A synchronized global slowdown

The Institute of International Finance on Thursday lowered its growth forecast for 2019, the latest in a series of downward revisions from international economic organizations since the beginning of last year.

The big picture: "The global economy is now in a synchronized slowdown," incoming IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said at a recent news conference.

• The IMF now expects slower growth in 90% of the world and that "growth this year will fall to its lowest rate since the beginning of the decade."

What's next: The IMF and World Bank earlier this week said they expect to write down their 2019 growth projections again — the third downward revision this year — at their meetings next week in Washington, D.C.

• Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the IIF, said the organization remains upbeat on the outlook despite the revision.
• "We expect central banks to continue easing against the backdrop of slowing growth and assume no further deterioration in trade tensions," she told Axios in an email.

Flashback: It hasn't even been 2 years since then-IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said in January 2018 that the global economy was experiencing "the broadest synchronized global growth upsurge since 2010" and that "all signs point to a continuous strengthening."

Go deeper: Mainstream economists are getting radical