Let’s start with something that certainly made me chuckle before we get to the more dire stuff:
Following on from my earlier post about a potential earnings recession on the horizon, according to Michael Wilson, Head of US equity strategy at Morgan Stanley:
“Earnings revisions have been some of the worst we’ve ever observed in terms of breadth and velocity. Virtually every sector and region of the world is seeing downward revisions, making it difficult to explain them away as a temporary function of trade tensions and / or the government shutdown in the US.”
He continues:
“We have been calling for an earnings recession in the US (in 2019) since last summer, when the consensus was still forecasting close to 11% S&P 500 EPS growth for 2019. Starting in early December this same consensus began to fall sharply, and 1Q19 S&P 500 earnings are now expected to be down more than 1% year on year.”
…
“Therefore I believe that the recent move in stocks is much more about the Fed pivot and less about stocks telling us the trough is now.”