Are we in the middle of the W?

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UniCredit’s Harm Bandholz offers an interesting reading of one of the piles of economic releases that came out today:

The mild decline in the headline ISM and its most important subcomponents (production, new orders and employment) is so far the most clear-cut signal that the technical rebound of the US economy might have reached the middle of the “W”. That means that from now on the dynamic of the economic improvement will lose momentum again.

Bandholz was one of the first people to call the end of the recession—way back in April he said it was coming soon. Now he’s arguing that the bounceback from the economic near-catastrophe of the early part of this year has pretty much played itself out. We won’t necessarily fall back into a recession, but there will be lots of disappointing economic news in the months ahead. From the looks of today’s 203-point drop in the Dow, he’s not the only one who thinks that.