The Duke/CFO Business Outlook survey is conducted quarterly. The survey polls CFOs of both public and private companies around the globe.

 

OWN-FIRM OPTIMISM PREDICTING EARNINGS, CAPX, UNEMPLOYMENT
(included in pamphlet as three separate line graphs)

  Corp. Earnings   Capital Expenditure   Unemployment
  Firm 0-100 CorpEarning   Firm 0-100 CAPX.   Firm 0-100 Unemp.
  (x) (y)   (x) (y)   (x) (y)
02q3 66.53 922.45   66.53 1055.55   66.53 5.85
02q4 65.43 967.68   65.43 1070.13   65.43 5.96
03q1 64.72 1021.10   64.72 1094.68   64.72 6.02
03q2 62.69 1084.50   62.69 1122.78   62.69 5.96
03q3 62.81 1131.43   62.81 1154.23   62.81 5.87
03q4 67.87 1146.65   67.87 1185.53   67.87 5.69
04q1 71.54 1181.58   71.54 1220.53   71.54 5.55
04q2 73.57 1212.23   73.57 1250.85   73.57 5.47
04q3 68.81 1255.63   68.81 1279.60   68.81 5.34
04q4 69.34 1299.40   69.34 1307.20   69.34 5.21
05q1 72.15 1351.93   72.15 1328.28   72.15 5.10
05q3 70.89 1443.78   70.89 1367.08   70.89 4.86
05q4 71.70     71.70     71.70  
06q1 70.06     70.06     70.06  
06q2 72.12     72.12     72.12  
06q3 70.13     70.13     70.13  
                 
  correlation= 0.654371128   correlation= 0.737763   correlation= -0.77142

DUKE/CFO BUSINESS OUTLOOK SURVEY’S ABILITY TO PREDICT OTHER SURVEYS (bar-chart data in pamphlet)

correlations:              
US ECONt ISM SURVEYt+1 0.65      
US ECONt Bus.Rnd.Tbl.t+1 0.81            
US ECONt Conf.Board.t+2 0.87    
US ECONt Michigan.t+2 0.46            
US ECONt UBSt+2 0.51            
                 
Qtr US Econ 0-100 ConfBoardt+2 CEOt+1 ISM PMIt+1 MICHIGANt+2 UBSt+2    
02q3 62.02167183 80.7   51.7 86.7 52    
02q4 57.60382514 61.4 52.7 52.5 77.6 5    
03q1 61.65140845 83.5 49.3 46.4 89.7 77    
03q2 55.43646409 77 64.5 50.4 87.7 54    
03q3 61.67548747 91.7 67.7 55.1 92.6 104    
03q4 65.15853659 88.5 89.6 62.1 95.8 85    
04q1 71.01913876 102.8 94.3 62.3 95.6 95    
04q2 67.48167539 96.7 96.5 61.2 94.2 74    
04q3 68.93478261 102.7 101.7 59.1 97.1 79    
04q4 66.1631016 102.7 98.9 57.3 86.9 50    
05q1 67.29537367   94.3 51.4 89.1 61    
05q3 65.02   95.9 53.6 80.9 50    
05q4 67.37   101.4 57.3 86.7 79    
06q1 64.48   102.2 55.2 82.4 58    
06q2 67.21   98.6 54.4 84.4 74    
06q3 64.14   82.4 N/A        
06q4 62.85              

Note: we also performed regressions that predicted the future values of the other surveys with two variables: 1) the current quarter Duke/CFO survey value, and 2) lagged values of the other surveys themselves. The Duke/CFO survey’s predictive ability remained significant in these regressions (not shown).

OTHER SURVEYS ABILITY TO PREDICT DUKE/CFO BUSINESS OUTLOOK SURVEY (much smaller correlations, indicating that other surveys do not predict Duke/CFO as well as Duke/CFO predicts other surveys) (not included in pamphlet)


correlations: 		 
US ECONt+1 ISM SURVEYt 0.45
US ECONt+1 Bus.Rnd.Tbl.t 0.46
US ECONt+1 Conf.Board.t -0.004
US ECONt+1 Michigan.t 0.25
US ECONt+1 UBSt 0.29