Stock Markets Fall After Fed Rally Fades
Such grim forecasts offer the possibility that the economy could end up shrinking this quarter for the second time in a row — a common, though unofficial, definition of a recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the country’s semiofficial arbiter of when business cycles begin and end, offers a more nuanced definition of a recession, calling it “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.” Most economists agree that, by that definition, a recession has not yet begun. Mr. Powell on Wednesday argued, as he has in the past, that the Fed can bring down inflation without causing a recession, although he acknowledged that its ability to do so depends on factors that are outside its control, such as gas prices, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Many analysts are skeptical that such a “soft landing” is realistic. After Mr. Powell’s comments, economists at Deutsche Bank called such hopes “overly optimist...
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