Finance

A weak jobs report in America has raised fears that the world’s largest economy is heading for recession. America’s stockmarkets have tumbled, with fear spreading to other countries. Japan’s Topix index is 15% off its recent high; Germany’s main index is down by 7%. When America sneezes, everywhere catches a cold. More

McDonald’s owed its early success to zealous pickiness. Other restaurant chains in the 1960s had similar rules for food preparation and cleanliness. But none enforced them as rigorously, according to “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches”, a history of the company by John Love. More

A weaker-than-expected jobs report on Friday fueled fears of a U.S. recession.
An increase in the national unemployment rate triggered the “Sahm rule” in July, suggesting the U.S. is in a downturn.
While there are causes for concern, data suggest the overall economy remains resilient, economists said.

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on Aug. 02, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Recession fears led to a sharp stock-market selloff in recent days, with the S&P 500 index posting a 3% loss Monday, its worst in almost two years.
Weaker-than-expected job data on Friday fueled concerns that the U.S. economy is on shaky footing, and that the Federal Reserve may have erred in its goal of achieving a so-called “soft landing.”

A soft landing would mean the Fed charted a path with its interest-rate policy that tamed inflation without triggering an economic downturn.
Federal data on Friday showed a sharp jump in the U.S. unemployment rate. Investors worried this signaled a “hard landing” was becoming more likely.
However, the odds of a recession starting within the next year are still relatively low, economists said.
In other words, a soft landing is still in the cards, they said.

“I think far and away the most likely scenario is a soft landing: The economy avoids an economic downturn,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.

Likewise, Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo Economics, said a soft landing remains his “base case” forecast.
But recession worries aren’t totally unfounded due to some signs of economic weakness, he said.
“I think the fears are real,” he said. “I wouldn’t discount them.”
Avoiding recession would also require the Fed to soon start cutting interest rates, Zandi and Bryson said.
If borrowing costs remain high, it increases the danger of a recession, they said.

Why are people freaking out?

The “big shock” on Friday — and a root cause of the ensuing stock-market rout — came from the monthly jobs report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bryson said.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in July, up from 4.1% in June and 3.5% a year earlier, it showed.
A 4.3% national jobless rate is low by historical standards, economists said.

But its steady increase in the past year triggered the so-called “Sahm rule.” If history is a guide, that would suggest the U.S. economy is already in a recession.
The Sahm rule is triggered when the three-month moving average of the U.S. unemployment rate is half a percentage point (or more) above its low over the prior 12 months.
That threshold was breached in July, when the Sahm rule recession indicator hit 0.53 points.

Goldman Sachs raised its recession forecast over the weekend to 25% from 15%. (Downturns occur every six to seven years, on average, putting the annual odds around 15%, economists said.)
Zandi estimates the chances of a recession starting over the next year at about 1 in 3, roughly double the historical norm. Bryson puts the probability at about 30% to 40%.

The Sahm rule may not be accurate this time

However, there’s good reason to think the Sahm rule isn’t an accurate recession indicator in the current economic cycle, Zandi said.
This is due to how the unemployment rate is calculated: The unemployment rate is a share of unemployed people as a percent of the labor force. So, changes in two variables — the number of unemployed and the size of the labor force — can move it up or down.
More from Personal Finance:’Don’t panic’ amid stock market volatilityThis labor data trend is a ‘warning sign,’ economist saysNow is the time to buy stocks ‘on sale’
The Sahm rule has historically been triggered by a weakening demand for workers. Businesses laid off employees, and the ranks of unemployed people swelled.
However, the unemployment rate’s rise over the past year is largely for “good reasons” — specifically, a big increase in labor supply, Bryson said.

More Americans entered the job market and looked for work. Those who are on the sidelines and looking for work are officially counted amid the ranks of “unemployed” in federal data, thereby boosting the unemployment rate.
The labor force grew by 420,000 people in July relative to June — a “pretty big” number, Bryson said.
Meanwhile, some federal data suggest businesses are holding on to workers:  The layoff rate was 0.9% in June, tied for the lowest on record dating to 2000, for example.

‘The flags are turning red’

That said, there have been worrying signs of broader cooling in the labor market, economists said.
For example, hiring has slowed below its pre-pandemic baseline, as have the share of workers quitting for new gigs. Claims for unemployment benefits have gradually increased. The unemployment rate is at its highest level since the fall of 2021.

“The labor market is in a perilous spot,” Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at job site Indeed, wrote in a memo Friday.
“Yellow flags had started to pop up in the labor market data over the past few months, but now the flags are turning red,” he added.

Other positive signs

There are some positive indicators that counter the negatives and suggest the economy remains resilient, however.
For example, “real” consumer spending (i.e., spending after accounting for inflation) remains strong “across the board,” Zandi said.
That’s important since consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy. If consumers keep spending, the economy will “be just fine,” Zandi said.

I think far and away the most likely scenario is a soft landing: The economy avoids an economic downturn.

Mark Zandi
chief economist at Moody’s

Underlying fundamentals in the economy like the financial health of households are “still pretty good” in aggregate, Bryson said.
It’s also a near certainty the Fed will start cutting interest rates in September, taking some pressure off households, especially lower earners, economists said.
“This is not September 2008, by any stretch of the imagination, where it was ‘jump into a fox hole as fast as you can,'” Bryson said. “Nor is it March 2020 when the economy was shutting down.”
“But there are some signs the economy is starting to weaken here,” he added. More

Sahm was the economist who introduced the so-called Sahm Rule in 2019.
It states that the initial phase of a recession has started when the three-month moving average of the U.S. unemployment rate is at least half a percentage point higher than the 12-month low.

The U.S. Federal Reserve does not need to make an emergency rate cut, despite recent weaker-than-expected economic data, according to Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors.
Speaking to CNBC “Street Signs Asia,” Sahm said, “we don’t need an emergency cut, from what we know right now, I don’t think that there’s everything that will make that necessary.”

She said, however, there is a good case for a 50 basis point cut, adding that the Fed needs to “back off” its restrictive monetary policy.
While the Fed is intentionally putting downward pressure on the U.S. economy using interest rates, Sahm warned the central bank needs to be watchful and not wait too long before cutting rates, as interest rate changes take a long time to work through the economy.
“The best case is they start easing gradually, ahead of time. So what I talk about is the risk [of a recession], and I still feel very strongly that this risk is there,” she said.
Sahm was the economist who introduced the so-called Sahm Rule, which states that the initial phase of a recession has started when the three-month moving average of the U.S. unemployment rate is at least half a percentage point higher than the 12-month low.
Lower-than-expected manufacturing numbers, as well as higher-than-forecast unemployment fueled recession fears and sparked a rout in global markets early this week.

The U.S. employment rate stood at 4.3% in July, which crosses the 0.5 percentage point threshold. The indicator is widely recognized for its simplicity and ability to quickly reflect the onset of a recession, and has never failed to indicate a recession in cases stretching back to 1953.
When asked if the U.S. economy is in a recession, Sahm said no, although she added that there is “no guarantee” of where the economy will go next. Should further weakening occur, then it could be pushed into a recession.
“We need to see the labor market stabilize. We need to see growth level out. The weakening is a real problem, particularly if what July showed us holds up, that that pace worsens.” More

Starbucks reported China same-store sales dropped by 14% in the quarter ended June 30, far steeper than the 2% decline in the U.S.
“Consumer sentiment in China is quite weak,” McDonald’s chairman, CEO and director Christopher Kempczinski, said of the quarter ended June 30.
After a “strong start” to the year in China, General Mills CFO Kofi Bruce said the quarter ending May 26 “saw a real souring or downturn in consumer sentiment.”

Pictured here is a McDonald’s store in Yichang, Hubei province, China, on July 30, 2024.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING — A theme emerging in the latest slew of U.S. companies’ earnings reports is a drag from the China market.
The Chinese economy — home to more than four times the population of the U.S. — has attracted multinational corporations for decades given its large, fast-growing market. But slower growth and intense local competition, amid tensions with the U.S., are now weighing on corporate earnings.

“Consumer sentiment in China is quite weak,” McDonald’s chairman, CEO and director Christopher Kempczinski, said of the quarter ended June 30.
“You’re seeing both in our industry and across a broad range of consumer industries, the consumer being very, very much deals seeking,” he added. “In fact, we’re seeing a lot of switching behavior in terms of just consumers, whatever is the best deal, that’s where they end up going.”
McDonald’s said sales for its international developmental licensed markets segment declined 1.3% from a year ago. The unit includes China, for which the company indicated sales declined but did not specify by how much.

Chinese companies have also struggled. Nationwide retail sales grew by just 2% in June from a year ago.
In the mainland China stock market, known as A shares, earnings likely hit a bottom in the first quarter and may “pick up mildly” in the second half of the year, Lei Meng, China equity strategist at UBS Securities, said in a July 23 note.

Several U.S. consumer giants echoed the downward trend in their latest earnings reports.
Apple said Greater China sales fell by 6.5% year-on-year in the quarter ended June 29. Johnson and Johnson said China is a “very volatile market” and a major business segment that’s performed below expectations.
After a “strong start” to the year, General Mills CFO Kofi Bruce said the quarter ending May 26 “saw a real souring or downturn in consumer sentiment,” hitting Haagen-Dazs store traffic and the company’s “premium dumpling business.” General Mills owns the Wanchai Ferry dumpling brand.
The company’s China organic net sales fell by double digits during the quarter.

We don’t expect the return to the growth rates that we saw pre-Covid.

Andre Schulten

The regional results are also affecting longer-term corporate outlooks.
In China, “we don’t expect the return to the [double-digit] growth rates that we saw pre-Covid,” Procter and Gamble CFO Andre Schulten said on an earnings call last week. He expected that over time, China would improve to mid-single-digit growth, similar to that in developed markets.
Procter and Gamble said China sales for the quarter ending late June fell by 9%. Despite declining births in China, Schulten said the company was able to grow baby care product sales by 6% and increase market share thanks to a localization strategy.
Hotel operator Marriott International cut its revenue per available room (RevPAR) outlook for the year to 3% to 4% growth, due largely to expectations that Greater China will remain weak, as well as softer performance in the U.S. and Canada.
Marriott’s RevPAR Greater China fell by about 4% in the quarter ended June 30, partly affected by Chinese people choosing to travel abroad on top of a weaker-than-expected domestic recovery.
However, the company noted it signed a record number of projects in the first half of the year in China.
McDonald’s also affirmed its goal to open 1,000 new stores in China a year.
Domino’s said its China operator, DPC Dash, aims to have 1,000 stores in the country by the end of the year. Last week, DPC Dash said it had just over 900 stores as of the end of June, and that it expects first-half revenue growth of at least 45% to 2 billion yuan ($280 million).

Local competition

Coca-Cola noted “subdued” consumer confidence in China, where volumes fell in contrast to growth in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea. Asia Pacific net operating revenue fell by 4% year-on-year to $1.51 billion in the quarter ended June 28.
“There’s a general macro softness as the overall economy works through some of the structural issues around real estate, pricing, etc.,” Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey said on an earnings call.
But he attributed the drop in China volumes “entirely” to the company’s shift from unprofitable water products in the country toward sparkling water, juice and teas. “I think the sparkling volume was slightly positive in China,” Quincey said.
Having to adapt to a new mix of products and promotions was a common occurrence in U.S. companies’ earnings calls.
“We’ve continued to face a more cautious consumer spending and intensified competition in the past year,” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said on an earnings call. “Unprecedented store expansion and a mass segment price war at the expense of comp and profitability have also caused significant disruption to the operating environment.”
Starbucks reported China same-store sales dropped by 14% in the quarter ended June 30, far steeper than the 2% decline in the U.S.
Chinese rival Luckin Coffee, whose drinks can cost half the price of one at Starbucks, reported a 20.9% drop in same-store sales for the quarter ended June 30.
But the company claimed sales for those stores surged by nearly 40% to the equivalent of $863.7 million. Luckin has more than 13,000 self-operated stores, primarily in China.
Starbucks said its 7,306 stores in China saw revenue drop by 11% to $733.8 million during the same quarter.
Both companies face many competitors in China, from Cotti Coffee on the lower end to Peet’s on the higher end. The only public disclosures regarding Peet’s China business described it as “strong double-digit organic sales growth” in the first half of the year.

Bright spots

Not all major consumer brands have reported such difficulties.
Canada Goose reported Greater China sales grew by 12.3% to 21.9 million Canadian dollars ($15.8 million) in the quarter ended June 30.
Athletic shoe brands also reported growth in China, while warning of slowdown ahead.
Nike reported 7% year-on-year growth in Greater China revenue — nearly 15% of its business — for the quarter ended May 31.
“While our outlook for the near term has softened, we remain confident in Nike’s competitive position in China in the long term,” said Matthew Friend, CFO and executive vice president of the company.
Adidas reported 9% growth in Greater China revenue for the quarter ended June 30. The region accounts for about 14% of the company’s total net revenue.
CEO Bjorn Gulden said on an earnings call that Adidas was taking market share in China every month, but local brands posed fierce competition. “Many of them are manufacturers that go then straight to retail with their own stores,” he said. “So the speed they have and the price value they have for that consumer was different than it was earlier. And we are trying to adjust to that.”
Skechers reported 3.4% year-on-year growth in China in the three months ended June 30.
“We continue to think China is on the road to recovery,” Skechers CFO John Vandemore said on an earnings call. “We expect a better second half of the year than what we’ve seen thus far, but we are watching things carefully.”
— CNBC’s Robert Hum and Sonia Heng contributed to this report. More

Investors may want to consider bonds to help navigate the market’s recent volatility.
Joanna Gallegos, BondBloxx co-founder and CEO, recommends prioritizing income and high-yield bonds.

“It can be really important to start looking at fixed income as you start to diversify and manage more risk,” she told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday.
Gallegos also suggests moving out on the yield curve.
“Fixed income is very different today than it was two years ago,” she said. “We’re at the end of the great rate hike. So, rates are high, and that makes a lot of difference in a portfolio today than it did when we started out with rates being almost at zero.” 

Arrows pointing outwards

PIMCO’s Jerome Schneider, who manages one of the biggest actively managed bond exchange-traded funds in the world, also advises investors to look toward bonds.
“They’re entering these market conditions with a generally underweight posture to fixed income,” the firm’s head of short-term portfolio management said. “What we’re seeing here is that there are better risk-adjusted returns by being an actively managed, fixed income diversified portfolio than there have been in many years.”

Schneider predicts the Federal Reserve will start cutting rates this year and warns money market funds will likely see yields ebb “pretty quickly.”
“Favoring the front part of the yield curve is a place that we think is … most attractive at this point in time,” Schneider said. “In the 2-, 3-, [and] 5-year spaces, there’s plenty of opportunities across diversified portfolios to look.”

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Disclaimer More

In the market’s eyes, the Fed finds itself either poised to head off recession or doomed to repeat the mistakes of its recent past.
“No recession today, but one is increasingly inevitable by year-end if the Fed fails to act,” said Steve Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard.
Traders are pricing in a half-point September cut, followed by aggressive easing that could lop 2.25 percentage points off the Fed’s short-term borrowing rate by the end of next year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell takes a question from a reporter during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Federal Reserve Board Building on July 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. 
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

In the market’s eyes, the Federal Reserve finds itself either poised to head off a recession or doomed to repeat the mistakes of its recent past — when it was too late seeing a coming storm.
How Chair Jerome Powell and his cohorts at the central bank react likely will go a long way in determining how investors negotiate such a turbulent climate. Wall Street has been on a wild ride the past several days, with a relief rally Tuesday ameliorating some of the damage since recession fears intensified last week.

“In sum, no recession today, but one is increasingly inevitable by year-end if the Fed fails to act,” Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard, said in a note to clients. “But they will, beginning with a [half percentage point] cut in September telegraphed in late August.”
Blitz’s comments represent the widespread sentiment on Wall Street — little feeling that a recession is an inevitability unless, of course, the Fed fails to act. Then the probability ramps up.
Disappointing economic data recently generated worries that the Fed missed an opportunity at its meeting last week to, if not cut rates outright, send a clearer signal that easing is on the way. It helped conjure up memories of the not-too-distant past when Fed officials dismissed the 2021 inflation surge as “transitory” and were pressed into what ultimately was a series of harsh rate hikes.
Now, with a weak jobs report from July in hand and worries intensifying over a downturn, the investing community wants the Fed to take strong action before it misses the chance.
Traders are pricing in a strong likelihood of that half-point September cut, followed by aggressive easing that could lop 2.25 percentage points off the Fed’s short-term borrowing rate by the end of next year, as judged by 30-day fed funds futures contracts. The Fed currently targets its key rate between 5.25%-5.5%.

“The unfortunate reality is that a range of data confirm what the rise in the unemployment rate is now prominently signaling — the US economy is at best at risk of falling into a recession and at worst already has,” Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst wrote. “Data over the next month is likely to confirm the continued slowdown, keeping a [half-point] cut in September likely and a potential intermeeting cut on the table.”

Emergency cut unlikely

With the economy still creating jobs and stock market averages near record highs, despite the recent sell-off, an emergency cut between now and the Sept. 17-18 open market committee seems a longshot to say the least.
The fact that it’s even being talked about, though, indicates the depth of recession fears. In the past, the Fed has implemented just nine such cuts, and all have come amid extreme duress, according to Bank of America.
“If the question is, ‘should the Fed consider an intermeeting cut now?’, we think history says, ‘no, not even close,'” said BofA economist Michael Gapen.
Lacking a catalyst for an intermeeting cut, the Fed is nonetheless expected to cut rates almost as swiftly as it hiked from March 2022-July 2023. It could start the process later this month, when Powell delivers his expected keynote policy speech during the Fed’s annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Powell is already being expected to signal how the easing path will unfold.
Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, expects the Fed to cut rates 3 full percentage points by the end of 2025, more aggressive than the current market outlook.
“Go big or go home. The Fed has clearly said that rates are too high. Why would they be slow at removing the tightness?” he said. “They’ll be quick in cutting if for no other reason than rates aren’t at the right level. Why wait?”
LaVorgna, though, isn’t convinced the Fed is in a life-or-death battle against recession. However, he noted that “normalizing” the inverted yield curve, or getting longer-dated securities back to yielding more than their shorter-dated counterparts, will be an integral factor in avoiding an economic contraction.
Over the weekend, Goldman Sachs drew some attention to when it raised its recession forecast, but only to 25% from 15%. That said, the bank did note that one reason it does not believe a recession is imminent is that the Fed has plenty of room to cut — 5.25 percentage points if necessary, not to mention the capacity to restart its bond-buying program known as quantitative easing.
Still, any quakes in the data, such as Friday’s downside surprise to the nonfarm payrolls numbers, could ignite recession talk quickly.
“The Fed is as behind the economic curve now as it was behind the inflation curve back in 2021-2022,” economist and strategist David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research, wrote Tuesday. He added that the heightened expectation for cuts “smacks of a true recession scenario because the Fed has rarely done this absent an official economic downturn — heading into one, already in one, or limping out of one.” More

For a while on August 5th things were looking awful. During the Asian trading session Japan’s benchmark Topix share index had fallen by 12%, marking its worst day since 1987. Stock prices in South Korea and Taiwan had tanked by 9% and 8% respectively, and European markets were falling. Before trading began in America, the VIX index, which measures how wildly traders expect share prices to swing, was at a level it had only reached early in the covid-19 pandemic and after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. Ominously, though gold is usually a hedge against chaos, its price was falling—suggesting that investors might be selling assets they would rather hold on to in order to stay afloat. The previous week’s rout in global markets seemed to be spiralling into a full-blown crisis. More