- Elon Musk, Jamie Dimon, and Ray Dalio all have serious concerns about the US economic outlook.
- Leon Cooperman, David Solomon, and David Rosenberg have also predicted trouble in recent days.
- Several of these experts anticipate a full-blown recession to hit next year.
Jamie Dimon, Elon Musk, and Ray Dalio are just some of the high-profile commentators who've raised the alarm on the economic outlook in recent days.
Jeremy Grantham, Leon Cooperman, David Rosenberg, and others have also voiced concern about a recession, citing challenges ranging from steeper borrowing costs and ballooning public debt to the Israel-Hamas conflict and American consumers running short of cash.
Here are 10 recent warnings from experts about the current economic situation, lightly edited for length and clarity:
1. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan
"This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades."
"I think there's still quite a few shoes to drop on the bad credit situation. Commercial real estate obviously is in terrible shape. I'm not saying things will be bad, I'm just saying they might be. If the macroeconomic conditions are stormy, even the best ship is still going to have tough times."
3. Jeremy Grantham, cofounder and long-term investment strategist of GMO
"My guess is we will have a recession. I don't know whether it will be fairly mild or fairly serious, but it will probably go deep into next year."
4. David Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Research
"I am willing to acknowledge that the recession has been delayed. But it has not been derailed. This recession will come in the next few quarters, not the next few years. I'm bloodied but unbowed, and not willing to surrender."
5. Leon Cooperman, CEO of Omega Advisors
"I've been of the view that the price of oil, the strong dollar, QT, and the Fed will push us into recession. We've got to get our house in order or we're headed for a crisis."
6. David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs
"I'm still of the belief that there's been a lag with this tightening. I do think over the next two to four quarters, the impact of that tightening will be more evident and will create slowdowns in some areas. There has been an escalation of geopolitical stresses around the globe — the war in Ukraine, ongoing tensions with China and now the conflict in the Middle East. Overall levels of risk are more elevated than we've seen in quite some time."
7. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock
"If these things are not resolved, it probably means more global terrorism, which means more insecurity, which means society is going to be more fearful and feel less hope, and when there's less hope we see contractions in our economies." (Fink was referring chiefly to the the Israel-Hamas conflict.)
8. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone
"We're coming off the top and we're starting to go down, so that would say to me that next year perhaps is not so wonderful, but then you'll hit your bottom and then we'll go up again."
9. Harley Bassman, managing partner of Simplify Asset Management:
"I think we're going to get the recession a year from now." (Bassman underscored the potential fallout when large numbers of companies have to refinance their debts at much more expensive interest rates in 2024.)
10. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates
"If you take the time horizon, the monetary policies that we're going to see and so on, will have greater effects on the world. And you look at the world gaps, so it's difficult to be optimistic on that." (Dalio recently pegged the risk of a world war breaking out in the next decade at 50%.)