Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and CFO magazine conduct the Global Business Outlook by surveying CFOs of companies and subscribers of CFO magazine around the world every March, June, September and December.

My what a difference a year and-a-half can make. Here’s what CFOs worried about (in order of priority) back in December of 2017, just before our proprietary macro index logged its highest ever score (i.e., general conditions were exceedingly good).


Top Concerns for U.S. Businesses (December 2017)
• Attracting and retaining qualified employees 
• Cost of benefits 
• Data Security 
• Government policies 
• Regulatory requirements 
• Employee productivity 
• Economic Uncertainty 
• Corporate tax code 
• Rising wages and salaries 
• Employee morale


Fast forward to the present and, alas, two hugely impacting factors (red highlights) move up the list of worries on the minds of CFOs, while a couple of new potentially hugely impacting factors (yellow highlights) make the top 10:


Top Concerns for U.S. Businesses (June 2019) 
• Attracting and retaining qualified employees 
• Government policies 
• Economic uncertainty 
• Data Security 
• Rising wages and salaries 
• Regulatory requirements 
• Cost of benefits 
• Employee productivity 
• Weak demand for products/services 
• Rising input or commodity price


In our year-end 2017 client letter we expressed our bullishness, based on robustly positive, globally-synchronized general conditions. We did, however, issue one all-important caveat; an increase in protectionism (read tariff wars!!) would put our bullish thesis to the test. And boy has it ever!