The Economic Forecast
As we become firmly ensconced in the 2014 calendar year, confidence in the equipment finance market has improved to 54.2, a marked improvement from the 48.5 recorded in December. The improvement reflects industry participants outlook in the midst of concerts on economic conditions and fiscal issues.
The January 2013 Monthly Confidence Index for the Equipment Finance Industry,released by the Equipment leasing & Finance Foundation, is a qualitative assessment of both prevailing business conditions and future expectations for the coming year as reported by key executives in the equipment finance sector.
Many CEOs are confident about the long term propositions, with some measure of concern for the short term and ramification of many of the economic issues currently being faced by the country. Many see deman ebbing and flowing with regard to the day’s headlines.
Overall, the MCI-EFI is 54.2, and a considerable 6.1% of executives believe that they will see business conditions improve over the coming months. This is up from 5.9% in December. The vast majority, 87.9% believe that business conditions will remain unchanged over the coming year. The mmos telling statistic is that 12% believe that conditions will worsen, way down from 32.4% last month.
24% of execs expect to hire new personnel over the next four months, while 68.7% expect to see no change. The number of companies expecting to lay off employees dropped from 11% to 6%. 88% of respondents categorized the US economy as Fair, which is an improvement from 76.5% last month. 12% rate the economy as poor, which is down from 23.5% in December.
A sizeable number of respondents believe that economic conditions will improve ofer the next six months, while 84% say they expect it to remain the same. 9.1% believe it will get worse, which is an improvement from the 32% who believed so last month.
Past Predicts Future
Also in January, 20% of respondents believe that their company will increase spending on business development activities and equipment over the course of the next six months, which is down from 35% in December. 68.7% believe that there will be no change in their companies’ activities, and apparently no one believes that there will be a decrease in spending, which is markedly down from 5.9% last month.
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