Is India vulnerable to the US recession?

There is a saying, “when the US Fed Sneezes…..the world – including emerging markets and developing countries – catches cold”, so, ultimately India will also Catch the Cold…

By seeing the ground reality of what is happening in the world – Europe, the UK is already in a recession, and the US is heading in that direction. But the question really is will India be decoupled or not? The reality is that the Dow is down 25% and the Indian markets are flat. The S&P 500 is down 23%, the Dow is 24% and NASDAQ is 31% and we are down with 14%.

Both the US and China are currently battling a slowdown. As the economy drives with the fundamentals , in such a scenario, when two of the biggest economies in the world are facing such economic downturn, fears of recession are looking more vibrant and if that happens, then there will be spill-over effects to affect India as well.

Not just the US, inflation pressure has been felt by almost all major economies of the world ever since two significant trade routes led by Russia and Ukraine had to be shut in the wake of the war. As a result, prices of key commodities like crude oil surged to record highs making countries shed significantly more for a barrel.

America's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon said that the US could tip into a recession in six to nine months from now. He cited runaway inflation, big interest rate hikes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the indicators of a potential recession. He also cited the unknown effects of the US Fed's quantitative easing policy.

These are very, very serious things which he thinks are likely to push the U.S. and the world — I mean, Europe is already in recession — and they're likely to put the U.S. in some kind of recession six to nine months from now," Dimon said.

His comments come as the big U.S. banks are set to report their third-quarter earnings from Friday. So far this year, the benchmark S&P 500 index has lost about 24%, with all the three major U.S. indices trading in bear market territory.

Closer to home, however, the economy continues to grow and the job market and consumer spending remain healthy, Dimon said, even as the bank braced for potential loan losses by setting aside more money.

He further said that, there are still believes a storm of uncertain magnitude is coming for the economy. The risks, he said, are nearer than they were before. The potential outcome ranges from a soft-landing to something much harder.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA