On December 11, 2019 the December 2019 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:
More than half (52%) of U.S. CFOs believe the U.S. will be in an economic recession by the end of 2020, and 76% predict a recession by mid-2021.
also:
Fifty-six percent of U.S. companies indicate they are taking steps to prepare for a recession.Among these firms, 59% are strengthening their balance sheets, 58% are reducing costs, 49% are increasing liquidity, and 31% are scaling back or delaying investment.
also:
Even with a pending recession, the U.S. continues to lead the world in terms of optimism about the general business environment. Optimism in the U.S. is 67 on a scale of 0 to 100, compared to Europe (60), Latin America (58), Canada (57), Asia (52), and Africa (44).
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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 3155.29 as this post is written
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