What's your take?
The whole recession spiel (which "amazingly" is reported by an array of different companies, often using the same verbage--just like script which was given to them) is obviously yet another make believe story.
When the next recession comes nobody knows. I think the worry is that when the next haircut on stocks happens the Fed can’t stimulate the economy with interest rates because they’re already zero bound. That could mean a long recession and slow recovery, and possibly catastrophic considering that most Americans choose to put all their retirement savings in the stock market.
Historically, there have been huge stock crashes periodically. You could wake up tomorrow and see a 10-20% drop in stocks for multiple days. It’s happened before.
I was just looking into the last recession, and I found that the market was wrong, and overreacted about a lot of stocks during that time [2]. Even AIG, the villain that caused the crash and was bailed out by the government, was one of the top performers during the recovery.
Try to have a balanced approach - cash + defensive assets (like gold and household staple stocks) + not selling all your stock.
[1] 2008 Great Recession: 1.5 years; 2000 dot com bubble: 8 months; early 1990s recession: 8 months
[2] https://shan.io/writing/learnings-from-the-2008-great-recess...
Will it be in the next 6 monthes, no. A recession is usually quantified by 2 quarters of negative growth.
Will it be in the next year? Maybe. Global economies have been slowing down and so its possible.
Will there be one in the next 100 years. Yes. Here is a list of recessions that have happened since the inception of the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit.... People are humans and make mistakes. Sometimes the things we thought would help to make the economy grow actually make it shrink.
Unless you are interested in being involved in public policy, there isn't much to be concerned with here. All you can do is find something you enjoy doing that makes people better off. Keep doing it until you master it. If you do these things it won't matter if the pundits on TV are saying that the world is ending, you will be alright.
The only recourse humans have is to continue with their lives without paying heed to what's in vogue in the news cycle.
The uncertainty of the US-China trade war is making many investors concerned about the economy and the UK is still playing Deal or No Deal with leaving the EU after 3 years of 'negotiations'. If the UK leaves without a deal, I won't be surprised if this causes a recession, at least in the UK. But the trade war, the IPO rush and possible regulation is perhaps an indicator of a global one in the tech industry.
Normal recessions can happen and if there is no systemic risk such as with mortgages in 2008 then the impact is not so catastrophic.
Unemployment will go up, GDP will probably slip into negative number for 2-3 quarters, companies stop hiring / fire some people, government probably reacts with some fiscal stimulus.
But it might be that a normal recession like that won't affect most people here working in Silicon Valley at all as those jobs probably won't disappear and companies like Google/Facebook will not be affected by recession too much.
The best indicator for a recession is the stock market, all the rest are clickbait news for eyeballs.
I firmly believe that tech would actually not enter a recession at all, since it is the only part of the economy that is growing.