting some pressure on the Federal Reserve to follow at an upcoming meeting as inflation remains persistently high.
Mike Riddell, a portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors, said that stocks, bonds, and corporate debt are mispricing the risks. He added that only inflation-rate swaps have the economic outlook right. The so-called one-year forward inflation rate is currently at 2.4%, or close to 2% when risk compensation for investors is factored out. That implies a “nasty recession” within the next six months, he said. “Our base case is for a moderate-to-deep recession — and potentially crises — as the unprecedented pace of global policy tightening seen over the last year starts to really bite,” Riddell said. He recommends being bullishly positioned in rates and bearishly positioned in risk assets like credit.
The “inevitable” recession is taking far longer to show up than many thought at the start of the year. It’s possible the economy may keep defying expectations too, as situations such as nonfarm payrolls surpassed all estimates and surged in May, surprisingly.
Another issue is that Americans are quickly becoming overleveraged. Credit-card balances, which hit $986 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, remained largely unchanged in the first quarter for the first time in more than twenty years. Normally they post a dip as people pay off their debts from the holiday season, according to Forbes.
“Consumers are stretched, so I’m not 100% sure that a soft landing is really realistic at this point,” said Patrick McDonough, a portfolio manager at PGIM. “The downside is becoming more and more likely, just because we’ve been propped up by consumers for so long.”
Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
