The Federal Reserve might be raising the federal funds rate now, but that will change and even reverse course in 2020, or so says one expert.
Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee announced the second rate hike of 2018, raising the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to a targeted range of 1.75% to 2%.
What’s more, the FOMC expressed its confidence in the economy and indicated it could be preparing for two more rate hikes this year. Most experts expect four rate hikes in 2018 and two or three more to follow in 2019.
In 2020, however, that could all change.
“The economic cycle is growing old,” Capital Economics Senior Economist Michael Pearce wrote in a report. “The tightening in monetary conditions already seen will begin to weigh more heavily on the economy next year.”
“Together with the fading boost from fiscal stimulus, we expect that will prompt a sharp slowdown in economic growth next year, which will prompt the Fed to reverse course and begin cutting rates in 2020, in sharp contrast to the consensus,” Pearce stated.
Recently, former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke confirmed what many experts are already predicting: The next recession is less than two years away. He said the U.S. is getting a stimulus at the wrong moment, and the economy will go off a cliff in 2020.
Nearly half of experts recently surveyed by Zillow also said they expect the next recession to begin sometime in 2020, according to the company’s Home Price Expectations Survey, a quarterly survey of more than 100 real estate experts and economists.
And back in August last year, experts predicted there was a 73% chance of a recession by the end of 2020.
