Slowing Growth Edges Out Inflation as Top Concern

The trades behind these trends suggest that recession is supplanting inflation as investors’ top concern heading into 2023. The labor market remains buoyant and Friday’s producer-price data came in hotter than expected, suggesting economic demand has stayed strong. But oil prices have fallen and shares of businesses that suffer when the economy slows have taken some of the biggest hits this month.

Energy and financial stocks have been two of the worst-performing segments of the S&P 500 in December, falling by 9.3% and 5%, respectively, and lagging behind the broader index’s 3.6% decline. Natural-gas producer

EQT Corp.

is down 16% in December, and refiner

Valero Energy Corp.

has lost 14%.

Banks from giants such as

Wells Fargo

& Co. to regional institutions such as

M&T Bank Corp.

—each down 11% this month—have dived in December as well.

Both sectors could be especially hard hit by a recession that cuts demand for fuel and threatens profits at financial companies.

Airlines and logistics companies, also primed to struggle if a slowdown eats into demand for travel and freight, have fallen, too. The Dow Jones Transportation Average is down 6% in December, trailing the 3.2% slide for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Cruise operator

Carnival Corp.

has lost 11% in December, and

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc.

is down 6.6%.

Meanwhile, government bonds have rallied, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury touching 3.5% and its lowest levels in three months, according to Tradeweb, down from a recent high of 4.231% in October. Yields fall when bond prices rise.

Many investors are betting that the economy will avoid a severe recession.

But together, the market’s December moves are a sign that the possibility of a downturn—not merely expectations of slower inflation—is fueling the bond market’s recent rally, said

Michael Antonelli,

a managing director at Baird.

“The better part of this year was all about inflation worries, but that seems to have shifted,” Mr. Antonelli said.

When a looming economic slowdown clouds the outlook for stocks, investors often buy bonds for their relative safety and stability. But for most of this year, stocks and bonds suffered in tandem because inflation required the Fed to raise interest rates rapidly. Rates rose with little sign of damage to economic growth, hurting stocks and bonds alike.

More recently, however, longer-term Treasury notes have marked bigger price gains than shorter-term notes, suggesting that traders think the Fed’s target rate could continue to climb before a recession forces the central bank to change course rapidly later next year, said

Matt Toms,

global chief investment officer at Voya Investment Management. That has deepened the yield-curve inversion that many on Wall Street take as an omen of a coming recession.

Market-based inflation forecasts provide more evidence of recession fears. Traders’ expectations for the annual inflation rate over the next two, five and 10 years are all close to about 2.3%, nearly in line with the Fed’s 2% target, data from Tradeweb show. The fact that stocks have fallen even though investors aren’t worried that inflation will soar in the future is a sign that their concerns about economic growth are driving the declines, Mr. Toms said.

Through November, the job market has remained tight by historical standards and there is little sign that consumer demand has plummeted. Still, a wave of corporate layoffs is accelerating, especially among tech companies that expanded rapidly during the pandemic. Wall Street’s forecast for S&P 500 companies’ 2023 profits fell by 3.6% between Sept. 30 and Nov. 30 as investors evaluated how businesses fared in this year’s third quarter, according to research by

John Butters,

an analyst at FactSet.

Mark Haefele,

chief investment officer for global wealth management at UBS, wrote in a note to clients last week that stock prices still haven’t fallen enough this year to reflect the possibility of a deep economic downturn.

A short stock rally that carried through October and November briefly lifted prices, but now, convergence between the stock and bond markets “is more likely to be led by equities pricing in a deteriorating earnings outlook,” Mr. Haefele wrote. 

That said, some economically sensitive shares have held up.

Deere

& Co.’s stock has bested broader indexes in December so far, falling 1.4%. On Wednesday, the equipment maker boosted its dividend by 6%. Paint company

Sherwin-Williams Co.

has risen 1.5% this month despite fears that a recession could slam the housing market.

Pivotal economic data coming this week will help investors gauge the outlook. Tuesday morning, investors will be watching the release of November’s consumer-price data for signs that inflation has continued to cool off from multidecade highs notched earlier this year. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal are expecting the figures to show a 7.3% year-over-year rise in prices, down from 7.7% a month earlier.

Then, Wednesday afternoon will bring the Fed’s latest decision on interest rates. Traders are confident that the central bank will ease the pace of its tightening by raising rates by half a percentage point, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, but they will be paying close attention to Fed officials’ projections about how rates are likely to move next year.

For most of 2022, as alarm bells blared after every inflation report, good news for economic growth was taken as bad news for stock and bond investors worried about more rate increases, said

Cindy Beaulieu,

a managing director at asset manager Conning. Now, that pattern could weaken, she said.

“In both the stock and the bond market, you’re coming around to the idea that you have a much higher risk of a recession next year,” Ms. Beaulieu said.

Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]

The trades behind these trends suggest that recession is supplanting inflation as investors’ top concern heading into 2023. The labor market remains buoyant and Friday’s producer-price data came in hotter than expected, suggesting economic demand has stayed strong. But oil prices have fallen and shares of businesses that suffer when the economy slows have taken some of the biggest hits this month.

Energy and financial stocks have been two of the worst-performing segments of the S&P 500 in December, falling by 9.3% and 5%, respectively, and lagging behind the broader index’s 3.6% decline. Natural-gas producer

EQT Corp.

is down 16% in December, and refiner

Valero Energy Corp.

has lost 14%.

Banks from giants such as

Wells Fargo

& Co. to regional institutions such as

M&T Bank Corp.

—each down 11% this month—have dived in December as well.

Both sectors could be especially hard hit by a recession that cuts demand for fuel and threatens profits at financial companies.

Airlines and logistics companies, also primed to struggle if a slowdown eats into demand for travel and freight, have fallen, too. The Dow Jones Transportation Average is down 6% in December, trailing the 3.2% slide for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Cruise operator

Carnival Corp.

has lost 11% in December, and

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc.

is down 6.6%.

Meanwhile, government bonds have rallied, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury touching 3.5% and its lowest levels in three months, according to Tradeweb, down from a recent high of 4.231% in October. Yields fall when bond prices rise.

Many investors are betting that the economy will avoid a severe recession.

But together, the market’s December moves are a sign that the possibility of a downturn—not merely expectations of slower inflation—is fueling the bond market’s recent rally, said

Michael Antonelli,

a managing director at Baird.

“The better part of this year was all about inflation worries, but that seems to have shifted,” Mr. Antonelli said.

When a looming economic slowdown clouds the outlook for stocks, investors often buy bonds for their relative safety and stability. But for most of this year, stocks and bonds suffered in tandem because inflation required the Fed to raise interest rates rapidly. Rates rose with little sign of damage to economic growth, hurting stocks and bonds alike.

More recently, however, longer-term Treasury notes have marked bigger price gains than shorter-term notes, suggesting that traders think the Fed’s target rate could continue to climb before a recession forces the central bank to change course rapidly later next year, said

Matt Toms,

global chief investment officer at Voya Investment Management. That has deepened the yield-curve inversion that many on Wall Street take as an omen of a coming recession.

Market-based inflation forecasts provide more evidence of recession fears. Traders’ expectations for the annual inflation rate over the next two, five and 10 years are all close to about 2.3%, nearly in line with the Fed’s 2% target, data from Tradeweb show. The fact that stocks have fallen even though investors aren’t worried that inflation will soar in the future is a sign that their concerns about economic growth are driving the declines, Mr. Toms said.

Through November, the job market has remained tight by historical standards and there is little sign that consumer demand has plummeted. Still, a wave of corporate layoffs is accelerating, especially among tech companies that expanded rapidly during the pandemic. Wall Street’s forecast for S&P 500 companies’ 2023 profits fell by 3.6% between Sept. 30 and Nov. 30 as investors evaluated how businesses fared in this year’s third quarter, according to research by

John Butters,

an analyst at FactSet.

Mark Haefele,

chief investment officer for global wealth management at UBS, wrote in a note to clients last week that stock prices still haven’t fallen enough this year to reflect the possibility of a deep economic downturn.

A short stock rally that carried through October and November briefly lifted prices, but now, convergence between the stock and bond markets “is more likely to be led by equities pricing in a deteriorating earnings outlook,” Mr. Haefele wrote. 

That said, some economically sensitive shares have held up.

Deere

& Co.’s stock has bested broader indexes in December so far, falling 1.4%. On Wednesday, the equipment maker boosted its dividend by 6%. Paint company

Sherwin-Williams Co.

has risen 1.5% this month despite fears that a recession could slam the housing market.

Pivotal economic data coming this week will help investors gauge the outlook. Tuesday morning, investors will be watching the release of November’s consumer-price data for signs that inflation has continued to cool off from multidecade highs notched earlier this year. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal are expecting the figures to show a 7.3% year-over-year rise in prices, down from 7.7% a month earlier.

Then, Wednesday afternoon will bring the Fed’s latest decision on interest rates. Traders are confident that the central bank will ease the pace of its tightening by raising rates by half a percentage point, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, but they will be paying close attention to Fed officials’ projections about how rates are likely to move next year.

For most of 2022, as alarm bells blared after every inflation report, good news for economic growth was taken as bad news for stock and bond investors worried about more rate increases, said

Cindy Beaulieu,

a managing director at asset manager Conning. Now, that pattern could weaken, she said.

“In both the stock and the bond market, you’re coming around to the idea that you have a much higher risk of a recession next year,” Ms. Beaulieu said.

Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]