Is Your Balance Sheet Recession Ready? By Dale Sheller, The Baker Group I recently joked that I have read an article every week for the past year that says a recession is starting the next month. But where is that recession? Everyone — or maybe some of us — remembers the common rule of thumb that two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth equals a recession. However, determining a recession is not quite that simple. The official recession determination is made by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is a committee made up of eight economists who use many factors in making that determination. The NBER states their traditional definition of a recession is “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” As of September 2023, the NBER hasn’t declared an official recession since the COVIDinduced recession of April 2020. A recession typically has plenty of negative consequences, including a rise in the unemployment rate as well as stagnate or declining incomes. As a result, consumer spending declines, which further impacts businesses and their bottom lines. The early phases of an economic downturn often coincide with increases in interest rates as the Federal Reserve uses monetary policy to pump the brakes on an overheating economy to help control inflation. The Federal Reserve’s monetary actions have a major impact on institutions’ balance sheets, specifically with loan and deposit pricing. As the Fed raises rates, the cost of credit increases and deposit rates increase (usually at a slow pace), therefore incentivizing less borrowing and more saving. These macroeconomic and interest rate dynamics play a major factor in overall performance and balance sheet management. 28 West Virginia Banker
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