10 financial predictions for 2016

December 24, 2015

We seem to be on the precipice of…something. It’s been more than nine years since the Federal Reserve last raised interest rates and roughly seven years since we last elected a new president. We’ll confront a new normal in both regards next year.

Not only is 2016 an election year, but it’s poised to be an especially contentious one as two parties sporting diametrically opposed views about both where the country stands today and where it should go tomorrow confront monumental issues ranging from income inequality and tax policy to terrorism and climate change.

Then again, we’re also on the verge of…nothing. Domestic economic growth in the New Year is expected to be modest. Numerous analysts are projecting a flat year for the stock market. And while employment is nearing target levels set by policymakers, many people still feel abandoned by the economic recovery.

It is with that context that we count down the final days of 2015 and prepare to enter the unknown. No one can predict precisely what the future holds, after all, but we can make some educated prognostications in order to help prepare both you and your wallet for the challenges and opportunities that 2016 will inevitably bring.

Below you can find a breakdown of 10 important financial developments that WalletHub’s editors believe will occur in 2016, in addition to predictions from a panel of leading economists.

1. U.S. GDP growth will be roughly 2.4 percent, lagging the worldwide average of roughly 3 percent.

The United States economy is widely expected to be characterized by slower growth during 2016, with the word “tepid” frequently being employed in the context of projections. This only makes sense, after all, considering that the U.S. has for years been at the vanguard of the recovery from the Great Recession and many economies are just now beginning to catch up. What’s more, uncertainty borne from a variety of headwinds that emerged during the course of 2015 – which resulted in widespread estimate cuts during the year – is expected to limit growth in 2016.

“I expect the growth to be in the lower end of the range between 2.4 percent to 2.5 percent,” said Donald Atwater, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. “The reasons are the uncertainties surrounding oil and commodity markets, rising interest rates, and disruptions from El Niño, terrorism, and the national election.”

2. The U.S. will approach “full employment.”

Perhaps the primary reason why Federal Reserve interest rate speculation has become so rampant is that unemployment fell significantly during 2015, dropping from 5.7 percent in January to 5.0 percent in November, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This trend is expected to continue during 2016, though employment gains should begin to taper-off as we approach what many economists consider to be full employment.

Full employment is not strictly defined, though the Fed’s target unemployment rate is 5.0 percent, and members of the Federal Open Markets Committee pegged the long-run “normal” level of unemployment at 4.7 percent to 5.8 percent, with a median of 4.9 percent, at their September 2015 policy meeting. We are therefore already at full employment by some accounts, but there is still work to be done according to others, as the currently-unemployed percentage of the working-age population (59.3 percent) was unchanged for the year through November and still well below pre-recession levels (62.7 percent in December 2007).

“The labor market will continue to be a theme,” said Julie Heath, director of the University of Cincinnati’s Economic Center. “The unemployment rate will drop even further, perhaps down to the mid-4’s, although probably more slowly as the slack in the labor market is taken up. That tightening will result in higher wages, but again, that will happen with a lag and slowly.”

Employment gains will not, however, quell discussions about income inequality in the months to come. Wages are only projected to grow at a modest 3 percent clip, and a significant share of income gains in recent years have gone to the top 1 percent of earners. “Given that 2016 is a presidential election year, coupled with the fact that the continuing economic, social, and political issue confronting not only the U.S. but the world is inequality, I would expect that to be the biggest economic theme confronting us in the year ahead,” said Allen R. Sanderson, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Chicago.

3. The S&P 500 will end the year at 2,188.

2015 was a largely lost year for the stock market, with the S&P 500 entering January at 2,058 before dropping to 2,022 by mid-December amid chaos in energy markets and fears of a Fed rate hike. The market is expected to recover modest gains by year’s end as fund managers strive to hit performance benchmarks, but that does not equate to a rosy outlook for the New Year – at least not immediately.

“It depends on how many times the Fed raises interest rates,” Heath said. “The Fed doesn’t want to raise rates too high, too fast because that will only further strengthen the dollar as investments in Treasuries increase. Likewise, they don’t want to be too slow if labor market and inflation data indicate the economy is heating up. So, if the Fed hits the Goldilocks pace of rate increases, the stock market will probably dip a bit immediately after the rate hikes, but bounce back fairly quickly. In all cases of rate hikes dating back to 1982, the market dipped but then by a year later, had rebounded.”

We should therefore brace for some more turbulence in 2016 – especially income investors – but the long-term set-up appears strong, considering the dearth of alternative investment opportunities and the underlying strength in the economy.

4. U.S. auto sales will flirt with 18 million.

While recalls and an emissions scandal grabbed many of the headlines in 2015, it was nevertheless a hot year for new wheels. Nearly 16 million vehicles had been sold through November 2015 – 5.4 percent above 2014’s pace – and the total is projected to hit 17.3 million by year’s end. Despite expectations for rising interest rates, the auto industry should continue to strengthen during 2016 as consumers replace their elderly fleet of vehicles, fueled by energy savings, employment gains and a desire to secure financing before it gets too expensive.

“If prices stay low for fuel, there will be more money available for other goods,” said Robert O. Weagley, chair of the personal financial planning department at the University of Missouri. “Transportation is about 17 percent to 18 percent of the American consumers’ total expenditures, so the overall effect would be greater than if the same price change occurred in an area that takes up a smaller portion of consumers’ budgets.”

With that being said, if the auto industry does not break its record for annual vehicle sales – 17.4 million in 2000 – this year, that threshold certainly will be surpassed in 2016 as sales stretch to an almost-mythical 18 million vehicles.

5. Oil prices will post a modest rebound.

Carnage in the oil markets characterized much of 2015, with the cost of a barrel of crude oil crashing into the mid-$30’s in December from an intra-year high of $65.56 in May. And while market analysts foresee an inevitable slowdown in production as supply begins to overtake both short-term demand and long-term storage capacity, global energy market politics are signaling that things will get worse before they get better.

“We may be talking about $30 per barrel oil early in 2016,” said Mark Johnson, an assistant professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland. “At some point, oil will rise as the active rig count continues to decrease and production starts to slow. I could see oil finishing 2016 at $40 to $45 per barrel.”

6. The Fed will raise rates once in 2016, bringing its median target rate to 0.625 percent.

We know that the Federal Reserve will increase its target federal funds rate slowly. Just how slowly remains to be seen, however, depending on the economy’s reaction to its first jolt from near-zero levels in more than nine years.

Members of the Federal Reserve project that the Fed’s target rate will conclude 2015 at 0.4 percent – which would be consistent with a 25-basis-point hike from the current range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent – before continuing to rise to 1.4 percent by the end of 2016. Yet there has been significant disagreement about the trajectory of rate increases from economists and market analysts, even within the Fed’s ranks. Talk of rate increases is nothing new either, with projections and sentiments ebbing and flowing for at least the past two years.

In light of the heel-dragging and in-fighting that have thus far characterized the decision to raise rates, as well as the uncertainty about how the market will handle a change in policy, we foresee a very cautious bump in rates during 2016. This would represent a welcome development for borrowers, in terms of both minimizing the cost of credit card debt and financing major purchases, such as a home or a car –especially with some short-term interest rates already reflecting an expected Fed rate hike.

“The very likely increases in the federal funds rate will also cause a rise in mortgage rates,” said Nestor Azcona, an assistant professor of economics at Babson College. “However their effect on 15 or 30-year mortgage rates will probably be moderate, since current mortgage rates already take into account the expected increase in short-term rates during 2016.”

7. The housing market will be marked by slowed growth, higher costs.

The real estate market has been solid in 2015, perhaps surprisingly so. And although this recovery will continue to a certain extent in 2016, long-awaited headwinds should slow the pace of growth. The impending rise in interest rates will probably have the opposite effect early on, spurring fence-perched potential buyers into signing contracts before costs get too high, but home prices are already projected to grow throughout the year as residential supply dwindles, and few buyers have the requisite 20 percent down payment to avoid paying costly private mortgage insurance – now mandated by law.

The confluence of these factors in the context of a somewhat-stagnant economy will ultimately result in reduced robustness from the real estate sector.

8. Credit availability will contract as interest rates and defaults rise.

Credit has been increasingly available in recent years as household finances have recovered from the Great Recession, economic policy has promoted consumption and lenders have jockeyed for position in a new-age banking hierarchy. “Credit is generally becoming more and more available as the economy recovers and default rates have been low,” said Roger Ibbotson, a professor emeritus of finance at Yale University.

However, there are signs the party might be winding down. Chief among them is the fact that credit card debt has returned to a pre-recession path, with consumers racking up $57.4 billion in credit card debt during 2014 and a projected $68.5 billion in 2015, according to CardHub debt studies. As a result, the average household with credit card debt owes roughly $8,071, which is just a stone’s throw from levels seen in the run-up to the Great Recession. When you juxtapose that with default rates that have hardly budged from historical lows and rising interest rates that promise to make existing balances more expensive, it’s clear that something has to give.

“I don’t expect any major change in the availability of credit for those with good credit scores,” said Ann Dryden Witte, a professor of economics at Wellesley College. “However, families and small businesses with lower scores will likely see some tightening of credit as bankruptcies for high credit risk customers are beginning to rise.”

9. Medical records will become an increasingly attractive target for identity thieves relative to credit info.

While consumer concerns remain focused on retail data breaches and payment card security, assuming the point of their financial spear to be most vulnerable and in need of protection in the wake of Target’s difficulties, identity thieves seem to have largely moved on. Healthcare data, in particular, appears to be a common target because it contains a wealth of personal information that can be used to file false insurance claims or serve as a building block for seemingly unrelated financial fraud in the future. The healthcare industry is also rather vulnerable relative to credit and debit card issuers, both because insurers are migrating to electronic record-keeping and because unauthorized card access tends to be more readily apparent than insurance incursions. Cardholders usually aren’t held liable for unauthorized transactions either.

These are all big reasons why medical records are worth up to 20-times more than credit card numbers on the black market, according to a Reuters report, and why 91 percent of healthcare organizations have experienced at least one data breach involving the loss or theft of patient records in the past two years, according to a 2015 study by the Ponemon Institute. This also explains why we can expect such trends to continue in 2016.

10. Fannie & Freddie will say farewell to FICO

Like anyone who survives a near-death experience, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are reassessing things and set to make some important changes. One such move appears to be modernizing their underwriting standards. Both government-sponsored enterprises base loan approval criteria on outdated versions of the FICO credit score released in 2004, which in turn means those are the scores used by most lenders. Not only have credit scores come a long way in the past decade-plus in terms of their predictive capabilities, but the old models used by FICO don’t even generate a score for millions of people who may otherwise be able to qualify for a loan.

That is why recent momentum in the push to modernize the pair’s approval guidelines is a positive development for consumers. If passed, the bipartisan Credit Score Competition Act of 2015, introduced December 10, would allow Fannie and Freddie to consider alternative scoring models – perhaps most notably the VantageScore credit score offered by the three main credit bureaus. This bill has only a 4 percent chance of being enacted, according to GovTrack.us, but we’re betting that the combination of public pressure, rare bipartisan support and the fact that Fannie and Freddie need to tread carefully with members of Congress will result in changes being made.

Read the original blog post, and see grades on past years’ predictions, here.