“The slowdown is real, it’s happening all around the world, it’s coming to our shores, and in some segments of the economy, it’s here already,” says Alex Chausovsky, Director of Speaking Services, ITR Economics. “Despite the good feeling, the strong customer orders, and the positive momentum, that mindset that you had from 2018 needs to change to a more conservative one, a more defensive one, and for slower growth in the U.S. economy overall.”
Growth will continue, of course, but it's going to feel slower compared to 2018. The growth for 2019 is expected to land around 0.9% GDP, relative to a 3+% growth for 2018. Chausovsky said this isn’t unexpected, given our decade-plus of nearly unprecedented expansion after the great recession market correction event of 2008. And even more recently, the recent continued expansion of GDP over the past two and a half years have been, in themselves, remarkable developments, though perhaps artificial due to a short-term tax reform that looks to experts like Chausovsky to be far more expensive than helpful when perceived via a longer view.
