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Worst outlook since dotcom bust
By Chris Giles and Delpine Straus

Published: January 1 2008 22:27 | Last updated: January 1 2008 22:27

Britain this year faces the most difficult economic conditions since the dotcom bubble burst, according to the Financial Times’ annual survey of leading economists, which shows deepening pessimism about the impact of the global credit squeeze.

The annual survey of 55 top economists shows confidence has tumbled from a year ago. The experts also fear that compared with 2001-02, the scope for financial authorities to mitigate any downturn is far more limited.

Nearly nine in 10 think public finances are not in good order so there is no leeway for discretionary tax cuts or increases in public expenditure, and the third most-mentioned risk to the economy is inflation, limiting the ability of the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

Nearly two-thirds of the economists – from the City, academia and including five former members of the monetary policy committee – thought house prices would fall this year [2008], although there was wide disagreement over the effect of a housing downturn on the economy.

Even those usually optimistic sounded a more cautious note after five months of deepening financial market problems.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
National coffers judged ‘shocking’ - Jan-01Correction in property values on way - Jan-01Turbulence fuels drop in confidence - Jan-01Squeeze puts spotlight on competence - Jan-01Split over constraint on Bank decisions - Jan-01Sir Alan Budd, provost of Queen’s College Oxford and former chief economic adviser to the Treasury, said: “I’m quite worried . . . mainly because some of the problems are unprecedented and don’t seem to be responding to treatment.”

Many of the problems stem from abroad, especially the likelihood of a housing market slump in the US. Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, saw a high probability of a recession in the US and added: “That would be likely to spread to the UK and some other European countries, notably Spain, where property prices seem similarly out of line.”

But at home, concerns centre on the limited ability of the government to mitigate any slowdown because it was still running a large deficit when the economy was performing strongly between 2004 and 2007.

Martin Weale, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said: “The public finances are in very poor shape . . . HM Treasury has managed several years of self-delusion. No doubt it will explain that it did not foresee the credit crisis and use this as an excuse.”

With inflationary pressures likely to be evident in the first half of 2008, the majority view was that life had got much tougher for the Bank of England, particularly since banks’ unwillingness to lend had reduced the ability of the Bank to influence monetary conditions.

Most, nevertheless, hoped the Bank would choose to turn a blind eye to short-term inflationary pressures and cut interest rates, since they believed that the coming economic slowdown would control inflation and the economy needed the stimulus of looser monetary policy.

With house prices falling across the country, most economists did not think a troubled housing market would be the cause of further weakness. Some of those predicting the sharpest falls in house prices were also the most confident about the economy’s ability to withstand a housing downturn.

Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, said that 2008 would be a difficult year, but that it was important not to exaggerate risks and “talk ourselves into something much worse” than the soft landing he thought likely.

2008 outlook: Fasten your seatbelts
Market strategists expect a volatile year for stocks and that the housing market will swoon. Sound familiar?
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January 1 2008: 12:02 AM EST

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street's top forecasters have some good news and bad news for 2008. Many think stocks will head higher but that unemployment will rise and the overall economy will slow.

In other words, 2008 is going to look an awful lot like 2007. Despite falling housing prices and the subprime mortgage meltdown igniting fears about a broader economic slowdown, stocks are still on track to finish higher in 2007.

For 2008, experts said investors need to be prepared for more woes in the slumping housing market and a slight rise in unemployment.

"2008 will be a sluggish year," Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs' chief U.S. investment strategist, told CNNMoney.com. She said many investors are concerned about what could be weak earnings growth in 2008.

"Portfolio managers sense that 2008 will be a very difficult year for corporate profits," she said.

But Cohen believes that stocks could finish 2008 in the plus column as investors anticipate better news in the latter part of the year.

"We believe that the worst time is right now. The worst numbers will be at the end of 2007 and in the first half 2008. We expect an improvement in the second half," she said.

Fortune's best stocks for 2008
Cohen isn't the only strategist who feels this way. Research firm Thomson Financial pointed out in a recent report that Wall Street analysts expect profits for the S&P 500 to increase in just the single-digits in the first two quarters of 2008 but that overall earnings for the year will be up nearly 15 percent.

With this in mind, Cohen expects the Dow Jones industrial average to end the new year around 14,750, a gain of more than 10 percent from current levels, and that the S&P 500 will close at 1,675, up nearly 14 percent.

Analysts at Thomson Financial are predicting a more modest rise for the market, however. The firm believes the S&P 500 will end at 1,580, a gain of 7 percent.

Still, how can stocks have a good year if so many market strategists are predicting a rough year for the economy?

In a recent report, Cohen wrote that the market is relatively cheap when compared to previous periods of comparable inflation and that stocks are priced for the worst case scenario, i.e. a recession.

But Cohen thinks the economy will not slip into a recession. And one big reason for her optimism is that she thinks the Federal Reserve is likely to keep lowering interest rates in order to make sure the economy doesn't grind to a halt.

Investors like interest rate cuts since they tend to lead to more borrowing by consumers and businesses, which in turn helps to boost economic activity and corporate profits.

"Recent speeches and policy actions suggest that the Federal Reserve is paying close attention...to the smooth functioning of markets and recession avoidance," Cohen wrote.

The Fed cut interest rates three times in the second half of 2007, lowering the key federal funds rate from 5.25 percent in August to 4.25 percent by the end of December.

Economists at Lehman Brothers wrote in a report that they expect the Fed to cut rates several more times in 2008, perhaps to as low as 3.25 percent. The Lehman economists suggested that the economy "may bend but not break" in the new year.

How they got housing wrong
But much of 2008 could be rough. Though the economy is expected to begin to rebound later in the year, economists believe th