Thinking about the U.S. economy

Daily Thoughts 28 Fed 2025

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We have been looking for a direction for the U.S. economy for few weeks now. All the data is essentially inconclusive, but agree on two things: the U.S. economy has stagnated and the gargantuan fiscal stimulus has been the only thing keeping the economy growing. At the same time, Beijing has started the year with the biggest ever stimulus.

Yesterday, I came across with a rather worrying data point from the Conference Board. The share of consumers expecting business conditions to worsen during the next six months shoot up to 26.7%. This is a level not seen since mid-2022. Yet, CEO confidence has improved.

So, conflicting signals, once again.

We look more deeply into the different metrics in the February Black Swan Outlook and in this week’s Weekly Forecasts published tomorrow. I want to add my own view of what may lie ahead for the U.S. economy, and the picture is not pretty.