The Trial Balance is CFO’s weekly preview of stories, stats and events to help you prepare.
Part 1: Goldman Sachs lowers U.S. recession odds
Goldman Sachs lowered its 12-month U.S. recession probability to 20% from 25% after the latest weekly jobless claims and retail sales reports. On August 2, the investment bank raised its recession gauge from 15% to 25% after the unemployment rate spiked to a three-year high in July.
“Now, we have moved it back down to 20% because the data released since August 2 — including retail sales and jobless claims this week — shows no sign of recession,” a team of economists led by the investment bank’s chief economist Jan Hatzius said in a note on Saturday.
The U.S. jobs report on Aug. 2 set off concerns about the U.S. economy and contributed to the brief stock market sell-off at the beginning of the month. Only 114,000 jobs were added in July, a significant drop from June’s 206,000 and well below many economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage points to 4.3%, causing major concerns about the strength of the U.S. job market. The report also triggered the “Sahm rule” — a metric that has been highly accurate in determining the likelihood of a recession.
The bank’s economists said if the August jobs report, set to be released on Sept. 6, “looks reasonably good, we would probably cut our recession probability back to 15%, where it stood for almost a year.”
Part 2: This week
Here’s a list of important market events slated for the week ahead.
Monday, August 19
Tuesday, August 20
Wednesday, August 21
Thursday, August 22
- Initial jobless claims, Aug. 17
- S&P flash U.S. services PMI, Aug.
- S&P flash U.S. manufacturing PMI, Aug.
- Existing home sales, July
Friday, August 23
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole retreat
Part 3: CFOs from UST, Vertiv and the St. Louis Economic Partnership
This week we will share interviews with Vijay Padmanabhan, CFO of global tech company UST, on 8/20 and David Fallon, CFO of provider of Vertiv, a critical infrastructure and services provider on 8/22. We also feature St. Louis Economic Partnership’s CFO Josh Ayers in our 6 a.m. CFO series (8/22). Ayers shares how he is a believer in the servant leadership model.
“Any success I have achieved is certainly primarily the result of the help and support of many people who have helped me, and I hope I can do the same for all those who look to me as a leader,” said Ayers.
