The Insider got a high-profile shout-out last week from President Emeritus Jim Doti at Chapman University’s annual economic forecast.
Along with the usual economic charts, Doti showed the audience of more than 1,000 a copy of the Insider’s column from a year ago when the famed economist predicted 2019’s GDP growth would be 2.4%. That same column noted that even more famous investor Bill Gross had told the Business Journal he expected growth of 1% to 2%.
As it stands, GDP growth for 2019 is likely to come in around 2.3%. While some final numbers could still be tweaked, “I can tell you I’ll be better than Gross,” Doti kiddingly told the Renee & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall crowd of business execs (and a few Panther football players).
We see a competition in the making—call it the Insider Cup.
Doti’s not calling for a 2020 recession, but he is calling for a slight slowdown in the U.S. next year: GDP growth of 1.9%.
Gross last week told the Business Journal he sees GDP growth of 1%. “Fiscal stimulus from tax cuts in 2017 finally wear off. Tariffs over the past year are a negative influence,” he said.
In a feature two weeks ago, the recently retired Bond King told our Peter J. Brennan that he’s putting more of his fortune into equities, for higher yields that will fund his new foundation. Doti backs up that strategy: he told the forecast crowd he, too, was putting his money into stocks, not bonds, for 2020.
Check back here again next year to see how the two GDP predictions compare.
Other executives and readers are welcome to send their GDP predictions, and a few reasons for them, to mueller@ocbj.com. We’ll highlight the best guesses a year from now, and a few might be included in next week’s 2020 Economic Forecast edition.
Another prediction worth highlighting: In the same Insider column a year ago, we cited OC’s top two public companies by market value, Edwards Lifesciences and Chipotle Mexican Grill, as companies we were bullish on for 2019.
Shares of Edwards (NYSE: EW) are up 53% since then, while Chipotle’s stock (NYSE: CMG) is up 110%. Their combined gains in market value over that time (roughly $26 billion) would place them No. 3 among OC’s public companies.
You’ll read more in the Business Journal about Chipotle’s standout year in January.
Our Katie Murar reports on the Year that Was for OC’s luxury homes on page 32; a relatively slow year saw some juice in the last quarter with a trio of $30M+ deals in Newport Beach.
In Oakley, Utah, a 25-minute drive from Park City, a $32.5M sale of a sprawling compound that includes a 16,800-SF mansion recently made national headlines as the priciest ever in the state.
The seller, according to reports, was Vinny Smith, ex-CEO of Quest Software and current head of Newport Beach’s Toba Capital, OC’s top VC.
