This week’s flood of readings on inflation, retail sales and earnings is just what a data-hungry Wall Street has been anxious for.
But it could be a case of the old saying, be careful what you ask for, because you might actually get it. Evidence that consumers and companies are cash-strapped could mean the economy is on a fast track toward recession ”” or already in the midst of one.
“I think we’re going to look back on fourth-quarter earnings and instead of thinking the recession is coming, if there is one, it already started,” said JPMorgan equities analyst Thomas J. Lee.
Update: There is more here, including this:
The unemployment rate leaps to a two-year high, record numbers of people are forced from their homes and Wall Street nose-dives again. Such is the fallout from a housing meltdown that threatens to slingshot the country into a recession.
The big economic question these days is whether the weakening economy will survive the strains or collapse under them.
The odds have grown that the economy will slip into a recession. At the beginning of last year, many economists put that chance at less than 1-in-3; now an increasing number says it has climbed to around 50-50. Goldman Sachs, the biggest investment bank on Wall Street even thinks a recession is inevitable this year.