Jamie Dimon, Ray Dalio say recession predictions were wrong: WSJ

• Prominent investors and billionaires have warned for the past few years that a recession was imminent.
• However, the U.S. economy is performing better than expected due to favorable employment data and a decline in inflation.
• Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio told the Journal that they were surprised by the performance of the U.S. economy.

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and billionaire hedge fund founder Ray Dalio have long warned that a recession is imminent, but the pessimistic outlook for the U.S. economy It seems to be avoiding predictions.

In September 2022, Dalio told MarketWatch that the U.S. was likely to enter a recession in 2023 or 2024 as stocks and bonds slumped.

Around the same time, Dimon told CNBC that the U.S. economy was “actually still strong,” but that runaway inflation, high interest rates and the war in Ukraine could put the U.S. “into a recession within six to nine years.” He said he was thinking about it. A few months. ”

Many prominent investors, billionaires, and economists had predicted a devastating economic storm in the United States, but the economy has so far remained So far, it has exceeded my expectations.

“I was bearish on the economy,” Dalio told The Wall Street Journal. “I understood it wrong.”

Dalio told Barron’s that he expects the economy to slow as high interest rates “suppress private sector demand and asset prices.”

“You would have thought that some of the fiscal stimulus would have worn off,” Dimon told the newspaper.

The strong performance of the US economy has led some experts to believe that the country is heading for a “soft landing”. But not all economists believe this rosy outlook.

Andrew Hollenhorst, Citi’s chief U.S. economist, told CNBC in February that the U.S. is headed for a recession in mid-2024, noting that employees are working fewer hours and inflation remains too high.

Economist David Rosenberg also questioned the dominant view of America’s “fast-growing economy.” The president of Rosenberg Research also pointed to a decline in working hours, but also mentioned other alarming indicators, including a decline in the number of new homes built in January and declines in industrial production and retail sales.

Dimon also expressed some pessimism in a recent interview with CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report, saying, “Markets can change their minds quickly.”

“Remember in 1972, you were feeling great too. And before the crash you were feeling great, but after that things change,” he said.