Another Sign Companies Expect Economic Slowdown

In the latest version of the NABE Business Conditions Survey, those who were polled indicated:

Sales growth took a step backward during the third quarter of 2014, as a slightly smaller number of panelists compared with that in July reported rising sales at their firms. The net rising index (NRI) — the difference between the percentage of respondents who reported rising sales and the percentage who report falling sales — declined to 42 in October, down from 45 in the previous survey. Forty-nine percent of respondents reported rising sales at their firms from the second to the third quarter of this year; 7% reported falling sales, and 44% reported sales that were unchanged from the previous survey.

If sales growth is any sign of corporate spending, additions to employment and rising wages, the analysis was also a cause for concern:

In the third quarter of 2014, 24% of respondents’ firms raised wages and salaries — almost half the share that experienced wage and salary increases in the July 2014 survey. This signals a slowdown in the trend toward wage and salary increases that began with the January 14 survey.

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Wage improvement is one critical component of consumer spending, and the fourth quarter of the year is particularly important for large industries, especially retail and the automotive ones.

Finally, concerns about the slowdown in Europe are beginning to rise, a trend that could damage business confidence as revenue from the region begins to erode.

The survey asked whether the economic slowdown in the Eurozone, and the ECB’s decision to enact a heightened degree of accommodative monetary policy, would have a material impact on their. Of the 72 respondents, 51 percent stated that this would have a significantly negative or minor effect on their businesses’ outcomes.

A growing number of experts believe economic activity in the region has to grow before it gets better.

Overall, the report points to trouble ahead for American business, and probably the U.S. economy.

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