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MARKET OBSERVERS have been predicting a recession for the past two years. Why? They’ve pointed to what’s known as an inverted yield curve, when short-term interest rates are higher than long-term rates. Historically, this has been a bad omen for the economy. The yield curve has been inverted since 2022—and yet, despite that, the economy has remained strong and stock markets have continued to hit new highs.
That all changed on Aug. 2, when a little-known indicator known as the Sahm rule began flashing red. In general terms, this rule says that when the unemployment rate begins to increase at a particular rate, a recession is likely. Among economic indicators, the Sahm rule is relatively new, but back-testing has shown it to be remarkably accurate. Since 1959, it would have generated just two false positives.
That’s why it caused alarm when the government released employment figures for July. The unemployment rate rose unexpectedly, exceeding the Sahm rule’s threshold. The result was an immediate selloff in stock markets around the world. In the U.S., share prices dropped 1.8% on Friday, Aug. 2, and another 3% the following Monday. International markets fared worse. In Japan, the Nikkei index dropped more than 12% on Monday, Aug. 5, its worst single-day loss since 1987.
But despite the Sahm rule’s nearly unblemished track record, its creator, Claudia Sahm, was quick to step in with a cautionary word. “We are not in a recession now—contrary to the historical signal from the Sahm rule…. A recession is not inevitable.”
What can we conclude from this? For starters, economists tell us that—alarming as they are—we should actually worry less about sudden market crashes than about conditions that deteriorate slowly. That’s because sudden crashes tend to be overreactions. One bad data point, such as the latest jobs report, is just that—a single data point. No one should draw a conclusion from such limited information. By contrast, when the market drops steadily over time, that’s usually in response to a series of consistently negative data points. That’s when we should really worry.
Another reason sudden drops shouldn’t scare us: the presence of computer-driven trading. While it’s hard to quantify, some large portion of daily trading is driven by algorithms that seek out trends and then place short-term trades to profit from them. The result is that small market moves can turn into big ones, but only for technical reasons. The magnitude of market drops, in other words, isn’t entirely a representation of investors’ opinion of current events—which itself may not be completely rational.
Sometimes, there’s a domino effect behind a market decline that can be even more difficult to see. Careful observers, in fact, have pointed out that the decline began on Thursday, Aug. 1, the day before the unemployment numbers were released. The proximate cause: The Bank of Japan unexpectedly lifted interest rates. That caused the Japanese yen to appreciate and that, in turn, stressed investors who had borrowed money in yen because it would now be more expensive to service those loans.
Some feel that this set the stage for the drop on Friday. But if it did, it was only because of investors’ mindset. Japan’s rate move had nothing to do with the unemployment report in the U.S. the following day. But because they occurred nearly in unison, it gave the misleading appearance that the jobs report was more serious than it actually was.
Intuition tells us that the best move in situations like this is to sit tight, to remain invested and to avoid getting swept up in other investors’ fears. But it isn’t just intuition. The data are clear on this point. Looking at market downturns over the past 30 years, an investor would have been better off, on average, with a simple buy-and-hold strategy rather than selling investments in an effort to avoid further losses.
Last week provides a perfect case in point. Over the course of the week, the S&P 500 recouped more than half of its earlier losses.
Another reason to avoid overreacting to individual data points: The data often contain noise. Writing in late July, Claudia Sahm noted how some of these distortions were affecting her indicator. “The Sahm rule is likely overstating the labor market’s weakening due to unusual shifts in labor supply caused by the pandemic and immigration,” she wrote, adding that it’s important for investors “to look under the hood” at what’s behind the data.
Creators of other well-known metrics have similarly cautioned investors. For example, William Sharpe, father of the Sharpe ratio, has talked about how easy it would be to manipulate his ratio into generating virtually any answer.
There’s an old New Yorker cartoon that shows a man watching the evening news. The reporter delivers this market summary: “On Wall Street today, news of lower interest rates sent the stock market up, but the expectation that these rates would be inflationary sent the market down, until the realization that lower rates might stimulate the sluggish economy pushed the market up, before it ultimately went down on fears that an overheated economy would lead to a reimposition of higher rates.”
This is amusing but not far from reality. Are we heading into a recession? It’s certainly possible. But just as the economy has defied economic indicators for the past two years, it might continue to do so. That’s why investors’ best bet, in my view, is to develop an investment plan that can carry them through any market environment without the use of a crystal ball.
Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam’s Daily Ideas email, follow him on X @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles.
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Peter Lynch said it best.
“If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.“
I used to get entertainment from the semi-annual surveys of economists conducted by the WSJ, but eventually got bored because the results were so predictably wrong.
Good advice Adam! I learned a long time ago that I was not smart enough to play the market and that diversified, low cost index funds were right for me.
I was the director of a large IT organization during the 90s when technology was really hot, I decided to invest in tech stocks. My first 2 were Intel and 3Com. Both stocks increased nicely, and suddenly one day 3Com dropped 25% in one day. The day it dropped, 23 of 24 analysts following the stock rated it a buy. No one seemed to know why it dropped that much.
We were a major buyer of a network device 3Com sold that was necessary to connect each PC to the network. I asked my network manager if he knew any reason why 3Com dropped 25% in one day. He said it might be because Intel had announced they were going to put the 3Com device’s function on their chip, which would eliminate the need for the 3Com device, causing a major loss of business by 3Com. I asked him when he first heard about this. He said it was a few weeks ago.
Apparently, 23 of the analysts following 3Com were asleep on this. It makes me wonder how much they know about any of the stocks they are following.
I gave up dabbling in stocks a long time ago. I will take what the market gives me with ultra low expenses.
Excellent realities of the investment world article. One other tidbit regarding unemployment that has popped up and was seemingly off most radar screens is the significant impact of months of devastating weather, both here and around the globe. Hard to go to work when your employer is shutdown or gone, your residence is uninhabitable or gone, supply lines are hampered (again), etc.
Great article Adam, there’s been a fair amount of talk about the Sahm rule over the last few months, here’s an article about Claudia talking about her own rule, for those interested, The Sahm Rule Is Warning of Recession, But Claudia Sahm Isn’t Sold – Bloomberg