Bill Handel is a seasoned product development and management consultant who leverages his knowledge of consumer and business needs – along with his understanding of how financial services profitability is achieved – to help Raddon clients develop innovative product lines. Since he joined Raddon in the 1980s, he has developed a number of unique programs to help financial institutions manage their product lines. Handel also has written several books on financial services product pricing and development.
Eighteen months after the onset of COVID-19, where are we economically in the United States? And how are things likely to change moving forward?
The COVID-19 recession was by far the shortest in U.S. history, lasting two months, from February to April 2020. The average length of recessions since World War II has been 11 months, and the Great Recession of 2007–2009 was 18 months. However, this recession’s brevity does not imply that it was modest. In fact, the peak unemployment rate was higher than it’s been since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
A year containing a pandemic is, generally speaking, not a great year to have made predictions. In this review of the predictions we made for 2020 in January of last year, we will eat some crow. However, many of the things we thought might happen did, in fact, turn out to be the case. 2020 was a wild and woolly year, but on balance we were surprisingly prescient. However, we did miss clearly on the start and the magnitude of the recession.
Here are the predictions made last year and an assessment of each’s accuracy.
Raddon will provide more detailed predictions for 2021 in an upcoming Raddon Report, but suffice it to say we don’t work from a crystal ball. For 2020, we did not predict a pandemic, a 31 percent decline in GDP in second quarter and a 33 percent growth figure for GDP in the third quarter. Yes, it’s fair to say we’re all glad to have 2020 behind us.
As we move into the fourth quarter of an unforgettable year that many of us would prefer to forget, I’m often asked to provide a prognosis on what economic recovery will look like. Will the recovery of which we are in the beginning phases be shaped like an “L”, like a “V”, like a “W”, like the Nike “swoosh”, or even the newest shape, the letter “K”? First, a review of what these various letters imply for recovery.
COVID-19 has had an immeasurable impact on our society – societally, technologically and most certainly economically.
During the first 13 weeks of the pandemic, there were 45.7 million initial claims for unemployment, or 3.5 million per week. To put this in perspective, during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the average weekly total initial claims were 476,000, and the largest single week was 659,000.
The economic impact of COVID-19 becomes increasingly significant as the lockdown extends. In the past five weeks, 26.5 million people filed initial claims for unemployment. To put this into perspective, that is almost as many people as those filing for unemployment in all of 2018, 2019 and the first 11 weeks of 2020 combined – a total of 115 weeks.
Although there are differing opinions and predictions about the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the economy, there is one undeniable truth: Right now, the consumer is in quite a state of concern. The focus and actions of financial institutions over the next several months – and perhaps longer – will be critical to our economic recovery process.
2019 turned out to be a year of solid if not spectacular economic growth coupled with continuing challenges for our industry. Earnings were stronger for many financial institutions even in the face of flat or even declining margins. Loan loss experience was at historically low levels for many institutions, while others were beginning to see slight upticks in this area. Challenges to non-interest income continue to be apparent as the younger generations find less value in historically strong contributors such as overdraft protection programs.
How did we do in our industry predictions for 2019? Here are the predictions we offered up one year ago, along with an assessment of our foresight. Overall, our crystal ball was good, but with a few notable exceptions, which were due to the Federal Reserve’s reversal of its interest rate course.
For credit unions, a major theme in 2020 will be how well they contend with uncertainty.
Ambiguity and insecurity will come from an evolving economic environment, emerging demographic concerns and nontraditional providers' entry into key product areas, including checking accounts by Google and credit cards from Apple. Contending effectively with uncertainty will become the hallmark of well-managed credit unions.
Here are three trends we're watching for credit unions:
By now, you’ve likely heard discussion of a possible oncoming economic recession. The talk of an inverted yield curve and its predictive ability regarding recessions has been bandied about in the financial as well as the mainstream press.
Is a recession likely? The answer is an unqualified yes. But then again, the answer to that question is always yes. The real question is when it will come. And a related question is how severe it will be.
2018 was a good year for the economy generally and for the financial services industry. We experienced reasonably good GDP growth, especially in the second and third quarters, and we spent the entire year at an unemployment rate of 4% or lower. In the financial services sector, loan growth continued at a strong pace, to the point that many financial institutions are facing liquidity concerns and for the first time in over a decade are engaged in deposit wars. Earnings also improved for the majority of financial institutions, a result of improving net interest margins helped by four rate
Every year Raddon publishes our set of predictions for the upcoming year. Many publications offer predictions. However, we also review the accuracy of our predictions one year later, which makes us somewhat unique in the realm of prognostication.
Here are the predictions we offered up one year ago, along with an assessment of our foresight. Overall, our crystal ball was fairly clear.
In a not unexpected development, the Federal Reserve raised short term interest rates again at its Wednesday meeting this week. This is the ninth rate hike since December 2015, and the fourth in 2018. At the meeting, the Federal Reserve also indicated that the pace of rate increases is likely to slow in 2019. What this means exactly is not certain, but the likelihood of four or even three rate increases in 2019 is not high. In fact, 11 of 17 officials expect no more than two rate increases next year.
The release last week by the Commerce Department that GDP grew at an annualized rate of 4.1% in the second quarter was notable for several reasons. First, as widely noted, this was the strongest economic growth seen since 2014. Second, both consumer spending and business investment remained strong, with non-residential fixed investment up 7.3%. Perhaps most symbolically, the U.S. is now at $20 trillion in annualized GDP.
