, which are often used as early warning indicators of economic change. These surveys look a bit less favorable than either the official data or small-business indicators, but still aren’t signaling anything that looks like a recession. Claims for unemployment insurance — which represent data collected by states, not the federal government — also point to a still-solid labor market. It’s probably worth noting that private surveys confirm official reports of rapidly declining inflation as well.
“You've got a deeply inverted yield curve and banks are starting to tighten lending standards, so you'd be naive to think that there's not an economic downturn coming. [But] if you go back historically and you look at the more mild recessions, like in 1981, like in 1991, stocks tend to decline 20% to 25% and hit a new high within one or two years. And that seems to be precisely the path that we're following right now.