Economy
January 14, 2019
SMU Recession Monitor: No Downturn Imminent
Written by Peter Wright
Indicators of economic activity in the U.S. do not predict an imminent recession.
This month we have revamped our recession monitor report to make it more time sensitive. The reason for steel people in particular to know where we are in the business cycle is that steel demand is related to GDP but is vastly more volatile. Figure 1 compares the change in GDP and in apparent steel consumption over a period of 26 years. Steel consumption routinely varies by plus or minus 10 percent or more and this will happen again.
