I live in Colorado and ski season accounts for $4.8 billion of our state’s annual economy. It supports more than 46,000 year-round jobs and generates $1.9 billion in labor income so it’s darned important to us – including my aging knees that have been skiing since I was a kid. So, when I get it in my bones that the ’24 – ’25 ski season will be great, that’s optimism and not forecasting.This stuff is as bad as the weather: Just last month J.P. Morgan Research forecast a 35% chance of a global recession by the end of 2024, and a 45% chance by the end of 2025. Bankrate’s Q2 Economic Indicator Survey prophesizes a 33% chance of a US recession by the end of 2024, and Statista claims a 61.79% chance by August 2025. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, a review of economists, (kinda like “4 out of 5 dentists recommend), lowered the probability of a recession next year from 48% in October to 39% in January and Conference Board says the US is likely not on the edge of a recession.For me, the best advice is bring an umbrella!
We have too many variables in our local, regional, national and global economies to be accurate – we can be directional. It’s a bit like the pilot or ships captain using dead reckoning or my father in WWII using celestial navigation crossing the Pacific in LSM 264.
…and each of those options requires planning for optionality: Model your projects and equipment purchases in todays’ environment for cost of capital and taxes and if that meets your hurdle rate, pull the trigger ‘cuz you know the math and if it doesn’t, roll the dice into the future. What we do know is that inaction has a cost of denying your business, city or school district the benefits of that new piece of equipment or project.
No less than Leonardo da Vinci said it well: “Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind..”
PS: We will do a free MIRR, (Modified Internal Rate of Return), and Hurdle Rate analysis for your next project for the first three respondents that recognize the umbrella foto above.