NFIB Small Business Survey: Index Falls In June

The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for June came in at 103.6, down 0.9 from the previous month. The index is at the 93rd percentile in this series. Today’s number came in below the Investing.com forecast of 104.4.

Here is an excerpt from the opening summary of the news release.

The Index of Small Business Optimism fell 0.9 points to 103.6, but sustained the surge in optimism that started the day after the election. The Index peaked at 105.9 in January and has dropped 2.3 points to date, no doubt in part due to the mess in Washington, D.C. Four of the 10 Index components posted a gain, five declined, and one was unchanged. Progress is being made, but poorly communicated, and the biggest issues, healthcare and tax reform remain stuck in the bowels of Washington politics. Economic growth in the first half of this year will be about the same as we have experienced for the past three or four years, no real progress. There isn’t much euphoria in the outlook for the second half of the year.

The first chart below highlights the 1986 baseline level of 100 and includes some labels to help us visualize that dramatic change in small-business sentiment that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis. Compare, for example, the relative resilience of the index during the 2000-2003 collapse of the Tech Bubble with the far weaker readings following the Great Recession that ended in June 2009.

Here is a closer look at the indicator since the turn of the century. We are now just below the post-recession interim high.

The average monthly change in this indicator is 1.3 points. To smooth out the noise of volatility, here is a 3-month moving average of the Optimism Index along with the monthly values, shown as dots.

Here are some excerpts from the report.

Labor Markets

Small business owners reported an adjusted average employment change per firm of negative 0.04 workers per firm over the past few months, basically zero. This followed one of the best readings since 2008 posted in May.