What rate hike?
Following a relentless barrage of recessionary industrial and manufacturing data, moments ago the Business Roundtable released its latest [4], 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.
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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.
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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:
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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 [8].
