On July 14, 2021 the latest CFO Survey (formerly called the “Duke/CFO Global Business Outlook”) was released. It contains a variety of statistics regarding how CFOs view business and economic conditions.
In this CFO Survey press release, I found the following to be the most notable excerpts – although I don’t necessarily agree with them:
CFOs and other financial decision-makers continue to be optimistic about U.S. economic prospects for 2021, according to the results of The CFO Survey, a collaboration of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta. However, when asked about their key concerns, labor availability and cost pressures rose to the top.
This CFO Survey contains an Optimism Index chart, with the blue line showing U.S. Optimism (with regard to the economy) at 69.0, as seen below:
[Note: The dashed vertical line denotes a moderate change in the question wording and presentation. Please see The CFO Survey Methodology for further information.]
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It should be interesting to see how well the CFOs predict business and economic conditions going forward. I discussed past various aspects of this, and the importance of these predictions, in the July 9, 2010 post titled “The Business Environment”.
(past posts on CEO and CFO surveys can be found under the “CFO and CEO Confidence” tag)
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I post various economic forecasts because I believe they should be carefully monitored. However, as those familiar with this site are aware, I do not necessarily agree with many of the consensus estimates and much of the commentary in these forecast surveys.
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 4367.88 as this post is written