The Big Picture - The Market-Analyse

Economic slowdown or recession could be a nightmare for corporate earnings in 2023

Sales might hold up during a downturn, but a deterioration in margins ultimately drags down the earnings picture.

… our economists are not officially forecasting a recession for next year, but they assume we barely skirt one. As we have noted, from an earnings standpoint, that may be worse because it means companies are not reducing headcounts as they typically do when revenue growth slows. That will put even more pressure on margins as the rate of change on real growth and inflation – i.e., nominal GDP – fall sharply. In other words, the decline in the rate of change in revenue growth overwhelms the ability of companies to adjust fast enough to avoid the negative operating leverage that is driving our well-below consensus EPS forecasts for next year. The shortage of labor created by the lockdowns and de-globalization is reducing companies' willingness to let employees go for fear of never getting them back. This is a new dynamic that US equity investors haven't had to contemplate over the past 30 years when labor was much more fungible and cheap.

(Source: Morgan Stanley)