Albert Edwards suspects a US recession might be just around the corner.

You could’ve written that sentence at any point over the last 30 years. I could be wrong about this — and Albert will probably correct me if I am — but I don’t think there’s been a single year going back three decades during which Edwards didn’t suggest, at least once, that a recession was in the offing.

On Wednesday, Albert pointed to the (admittedly tight) relationship between a key ISM manufacturing spread and earnings revisions to make the case. He also penned a bullet-point editorial recapping recent events, but if you’re a regular reader, you don’t need another retelling of this year’s macro developments. I regale you enough as it is. Suffice to say the US economy started off strong, but the momentum appears to be fading.

Edwards zoomed in on this week’s disappointing ISM manufacturing release and specifically the plunge in the new orders gauge. “Although many dismiss the importance of the manufacturing sector for the overall economy, it is undeniable that overall GDP ebbs and flows closely with it,” he wrote.

The figure above plots the key new orders-inventories spread alongside the eight-week moving average for Nasdaq EPS upgrades.

The implication’s clear enough, but just in case, Albert spelled it out: Growth appears to be “disintegrat[ing],” and equity investors “should be worried.”

“Equity markets had been driven higher by EPS upgrades which correlate pretty well with the excess of ISM new orders relative to inventories, but this key indicator is now slowing fast,” he went on. “That recession might yet arrive after all.”