The CFO Survey Second Quarter 2022 – Notable Excerpts

On June 29, 2022 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:

Views on the economy among CFOs have worsened for 2022, according to the latest results of The CFO Survey, a joint project of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta.

“Price pressures have increased, real revenue growth has stalled, and optimism about the overall economy has fallen sharply,” said John Graham, a Fuqua finance professor and the survey’s academic director. “Monetary tightening is one of several factors dampening the economic outlook.”

also:

CFOs on average expect real GDP to grow 1.5 percent over the next 12 months, down from an expectation last quarter of 2.5 percent.

The average probability of negative GDP growth over the next 12 months was 21 percent, compared to a 12 percent probability last quarter.

The CFO Optimism Index about the U.S. economy continued its steep decline. On a scale from 0 to 100, optimism fell to 50.7 this quarter, compared to 54.8 last quarter and 60.3 two quarters ago.

This CFO Survey contains an Optimism Index chart, with the blue line showing U.S. Optimism (with regard to the economy) at 50.7, as seen below:

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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” label)

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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 3802.49 as this post is written