What a bifurcating economic outlook means for credit markets, featuring Oxford Economics

Economic resilience is masking growing divergence across consumers, businesses, and credit markets. While the labor market remains stable on the surface, increasing churn, persistent inflation pressures, and uneven gains in financial wealth are creating clearer winners and losers.

This session will examine how a more bifurcated outlook could affect borrower performance, delinquency trends, and portfolio risk. Oxford Economics will share insights on the forces shaping the current environment, including geopolitical uncertainty, the AI boom, a K-shaped consumer, and the challenges facing smaller businesses as larger firms remain better positioned.

You will learn:

• How diverging consumer outcomes may influence credit quality and delinquency trends
• Why labor market churn can create hidden risks beneath stable headline data
• What persistent inflation and a prolonged Fed hold could mean for borrowers and lenders
• How economic pressures differ for large, diversified firms and smaller businesses
• Ways credit teams can use economic insight to better assess portfolio risk and prepare for changing conditions