Global Views

Research evidence excerpt

Global Views

Economics Research

22 June 2026 | 6:10AM EDT

Global Views: More Crude, Less Concern

1. The agreement between the US and Iran has reduced the downside risks to our Jan Hatzius

+1(212)902-0394 | jan.hatzius@gs.com

economic outlook. Our commodities strategists now see Brent crude at $80 per Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

barrel by the end of 2026, with two-sided risks. On the upside, Iran’s announcement

on Saturday that the Strait was closed again served as a reminder that oil flows might

only recover slowly. On the downside, a near-term glut could develop as oil is

released quickly into a market that was already oversupplied before the war. The

agreement has led us to cut our 12-month US recession risk estimate further from

25% to the long-term norm of 15%. (This is below our 20% estimate on the eve of

the war because the labor market improvement since then indicates greater

underlying resilience.)

Exhibit 1: US Recession Risk Back to the Long-Term Norm of 15%

Percent US 12-Month Ahead Recession Probability Percent

100 Bloomberg Consensus GS 100

90 90

80 80

70 70

60 60

50 50

40 40

30 30

20 20

10 10

0 0

Mar-22 Oct-22 May-23 Dec-23 Jul-24 Feb-25 Sep-25 Apr-26

Source: Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

2. Alongside the cut to our recession risk estimate, we have nudged up our sequential

H2 GDP growth forecast to 2%. The slightly stronger path reflects a positive

sequential impulse to real income from lower gas prices, at a time when the economy

continues to benefit from the AI boom via higher equity wealth as well as strong

capex. But we still expect growth to remain moderate. First, AI capex largely

consists of goods that are imported from Asia and, in the case of semiconductors,

don’t even show up in GDP.