NFIB Small Business Optimism For Third Month Straight

Ted

FYI: Ouch. The above line from this month’s NFIB monthly economic trends report doesn’t pull any punches regarding the state of sentiment among small businesses in the US. As the chart below illustrates, the NFIB’s overall index of small business optimism has declined for three straight months, extending what has been its largest peak to trough decline of the current economic expansion, and taking the index down to its lowest level since February 2014. Not only has the headline index declined for three straight months, but it has also missed expectations in each of those months.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/nfib-small-business-optimism-for-third-month-straight/

heezsafe

@Ted I think you intended to include the word "Declines" after Optimism, did you not?

Perhaps this is where the increasing pessimism declining optimism is coming from:

for the rest of the over-indebted American business world, the outlook may be even gloomier. These are the smaller companies that are not showing up in these statistics because they’re too small to issue bonds and aren’t rated by Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P. They’re struggling in a very tough environment marked by slack demand. And bankruptcies have soared.

Total commercial bankruptcy filings by corporations of all sizes and other business entities in the first quarter jumped 24% from a year ago, to 9,208, according to American Bankruptcy Institute. Of that total, commercial chapter 11 filings rose 9% to 1,419. In March, it was even worse: total commercial bankruptcy filings jumped 25% year-over-year to 3,351.

" [...] we are also seeing a rise in individual chapter 11 filings,” explained ABI [American Bankruptcy Institute] Executive Director Samuel Gerdano.

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/04/11/us-commercial-bankruptcies-chapter-11-soar/