The CFO Survey Second Quarter 2023 – Notable Excerpts

On June 28, 2023 The 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 the CFO Survey press release, I found the following to be the most notable excerpts – although I don’t necessarily agree with them:

Growth expectations for gross domestic product for the next year were downgraded to an average of 1.0 percent from 1.4 percent last quarter, alongside an increase in the probability that respondents assigned to economic contraction.

When asked to rate optimism about the overall U.S. economy on a scale from 0 to 100, the average rating from CFOs was 54.8, similar to the low level of optimism in the first quarter of the year. However, optimism was higher for the participants who responded after the debt ceiling resolution passed Congress: the average optimism rating was 57.4 among those who responded after the resolution passed Congress and 51.5 among those who responded before the resolution. Optimism among respondents about the financial prospects of their own firms also improved following the resolution on the debt ceiling.

The CFO Survey contains an Optimism Index chart, with the blue line showing U.S. Optimism (with regard to the economy) at 54.8, 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 4362.30 as this post is written