Black Swan Outlook

October: Economic/financial Black Swan approaches

In this Outlook, our focus is on the U.S., where upcoming economic data, the presidential election and signals from the Federal Reserve are set to influence the direction of potential rate cuts. We naturally update our forecasts for China stimulus, and forecasts and economic indicators for the Eurozone, Finland and the U.S. We also speculate on the warning the recent price surge of gold is sending, and update our instructions for preparation for approaching Black Swan events.

GDP Forecasts

Our nowcasts for Q3 have seen some changes from the past month.¹ We forecast that the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the Eurozone will have grown by only 0.3% in Q3, vs. 0.4% in September. The nowcast for the GDP of Finland has seen a notable jump and it is now expected to have grown by 0.3% during the third quarter. The nowcast for U.S. Q3 GDP growth has remained unchanged at 0.8% (Q-to-Q).

Forecasts for the quarter-to-quarter growth of real gross domestic product. Source: GnS Economics, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Bank of Finland, Banca D’Italia.

In the longer run forecasts, we assume that the banking crisis will re-surface during H1 next year. Like we have mentioned many times, forecasting the exact timing of the onset of a banking crisis is impossible, in all practical sense. However, a piece by our CEO Tuomas Malinen, to be published at the end of this week, shows that fragility in the U.S. banking sector is growing rapidly, again (in a worse fashion than during early 2022). This is why we make an assumption that the third wave of the global banking crisis will emerge during the first half of next year. We return to the likelihood of different scenarios in next month’s Outlook.

Forecasts on the stimulus of China