The CFO Survey Third Quarter 2024 – Notable Excerpts

On September 25, 2024 The CFO Survey 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:

CFOs remain largely optimistic about their economic trajectory as they plan for the last quarter of 2024, according to The CFO Survey, a collaboration of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta.

Despite increased concerns around the health of the overall economy and some uncertainty related to the upcoming election, respondents said they still expect employment and revenue growth in the third quarter. In the survey that closed on Sept. 6, about 450 financial executives reported little change in optimism about the economy or about their own firm prospects.

“In spite of uncertainty in the economy, firms still expect a soft landing,” said Sonya Ravindranath Waddell, vice president and economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. “Financial executives expect to see growth in their employment and revenues through the year as firms continue to invest in the infrastructure that they need not just to continue operations, but to increase capacity and offer new products. In addition, expectations for price growth continue to come down into more normal territory.”

The CFO Survey contains an Optimism Index chart, with the blue line showing U.S. Optimism (with regard to the economy) at 60.6, 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 5723.40 as this post is written