Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the Financial District in New York City on March 4, 2025.
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images
A growth scare in the economy has accompanied worries over a resurgence in inflation, in turn potentially rekindling an ugly condition that the U.S. has not seen in 50 years.
Fears over “stagflation” have come as President Donald Trump seems determined to slap tariffs on virtually anything that comes into the country at the same time that multiple indicators are pointing to a pullback in activity.
That dual threat of higher prices and slower growth is causing angst among consumers, business leaders and policymakers, not to mention investors who have been dumping stocks and scooping up bonds lately.
“Directionally, it is stagflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It’s higher inflation and weaker economic growth that is the result of policy — tariff policy and immigration policy.”
The phenomenon, not seen since the dark days of hyperinflation and sagging growth in the 1970s and early ’80s, has primarily manifested itself lately in “soft” data such as sentiment surveys and supply manager indexes.
At least among consumers, long-run inflation expectations are at their highest level in almost 30 years while general sentiment is seeing multi-year lows. Consumer spending fell in January by its most in nearly four years, even though income rose sharply, according to a Commerce Department report Friday.
On Monday, the Institute for Supply Manufacturing’s survey of purchase managers showed that factory activity barely expanded in February while new orders fell by the most in nearly five years and prices jumped by the highest monthly margin in more than a year.
Following the ISM report, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow gauge of rolling economic data downgraded its projection for first quarter economic growth to an annualized decrease of 2.8%. If that holds up, it would be the first negative growth number since the first quarter of 2022 and the worst plunge since the Covid shutdown in early 2020.
“Inflation expectations are up. People are nervous and uncertain about growth,” Zandi said. “Directionally, we’re moving toward stagflation, but we’re not going to get anywhere close to the stagflation we had in the ’70s and the ’80s because the Fed won’t allow it.”
Indeed, markets are pricing in a greater chance the Fed will start cutting interest rates in June and could lop three-quarters of a percentage point off its key borrowing rate this year as a way to head off any economic slowdown.
But Zandi thinks the Fed reaction might do just the opposite — raise rates to shut down inflation, in the vein of former Chair Paul Volcker, who aggressively hiked in the early ’80s and dragged the economy into recession. “If it looks like true stagflation with slow growth, they will sacrifice the economy,” he said.
Sell-off in stocks
The converging factors are causing waves on Wall Street, where stocks have been been in sell-off mode this month, erasing the gains that were made after Trump won election in November.
Though the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell again Tuesday and is off about 4.5% through the early days of March, the selling hasn’t felt especially rushed and the CBOE Volatility Index, a gauge of market fear, was only around 23 Tuesday afternoon, not much above its long-term average. Markets were well off their session lows in afternoon trading.
“This certainly isn’t the time to hit the panic button,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide. “At this point, I’m still in the camp that this is a healthy resetting of expectations.”
However, it’s not just stocks that are showing signs of fear.
Treasury yields have been tumbling in recent days after surging since September. The benchmark 10-year note yield has fallen to about 4.2%, off about half a percentage point from its January peak and below the 3-month note, a reliable recession indicator going back to World War II called an inverted yield curve. Yields move opposite to price, so falling yields indicate greater investor appetite for fixed income securities.
10-year Treasury yield in 2025.
Hackett said he fears a “vicious circle” of activity created by the swooning sentiment indicators that could turn into a full-blown crisis. Economists and business executives see the tariffs hitting prices for food, vehicles, electricity and an assortment of other items.
Stagflation “certainly is something to pay attention to now, more than it’s been in a while,” he said. “We have to watch. This is such a collapse in sentiment and such a change in the way people are viewing things and the level of emotion is so elevated right now that it will start impacting behavior.”
White House sees ‘the greatest America’
For their part, White House officials are maintaining that short-term pain will be dwarfed by the long-term benefits tariffs will bring. Trump has touted the duties as way to create a stronger manufacturing base in the U.S., which is primarily a service-based economy.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged in a CNBC interview Tuesday that there “may well be short-term price movements. But in the long term, it’s going to be completely different.” Market-based inflation expectations are in line with that sentiment. One metric, which measures the spread between nominal 5-year Treasury yields against inflation, is at its lowest level in nearly two years.
“This is going to be the greatest America. We’ll have a balanced budget. Interest rates will come smashing down, and I mean 100 basis points, 150 basis points lower,” Lutnick added. “This president is going to deliver all of those things and drive manufacturing here.”
Likewise, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that “there’s going to be a transition period” and said the administration’s focus is on Main Street more than Wall Street.
“Wall Street’s done great. Wall Street can continue to do fine, but we have a focus on small business and the consumer,” he said. ” We are going to rebalance the economy, we are going to bring manufacturing jobs home.”
Important clues on where the economy is headed should come from Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report. If the jobs count is good, it could reinforce the notion that the hard data has remained solid even as sentiment has shifted.
But if the report shows that the labor market is softening while wages are holding higher, that could add to the stagflation chatter.
“We have to be observant. There’s the potential that the stagflation term just by itself, by talking about it, can manifest some of it,” said Hackett, the Nationwide strategist. “I’m not in the we-are-in-a-period-of-stagnation camp, but that is the disaster scenario.”
The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.
“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.
Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.
“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.
“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”
Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.
Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.
IMF downgrade
The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.
However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.
U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.
Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.
He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”
The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.
Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.
Companies in March accelerated their orders for big-ticket long-lasting goods ahead of President Donald Trump‘s aggressive tariffs on U.S. imports, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
So-called durable goods orders soared a seasonally adjusted 9.2% on the month, up from a 0.9% gain in February and well ahead of the Dow Jones forecast for a 1.6% increase. Excluding defense, the increase was even higher, at 10.4%, though the ex-transportation number was flat.
Transportation equipment orders surged 27%, led by a 139% increase in nondefense aircraft and parts. In addition to aircraft and autos, the durables category also includes items such as appliances, computers and jewelry.
In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 222,000 for the week ended April 19, an increase of 6,000 though roughly in line with the Wall Street consensus of 220,000.
On the durables goods side, the advanced report reflects a pull-forward effect as Trump dangled threats against U.S. trading partners through March before announcing his “Liberation Day” duties on April 2. Trump slapped a 10% tariff against all imports as well as a select charges against dozens of countries that he ultimately tabled for 90 days for negotiations.
A Federal Reserve report Wednesday indicated that companies were adjusting behavior to get ahead of the Trump tariffs.
The economic summary, known as the “Beige Book,” said companies in particular saw an increase in vehicle sales, which would fall under the durables category, “generally attributed to a rush to purchase ahead of tariff-related price increases.”
The report otherwise showed apprehension about economic conditions, particularly in light of the tariffs, indicating that the burst in durables orders for March is likely not indicative of the long-term broader environment.
On the labor front, the jobless claims report showed that layoffs are not rising despite Trump’s efforts to slice the federal employment rolls.
In addition to the stable weekly numbers, continuing claims, which run a week behind, declined to 1.84 million, down 37,000 from the prior week. Claims in Washington, D.C., also fell, down to 753, or a decrease of 112 from the prior week, according to unadjusted numbers.
Get Your Ticket to Pro LIVE
Join us at the New York Stock Exchange! Uncertain markets? Gain an edge with CNBC Pro LIVE, an exclusive, inaugural event at the historic New York Stock Exchange.
In today’s dynamic financial landscape, access to expert insights is paramount. As a CNBC Pro subscriber, we invite you to join us for our first exclusive, in-person CNBC Pro LIVE event at the iconic NYSE on Thursday, June 12.
Join interactive Pro clinics led by our Pros Carter Worth, Dan Niles and Dan Ives, with a special edition of Pro Talks with Tom Lee. You’ll also get the opportunity to network with CNBC experts, talent and other Pro subscribers during an exciting cocktail hour on the legendary trading floor. Tickets are limited!
The trust between Europe and the U.S. is not yet broken despite President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies, Joerg Kukies, acting German finance minister, told CNBC Thursday.
“For trust to be broken, a lot more would have to happen because the transatlantic partnership has been built over so many decades that we will not get carried away by the statement of tariffs,” he told CNBC’s Carolin Roth on the sidelines of the IMF World Bank Spring Meetings.
Kukies added that during a previous visit to Washington, soon after the 25% tariffs on all cars imported to the U.S. was announced, there did appear to be interest in coming to an agreement.
Europe and the U.S. have different interests and both parties need to understand one another’s viewpoints, he said. “But this is not the first time ever that the United States and Europe are negotiating over tariffs, so I don’t think we’re anywhere near a crisis moment.”
Kukies struck a positive tone when referring to talks, saying “everything is going in negotiation mode” with the bloc “optimistic” that it can resolve the differences.
A zero-for-zero tariff agreement would be his preferred outcome, Kukies stated. This aligns with what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has advocated for.
However, Trump has already rejected a proposal from the European Union for a deal which would see zero percent duties on industrial goods imported from the U.S. as well as on imports from the EU.
Germany is currently subject to 10% tariffs — the temporarily reduced rate announced by Trump after the initially imposed 20% duties.
The country’s struggling economy is heavily reliant on trade, as the U.S. serves as its most important trading partner. Tariff turmoil led by Trump is therefore expected to hit Germany especially hard.
Earlier on Thursday, the German government revised its forecast for the country’s economic growth lower, saying it was now expecting stagnation in 2025. This compares to January’s estimate of 0.3% growth.
Acting economy minister Robert Habeck in a press conference cited U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies and their impact on the German economy as the main reason for the downward revision.
The IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook, which was published earlier this week, also cut its expectations for the German economy with the body now projecting a 0.2% contraction.
Germany’s economy has been struggling for some time, contracting in both 2023 and 2024 on an annual basis. The country has however avoided a technical recession, which is characterized by two consecutive quarters of contraction. The latest gross domestic product data is slated to be released next week.
There could however also be some positives on the horizon after a major fiscal package, which could lead to a major investment boost, was enshrined in Germany’s constitution earlier this year. It included changes to the long-standing debt brake rule that are set to enable higher defense spending, as well as a 500 billion euro ($569 billion) infrastructure investment fund.
Germany’s debt brake limits how much debt the government can take on and dictates the size of the federal government’s structural budget deficit