The Looming Recession Won't Be a Catastrophe

The recession everyone expects has been taking its time. How has the economy stayed so resilient? It all boils down to a measure that's much healthier than most folks believe... [Stansberry Research Logo] Delivering World-Class Financial Research Since 1999 [DailyWealth] Editor's note: We're getting closer to the dreaded recession – but it might not be as bad as you think. Today, we're taking a break from our usual fare to cover one reason why. Joel Litman, founder of our corporate affiliate Altimetry, says the Federal Reserve's war on inflation might cause a slowdown... but it won't crash the economy. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Looming Recession Won't Be a Catastrophe By Joel Litman, chief investment strategist, Altimetry --------------------------------------------------------------- The recession everyone expects has been taking its time... The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising interest rates for the past year. The federal-funds rate – the interest rate controlled by the Fed – climbed from 0.25% in March 2022 to 5.25% today. Sooner or later, the Fed's actions will likely tip us into a recession. That's the cost of doing battle with inflation. And lately, most folks seem to be leaning toward "sooner." Yet even as interest rates have spiked, unemployment has stayed low. It has been below 4% since the beginning of last year. Consumer spending has also been very healthy... and that's with more than a year of 6%-plus inflation. Even homebuilders are still recording impressive orders. The economy is chugging along. Perhaps the mess in regional banks will cool things off. Even so, the question remains... []How has the economy stayed so resilient? It all boils down to consumer balance sheets. There's a lot of confusion about how healthy consumer finances are right now. And as I'll share today, many people are more worried than they should be. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Link: [Wall Street's 'Reckoning' Hits in the Next 60 Days]( The largest hedge funds like Millennium Management, Citadel, Point72, and more are now anxiously awaiting the greatest Wall Street event of 2023. More than $10 trillion and more than half of the U.S. stock market will be impacted... And abnormally large gains – and losses – are set to follow. Get a free recommendation AND learn how to prepare, [here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Consumers are swimming in cash... At the height of the pandemic, a lack of spending and multiple injections of government stimulus meant consumers saved a ton of money. Most folks understand this on some level. What they might not fully grasp is just how massive this cash balance is. In the past four years, consumer cash balances increased from $1 trillion to roughly $5 trillion in checking accounts alone. That's a 400% increase. While savings accounts haven't risen quite as fast, balances are still rising. Cash in savings accounts is up by $600 billion in the same time frame. And money-market investments have grown by more than $1.2 trillion since mid-2017. Take a look... Keep in mind, this data is only available through the third quarter of 2022. Folks have probably started dipping into some of these assets recently. Regardless, consumers are sitting on massive amounts of liquidity. They really haven't had to draw on it yet. All this cash padding will keep the American consumer resilient... even as the economy slows down. This is even more apparent when you look at total consumer net worth... This metric measures all consumer assets minus liabilities like credit cards and mortgages. Whether you include home equity or not, it's the same story. So it's not that all the money is tied up in real estate value. Consumers have added $11 billion in home equity and $37 billion in total equity to their balance sheets since 2020. Said another way, net equity is up more than 30% in the past three years. Check it out... As you can see, total consumer net worth is still way higher than it was pre-pandemic. And even as folks draw some of that wealth down this year, we're starting out from a strong place. The Fed's rate hikes will slow spending and cool down the economy. Those hikes will likely tip us into a modest recession. In short, they're doing what they're designed to do. That doesn't mean the downturn will be cataclysmic. It's not going to collapse the economy. Consumers are comfortable. While recession fears have many folks watching their budgets, they should be able to weather the coming storm. Regards, Joel Litman --------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's note: While everyone's eyes are on the looming recession, a different crisis is barreling straight for Wall Street that most everyday investors know nothing about. The last time we saw this event, 118 individual stocks lost up to 90% of their value – in less than a year. That's why Joel recently went public with a critical update on what to expect and how to prepare... [Make sure you get the details here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Tell us what you think of this content]( [We value our subscribers' feedback. To help us improve your experience, we'd like to ask you a couple brief questions.]( [Click here to rate this e-mail]( You have received this e-mail as part of your subscription to DailyWealth. If you no longer want to receive e-mails from DailyWealth [click here](. Published by Stansberry Research. You're receiving this e-mail at {EMAIL}. 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