Wells Fargo Quarterly Survey Shows This and Other Important Trends
Wells Fargo has announced the results of its fourth quarter Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey, which was conducted November 9-13. The overall Index score dipped to 54 in November, down from 59 in July and 64 in April, representing the third quarter in a row that the score has decreased. In addition to the quarterly trend questions, the focus topic for the November survey was credit.
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Other survey highlights include:
• Company revenue – Thirty-nine percent of small business owners said their company revenues increased a little or a lot in the last 12 months, a 10-percentage point drop from the first-quarter survey in January.
• Financial situation – Sixty-five percent of small business owners rate their financial situation as very or somewhat good, essentially unchanged from a year ago (64 percent).
• Capital spending – Twenty-six percent of small business owners said their company increased the amount of money allocated for capital spending in the past 12 months, essentially unchanged from 27 percent a year ago.
• Hiring – Seventeen percent of business owners increased the number of jobs at their company in the last 12 months, essentially the same as a year ago (18 percent).
• Small business debt – Thirty-eight percent of small business owners say they have less debt now than they did a year ago, compared to 26 percent in April 2013. Additionally, more business owners reported being comfortable with the amount of business debt they carry (40 percent), up from 29 percent in April 2013, and just 10 percent of business owners expressed difficulty paying down their current business debt, down from 18 percent in April 2013.
More information can be found at https://wellsfargoworks.com/run/wells-fargo-survey-2015-gains-in-small-business-optimism-erased.