Here’s an interesting new data point that the St Louis Fed has put together to calculate recession probabilities: “Recession probabilities for the United States are obtained from a dynamic-factor markov-switching model applied to four monthly coincident variables: non-farm payroll employment, the index of industrial production, real personal income excluding transfer payments, and real manufacturing and trade sales. “ What’s interesting about this index is the current reading. At 20%, the index is at a level that has ALWAYS been followed by a recession. As you can see below, the index has never approached 20% without ... (full story)