Heightened stock market volatility at the hands of blistering tariff headlines continues to drive one important discussion among investors.
Have markets fully priced in a US recession as tariffs impact the economy?
New data from Deutsche Bank suggests markets have a way to go before fully baking a recession into stock valuations.
Since the “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is down about 13.9% from its mid-February peak, Deutsche Bank strategist Henry Allen calculated. At the low point on April 8, the index was down as much as 18.9%.
In the five most recent recessions, the peak-to-trough declines for the S&P 500 have been far more severe. The drops have ranged from 27.1% in the 1980-1982 recession to the 56.8% decline in the 2007-2009 recession.
Read more: 7 ways to recession-proof your savings
“It’s clear that investors aren’t fully pricing a recession in just yet,” Allen said. “So markets clearly don’t see a recession as inevitable, particularly if the tariffs don’t come into force after the latest 90-day extension. But of course, the flip side is that with markets not fully pricing in a recession, that opens significant downside risks if we do get one, as none of the major asset classes have seen moves consistent with the other recessions of recent history.”
Allen goes a step further to see if oil prices are factoring in a recession. During a recession, oil demand typically cools as consumers curtail driving to save money and businesses run operations with an eye toward cost savings.
Brent crude oil is down about 10% from its level on “Liberation Day,” Allen noted. But that’s a far cry from the two-thirds decline for Brent crude oil during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Financial Crisis.
“Clearly oil is something where a lot of confounding variables are at play, but the fact we’ve only seen relatively modest declines suggests that investors aren’t anticipating a huge slowdown for global growth just yet,” Allen explained.
None of this is to say, however, that markets are easy sledding at the moment.
The S&P 500 (ES=F) and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) are down about 4% each in April, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) off by 5.3%. Market leaders Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA) have shed 5% and 3%, respectively. Earnings warnings have piled up from the likes of Tesla (TSLA) to United Airlines (UAL).
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Gold prices have climbed to a record high as investors seek safe havens. The US dollar is hovering around a three-year low while the 10-year yield has clung to the above 4% level after a steady climb.
