(30 December 2020 – United States) US CFOs forecast their companies’ revenue to increase 6.9 percent in 2021 following a 0.3 percent rise in 2020.
The findings were tabled as part of research conducted with 300 CFOs of major corporations by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta. The US economy grew strongly in Q3 2020, increasing 7.4 percent over the prior quarter and recovering about two-thirds of the ground it lost earlier in the pandemic. But recent indicators point to a new slowdown in retail spending and economic activity accompanying a rise in coronavirus infections, hospitalisations and death rates.
Congress recently approved a US$900 billion relief bill for households and businesses battered by the coronavirus pandemic, passing an emergency measure aimed at buoying the country through a difficult winter and into a new year.
“CFOs are seeing over the cloud of the pandemic. Some of the growth that we will see next year will be coming from the low base in 2020” said Duke University Professor of Finance, John Graham.