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Peter Berezin of BCA Research maintains a bearish outlook despite a tariff pause.
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Berezin predicts a 60% chance of recession, with the S&P 500 dropping to 4,500.
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Economic concerns include trade uncertainty, rising delinquencies, and a weakening labor market.
At a time when strategists across Wall Street are dialing back their recession probabilities, Peter Berezin of BCA Research is doubling down.
President Donald Trump’s 90-day tariff pause was enough to ease the worries of some investors, but the chief global strategist at BCA has maintained his bearish outlook.
While Berezin has lowered his recession outlook from Liberation Day levels, he still expects an economic slowdown to unfold this year.
“I’ve brought down my recession probability from 75% to 60%, so it’s not an overwhelming likelihood of recession, but it is still my base case. And in that base case, I would expect the S&P to trade down to around 4,500,” Berezin told Business Insider. That would mark a 25% decline for the benchmark index from levels on Friday.
While 4,500 sounds like a steep drop from the near-record highs the stock market is trading out now, Berezin doesn’t think it’ll take much to trigger the fall.
A plunge to that level would require the S&P 500 to trade at 18 times earnings with EPS of $250. The index is currently trading at around 23 times earnings with EPS of around $260 — not too far off, in Berezin’s opinion.
“At this point, it’s hard to make a case to be very optimistic on either the stock market or economy,” Berezin said.
The economy was already showing signs of weakness prior to the trade war fallout, Berezin said.
Back in December of 2024, Berezin was calling for a recession in 2025 coupled with a stock market plunge of over 20%. His S&P 500 target of 4,452 was one of the lowest on Wall Street.
Today, Berezin is concerned about continued trade uncertainty, a growing deficit, and a weakening consumer.
Job openings have been on a downward trend since early 2022, “removing a lot of insulation that had protected the labor market,” Berezin said.
Indeed, other economists agree that the labor market might be weaker than it seems — Sam Tombs of Pantheon Macroeconomics is concerned with slowing hiring and declining small business sentiment.
Berezin also points out that consumer delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans have been rising. In the first quarter of 2025, credit card delinquencies hit 3.05%. That’s the highest level since 2011, “a year in which the unemployment rate was 8%,” Berezin said.
