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CEO Economic Confidence Implodes, Drops To Lowest In Three Years
What rate hike?
Following a relentless barrage of recessionary industrial and manufacturing data, moments ago the Business Roundtable released its latest, fourth quarter 2015 CEO Economic Outlook Survey, and it is an absolute disaster.
According to the report, for the third quarter in a row, CEOs expressed growing caution about the U.S. economy’s near-term prospects and indicated they are moderating their plans for capital investment over the next six months, according to the Business Roundtable fourth quarter 2015 CEO Economic Outlook Survey, released today.
The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index – a composite of CEO projections for sales and plans for capital spending and hiring over the next six months – declined 6.6 points, from 74.1 in the third quarter of 2015 to 67.5 in the fourth quarter.
This third consecutive quarterly decline brought the Index to its lowest level in three years. As shown in the chart below CEOs are as unconfident in the recovery as they were in late 2012. In other words, CEO confidence has just dropped to a level last seen when the Fed was about to unveil QE3.
In the past we have mocked the CEO roundtable's optimism on rising CapEx. The reason why is shown below. For the first six months of 2016, CEO expectations for sales decreased by 3.2 points and their plans for capital expenditures decreased by 16.7 points. Hiring plans were essentially unchanged from last quarter when they declined by nearly 8 points.
Capex plans plunge:

Sales expectations tumble to three year lows:

And Employment - the divergence from the official NFP data is oddly disconcerting.

“Lower expectations for sales and investment reflect CEOs’ ongoing caution about the near-term prospects for U.S. economic growth,” said Randall Stephenson, Chairman of Business Roundtable, and Chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc. “Congress and the Administration need to work together to continue to fund the government, expand trade, agree on a long-term transportation infrastructure investment plan, reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank and renew expired tax provisions.”
Or, best of all, just tell "Mr. Chairmanwoman to get to work," although a rate hike is probably not what they would like to see.
The survey’s key findings from this quarter and the third quarter of 2015 include:
About the Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Survey
The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Survey, conducted quarterly since the fourth quarter of 2002, provides a forward-looking view of the economy by Business Roundtable member CEOs. The survey is designed to provide a picture of the future direction of the U.S. economy by asking CEOs to report their plans for their company’s sales, capex and employment in the next six months. The data are used to create the Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index and sub-indices for sales, capex and hiring expectations – diffusion indices that range between -50 and 150 – where readings at 50 or above indicate an economic expansion, and readings below 50 indicate an economic contraction. A diffusion index is defined as the percentage of respondents who report that a measure will increase, minus the percentage who report that the measure will decrease.
The fourth quarter 2015 survey was completed between Oct. 14 and Nov. 4, 2015. Responses were received from 140 member CEOs. The percentages in some categories may not equal 100 due to rounding. Results of this and all previous surveys can be found at www.brt.org/resources/ceo-survey.
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time to up their dosage of captogan, financial jihadists
Blow out Jobs Number from the BLS to negate all the "bad" news and keep the dose of castor oil coming...
C'mon, baby! Just one more month! Hang in there, you can do it! Then we all get PAID, bitchez. Year end stock bonuses. Come to pappa.
Poppycock! Every CEO that comes on CNBS keeps going on about how fantastic the U.S eCONomy s doing. You're not suggesting these pillars of society are fibbing are you Tyler?
simple outlook on their part.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmfwklFM-M
No doubt the C-Suite will be giving itself generous Holiday bonuses.
Employees and shareholders to get a fruitcake with a pretty bow.
"Fruitcake enema's for everybody!"
Those complaing CEOs are just homophobicraycissnazihatemongertearrists.
Given this is the most politicized Fed or all politicized Feds and the garden gnome is so obviously a political tool there will be no quarter point or any point raise in December or right thru the November election.
I love the Donkey rational through 'just hold off a little longer until we reach 'maximum' employment. ROTFLMAO.
I don't think the 'everything is awesome' meme can hold up too much longer, but we'll certainly get deludged with it all thru December.
What difference does economy make any more?
Is Turkey Waging War on Russia in Crimea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia? Sputnik News Interviews Saker
http://thesaker.is/is-turkey-waging-war-on-russia-in-crimea-the-caucasus...
https://twitter.com/ScottsHumor/status/671727429023584257
Nothing that a little rate hike delay can't cure...?
Democrats working on giving Grandma Yellen some political cover for when she does not raise rates on the 16th.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/economy-fed-janet-yellen-interest-rates-216272
Oh theyre still gonna hike, boys and girls, just a cunt hair, and Goldman will reap most benefits then, and again when the rate is cut again and the printing presses set to 11.
Wait 'till after Christmas when all those crap presents and ill-fittling clothes given as gifts are returned via "free" shipping back to the merchants for full refunds. Many will just keep the cash - they are massively in debt and need every penny just to get by.
THEN we'll see what the REAL sales figures were.
Expect great bargains when all this stuff is put back on the rack. Channels are stuffed, inventory is very high. Too high.
Also, many empolyers wait until after the holiday season to lay off. Don't wanna be the Grinch.
Expect an interesting winter....
Bullish talk
THEN we'll see what the REAL sales figures were.
MSM will ignore the real figures. Unless, of course, it will be needed as a reason for the Ponzi Munchkin not to hike rates.
How could ANY CEO have a positive outlook when with each passing year more people have to enroll in healthcare that costs more and more which sucks every last dollar they have out of their pocket to possibly spend on shit made from china?
But hey they might be able to scrape together a few bucks to go watch Leo Decrappio get raped by a bear on. Christmas Day!!!
http://drudgereport.com/now3.htm
For the record I tried.
It looks as though the climate change liestream is about to collapse also:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230933
And let the hangings begin.......
We need a heftier ClimateChangeHoax Tax.
The Fed and Data Driven decisions. They probably would let the market drift lower than have a crash.