The sales of heavy trucks in the USA provide a clear leading indicator of recession. They have led every recession over the last 58 years. They are falling fast now.
What about false signals? 1986/87 was a slowdown, not technically a recession, and in fact heavy truck sales didn't fall that much. In 1996, growth slipped to 1.2% QoQ, annualised. In 2011, growth was negative in Q1 and again in Q3, but that doesn't count, technically, as a recession. In 2016, growth slumped to 0.7% QoQ annualised. In these cases, the slide in heavy truck sales portended a slowdown not a recession.
And, you can't rely on just one indicator. There are differences between every recession and every recovery. Random fluctuations can affect how soon and also by how much indicators turn down or up. But we're getting enough slumping economic time series to suggest a recession is on the cards.
And the longer the tariff pagaille continues, the worse it will be. Trump likes tariffs. He loves the attention he gets every time he changes policy, and he keeps on changing it. This uncertainty is very bad for consumer spending and business investment, and that's before the effect of price increases caused by tariffs on real income. I'm not optimistic that the US will avoid recession, and in my opinion, the likelihood of deep recession is high, because under the US system, there's no way to get rid of an incompetent and dangerous leader. The Republican Congress is too scared of MAGA, the Dems are too feeble (mostly), and Trump will likely go on making pronunciamentos on social media about tariffs until the end of his term, or at least to the mid-term elections (assuming they happen), throwing everything into chaos until then.
Will the Fed save us? Printing money (cutting interest rates) doesn't lead to real growth if the environment is too chaotic. It just leads to inflation. And anyway, the economy only responds with a lag. So, no.
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