If you’re curious to know what a sharply deteriorating global growth outlook among fund managers typically presages for US equities, the answer’s… well, not propitious, I’ll put it that way.

As noted here earlier this week, the March installment of BofA’s monthly fund manager poll was a veritable wellspring of newfound gloom. The bank’s Michael Hartnett slapped this title on it: “Bull Crash.”

One of the most notable highlights (or maybe “lowlights” is more apt) was the surge in pessimism. Specifically, the month-to-month change in the net share of survey panelists who expect the global economy to weaken over the next year rose the second-most in 31 years.

Another way to approach the same question (i.e., How are PMs thinking about the global macro outlook?) is to take the net share of panelists who expect the global economy to be stronger 12 months from now. That series maps pretty well with the YoY change in the S&P, as illustrated below.

In February, global growth expectations on that metric were -2%. One month and all sorts of chaos later, the number’s -44%.

As Hartnett wrote, “FMS conviction on global growth is historically correlated to S&P 500 price action.” If you think there’s any merit to that, stocks have quite a bit further to fall. That is: The light blue line ostensibly “needs” to catch down to the dark blue line, which would entail significant additional losses.

Of course, it’d be foolish to trade based on a series derived from fund manager survey responses. That’s not what I’m suggesting, nor for that matter, is it necessarily what BofA’s suggesting. Rather, the point is just, to quote Hartnett again, “pessimism on the global growth outlook is bad news for stocks.”

Amusingly, the dawn of Donald Trump’s American “golden age” coincided with a dramatic worsening in the outlook for the US economy specifically, as illustrated below.

Indeed, the net measure for US growth expectations plummeted to -71% in March, the lowest since May of 2023.

Meanwhile, and as the chart also shows, the growth outlook for China brightened a third month. A net 28% expect an improvement in China’s economy.

Earlier this week, in an “article” about egg and gas prices posted to the White House’s official website, team Trump said “Americans are continuing to see the benefits as the economic agenda of President Donald J. Trump and his administration comes into focus.”

Write your own jokes.