It's Official: Deutsche Is The First Bank To Forecast A US Recession In Late 2023

Up until now, with the exception of various bearish splinter voices within Wall Street banks - such as those of Michael Hartnett or Albert Edwards who pitched recessionary scenarios explicitly different from the banks' bullish "base cases", not one bank dared to make the coming recession its official prediction narrative. That changed this morning when Deutsche Bank's chief economists and heads of research, David Folkerts-Landau and Peter Hooper, became the first to make a recession in the US and a growth recession in the euro area within the next two years, their official forecast.
The "shocks" behind DB's dramatic reassessment - the same ones we have been pounding the table on for the past 2 months: the war in Ukraine and the build-up of momentum in elevated US and European inflation. Some more details from the DB duo:
• The war, which has transitioned into a stalemate that is unlikely to be resolved any time soon, has disrupted activity on a number of fronts. These include upheavals in markets for energy, food grains, and key materials, that have in turn further disrupted global supply chains. That said, the economists assume that the critical flow of gas from Russia to Europe will not be cut off, keeping the crisis from substantially deepening costs to the European and global economies, but that remains a downside risk.
• Inflation in the US and Europe is now pushing 8%, well in excess of what was expected as recently as December. More troubling, especially in the US, are signs that the underlying drivers of inflation have broadened, emanating from very tight labor market conditions and spreading from goods to services. Inflation psychology has shifted significantly, and while longer-term inflation expectations have not yet become unanchored, they are increasingly at risk of doing so.
Meanwhile, as confirmed by today's uberhawkish comments from Lael Brainard, the Fed has found itself greatly behind the curve, and has given clear signals that it is shifting to a more aggressive tightening mode, so DB now expects the Fed funds rate to peak above 3-1/2% next summer, with balance sheet rundown adding at least another 75bp-equivalent in rate hikes. With EA inflation likely to be sustained at 2% or more, the German bank also sees the ECB raising rates 250 bps between this September and next December.