Investors of all stripes have been watching economics predictions as though sitting on a plane. Would the landing be soft? Hard? Will disturbing conditions leave the aircraft circling the airport? Or is a tricky and dangerous landing in the offing?

Marcus & Millichap Senior Vice President of Research Services John Chang recently explored the possibilities. There are four essential cases: soft landing, hard landing, no landing, and stagflation. Chang went through the list.

• No landing means strong economic growth with inflation remaining high.
• Stagflation sees the economy stalling but inflation remaining elevated.
• A hard landing refers to reduced inflation resulting from a recession.
• Soft landings are when inflation falls but there is no recession.

You could add the labor market. Under stagflation, unemployment increases sharply. A hard landing would likely see the same. Soft landings see stable employment.

Chang reviewed a few metrics. "The annualized three-month course CPI reading surged to 6.6% in March, its highest reading in a year," he said. "At the same time, March job additions jumped to 310,000 positions, the most job creation we've seen since January 2023.