Word: forecasts
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Financial journalists have learned that they can always depend on the market to make them look like suckers. In January, Time forecast a relatively sunny outlook for European investors. Although the mercurial U.S. economy was already clearly in trouble, Europe seemed to be on course for sustained moderate, healthy growth. Actually, that still appears true. Economists surveyed by London's Consensus Economics are predicting that U.S. gross domestic product will grow less than 2% in 2001 - down from a blistering 5% last year - but they expect European Union economies to expand by roughly 2.6%, off only slightly from last year...
...Britain's Labour government plans to increase its spending. In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has come under fire from business groups angry at the government's moves to expand labor rights, which they say will cut into already weakening economic growth. The government is standing by a forecast of at least 2.6% growth this year, but the Federation of German Banks dropped its expectation down to 2.2%. Germany is more vulnerable to the U.S. downturn because it tends to have weak domestic demand. Unemployment remains relatively high - in part because those strict labor rules make employers reluctant...
...battered sector, but at high premiums. The bonds (the 10-year coupon pays 7.75%) include step-up coupons that pay more if credit ratings drop. Downgrades have outnumbered upgrades for 11 quarters, and the industry's default probability more than doubled last year, to more than 4.85%. While the forecast is a bit rosier for wireless and data services, Moody's managing director, Bob Konefal, says, "The old Aa rates are, for the most part, history...
Since water is key to agriculture, that could mean a gloomier forecast for continued rises in farming output, though Rogers said he did not necessarily dispute Swaminathan's outlook...
...This unpredictable rending of confidence is one reason that recessions are so difficult to forecast. For this reason, changes in consumer confidence will require close scrutiny in the period ahead, especially after the steep falloff of recent months...