This past weekend, Akin Oyedele penned an article via Business Insider entitled “I went to a seminar with one of the world’s largest banks and almost everything said there was really bearish.”

“At HSBC’s global-investment seminar in New York last week, some of the top strategists from Europe’s largest bank laid out their outlook for global markets and economies.

Many strategists are not expecting the current recovery from the financial crisis to be as impressive as what has come before, while some investors aren’t expecting double-digit returns in the near term.

Additionally, strategists are losing faith that the Federal Reserve will actually raise interest rates anytime soon.“

Akin seems genuinely shocked the data suggests economic growth may not be on the cusp of surging and stocks might fail to deliver double-digit returns.

However, since I was long ago excised by the media for allowing the “data to speak,” let me clarify, for both you and Akin, why HSBC is likely correct in their analysis. 

Economic Hopes To Be Disappointed

Despite ongoing hopes of a resurgence of economic growth over the past six years, each year has only led to disappointment. As I discussed previously:

“If you are expecting an economic recovery, and a continuation of the bull market, then the economic data must begin to improve markedly in the months ahead. The problem has been that each bounce in the economic data has failed within the context of a declining trend. This is not a good thing and is why we continue to witness an erosion in the growth rates of corporate earnings and profitability. Eventually, that erosion combined, with excessive valuations, will weigh on the financial markets which is potentially much of what we are witnessing now.

The economy continues to ebb and flow between weak growth and no growth. This puts the Federal Reserve at risk of a policy mistake that could trip the economy into an outright recession. While there have certainly been positive bumps in the data, as pent-up demand is released back into the economy, the inability to sustain growth is most concerning.”