Survey of Business Conditions

Tatums Survey of Business Conditions offers unique insight regarding important business indicators.

Each month Tatum takes a survey of nearly 1,000 of our executive and consulting professionals nationwide to gain insight on the U.S. business climate. The survey measures business conditions for the past 30 days and looking ahead 60 days. Our survey is unique in the ability to capture opinions of CFOs, Controllers and CIOs in a broad base of industries across the country, offering a read on the pulse of the US economy. Current and historical survey results can be found below.

Tatums Index of Business Conditions combines elements of the past 30 days and the next 60 days into one number, summarizing our view of the current overall trend. As of February 1st, the Tatum Index of Business Conditions decreased from 7.4 to 5.5.





As of February 1 the survey responses were less positive and less optimistic than a month earlier but still remained generally higher than in any month of 2009. The most distinctive declines were in the outlooks for employment and financing conditions. The most positive view can be seen in comparing where we are today to where we were a year ago. We are definitely now in the recovery zone, not the recession zone.

The question confronting all businesses now is where do we go from here. Is the turn in our Survey (and in equity markets) just a temporary correction, as a breather, after nearly a year of gains, or is this the beginning of a more prolonged period of stagnation at current levels? Averaging the past two months would suggest that the fundamentally positive trend is most likely to continue in the near future, but your responses in the next couple of months will be among the earliest indications of where business conditions are going from here.

To learn more about the Tatum Survey of Business Conditions, click on the link in the table below or download the full report here.

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