Friday, September 30, 2011

Recession forecast from Business Cycle Research Institute

Lakshman Achutan, COO of the Business Cycle Research Institute (BCRI) was on CNBC this morning and stated that the US economy is entering a recession.  He stated that it doesn't depend on further economic shocks from Europe and that it's not clear how deep the recession will be.  What's his track record?  The BCRI relies on a series of short-term, medium-term and long-term leading indicators of the economy.  They've correctly forecasted most of the recent recessions.  Recently, BCRI predicted that the current recession would end in the summer of 2009 (several months before it occurred) and dismissed the chance of a double-dip recession last year.  Both forecasts proved to be correct and show that they are not doomsday forecasters.  Here's a link to their report that discusses their recession forecast.