The stock market is expected to bounce back in 2019, however 2020 could be a very different story. That is the appraisal from Nomura strategist Naka Matsuzawa in a December 28 note to customers.
“The global economy is already on an irreversible path to an economic downturn,” he wrote. “We do not expect the economy to fall suddenly into a downturn, but to recover temporarily in the second half of 2019 to the first half of 2020 after signs of a slowdown strengthen through the first half of 2019.”
Matsuzawa sees a few of market tailwinds in 2019: facilitating U.S./China trade conflict; stimulus for China’s economy; resumption of corporate acquisitions and CAPEX spending; and purchaser quality from the slump in oil costs.
“We think the real economy will enter a downturn from the second half of 2020, and expect the financial markets to price in this economic downturn in the first half of 2020,” Matsuzawa wrote.
He doesn’t see the following downturn caused by Brexit or Italy’s budget issues. Even high debt levels on U.S. corporations isn’t a quick threat, as these debt levels are in-line with past economic peaks, he said.
Rather, debt in China and developing markets could be the subject of the next downturn, as these nations helped their use beginning in 2010, he brought up.
“When the U.S. adopts weak currency policies in earnest, the main target is likely to be [China’s] RMB, which means that, similar to the situation in Japan in the 1990s, there is a heightened risk of a sharp downward shift in the potential growth rate and deflation in China, in our view,” Matsuzawa wrote.
How much China’s government reacts to this by means of stimulus and other measures, will likely determine the magnitude of the next global economic downturn, he said.
Matsuzawa additionally noticed the decreasing capacity for global central banks to help stem the next economic downturn.