The stock market started the year by falling more than 10 percent from the peak in May as investors fretted over signs of a weakening Chinese economy and oil prices kept sliding.
David Rosenberg, head strategist at Gluskin Sheff and Associates Inc., forecasts that the economy is unlikely to slip into recession, which would deepen losses for stocks. He cites growth in the three-month trend of weekly hours worked as a sign that the U.S. economy is chugging along.
“The labor market is too solid at the current juncture,”
he writes in a Feb. 9 report obtained by Newsmax Finance. “Our analysis suggests that the high-yield corporate bond and the equity market is prices for roughly a one-in-three chance of a recession.”
But he provides a list of top 10 major concerns for investors as they contemplate the direction of markets.
The No. 1 worry is that central banks like the Federal Reserve have lost the ability to boost the economy by cutting interest rates, which
are still near record lows.
Rosenberg’s Top 10 Investor Worries
- There is a lack of confidence in the efficacy of global monetary policies.
- Oil prices remain volatile and particularly weak, and there is no sign yet of a Saudi adjustment or U.S. supply response.
- Rising corporate default risks.
- Much of the energy relief has been saved by consumers and not spent.
- Chinese devaluation and hard-landing risks.
- Stall speed U.S. GDP growth, earnings recession, manufacturing contraction and capex cutbacks.
- Weak European banks.
- Renewed fiscal worries in Greece and Portugal.
- Risks of more countries, including the U.S., moving to negative rates
- U.S. election uncertainties (Bernie Sanders is gaining ground as well as donations).