Business expectations fade

Monday 6 October 2014

The Dun and Bradstreet Business Expectations Survey for September is out and is beginning to fade a little. Readers should remember that this survey doesn’t really work as a leading indicator. Rather, it is an extrapolation of current conditions into the future and expectations tend to follow actual results. Sales hopes remain a little hopeful:

But profits are disappointing:

Selling prices are coming back to reality:

Capex is fading:

And so is employment:

Expectations are likely to continue to fade as actual conditions miss and Christmas sales fail to fire. Full survey here.

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.