{"id":549706,"date":"2026-03-28T03:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T03:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549706\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T03:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T03:53:13","slug":"recession-a-real-risk-after-4-weeks-of-war-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549706\/","title":{"rendered":"Recession a “real risk” after 4 weeks of war in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday is March 28. That\u2019s not a particularly significant day on the calendar, except that it marks four weeks to the day since the U.S. and Israel began waging a new war on Iran.<\/a><\/p>\n

There are profound impacts from the war, obviously, for all the people in harm\u2019s way in the Middle East and for U.S. troops, and their families back home \u2014 and also for the U.S. economy, which has been buffeted by multiple shifts and shocks since the war began.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The economic landscape in this country looks very different now than it did four weeks ago \u2014 from the sharply higher gas prices consumers face every time they fill up, to the ugly losses folks are seeing<\/a> in their stock portfolios and retirement accounts, to the prospect of higher inflation and higher interest rates sticking around for a much longer time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact so far has been very negative. There\u2019s no upside to this, there\u2019s nothing but downside,\u201d said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody\u2019s Analytics. \u201cObviously we\u2019re paying a lot more for gasoline. Before all this we were paying less than $3 a gallon, now we\u2019re paying $4. And the direction of travel is pretty disconcerting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inflation pressure is already reflected in sharply rising interest rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to go out and get a mortgage, you have to pay 6.5% on a 30-year fixed. That\u2019s up about a half a point,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a business, I wouldn\u2019t count on<\/a> any more rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another place feeling the impact of four weeks of war is the stock market<\/a>, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe market has taken a one-two punch and is staggering like an aging boxer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

All of the major indexes \u2014 S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq \u2014 are down sharply<\/a>. That doesn\u2019t mean that every sector\u2019s suffering \u2014 energy stocks are up 25%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough go eating, smoking and drinking,\u201d Stovall said. \u201cSo you have consumer staples\u2014food, beverage, tobacco\u2014are down, but less than 1%.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, we haven\u2019t seen much impact on the job market, though Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said it was already pretty weak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe job growth numbers have been some of the lowest that I\u2019ve ever seen, but still the unemployment claims are also low,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Unemployment is likely to rise, Zandi said, as employers feel the pain of soaring energy prices and slower growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, the damage is manageable, but it\u2019s mounting,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cI think recession\u2019s a real risk<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s if the war and all its disruptions continue for another month.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday is March 28. That\u2019s not a particularly significant day on the calendar, except that it marks four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,29429,538,3310,14443,1169,145],"class_list":["post-549706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-gas-prices","tag-job-market","tag-oil","tag-recession","tag-stock-market","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}