The United States and eurozone are "dangerously close to recession", Morgan Stanley said on Thursday, criticising policymakers and predicting the European Central Bank will have to reverse its rates policy. The Morgan Stanley research note, which cut global growth forecasts, was cited by stocks traders as adding to market nervousness over the US and eurozone debt crises and the economic drag of austerity measures in debt-burdened countries.
Deutsche Bank added to the gloomy market tone by cutting its gross domestic product forecast for China, a major growth engine for the world economy. Morgan Stanley cut its global GDP forecast to 3.9 percent growth from 4.2 percent for 2011, and to 3.8 percent from 4.5 percent for 2012.
It also predicted the European Central Bank's next interest rate move would be a cut, a sharp contrast to Reuters last ECB poll earlier this month when just one bank of around 50 surveyed - Australia's Westpac - forecast a cut next. The ECB has raised its benchmark rate twice this year.
"Our revised forecasts show the US and the euro area hovering dangerously close to a recession - defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction - over the next 6-12 months," Joachim Fels, who co-heads Morgan Stanley's global economics team, said in a research note dated Wednesday. That was not the bank's base case scenario, he said, noting the corporate sector still looked healthy and lower inflation will ease pressure on consumers' wallets, while central banks such as the Federal Reserve and ECB could try to loosen policy further.
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