Peak Oil panic once gripped the world, and not all that long ago. Go back just a decade and a half, and you’ll find dire warnings that oil would run out, with disastrous consequences for nearly all of the world’s economies.
Perhaps the most exasperating thing about recessions is that they’re easy to spot in hindsight but difficult to see coming until it’s too late. Investors who misread the economy’s signals might make the wrong moves at the right time or make the right moves at the wrong time. Either way, they risk losing money.
The U.S. economy just had a pretty good year—growth and job creation were strong, the unemployment rate fell to lows not seen in decades and inflation stayed relatively mild. For the Federal Reserve, it seemed a decade of highly unorthodox monetary policy had finally paid off with an economy in a “sweet spot.”
