U.S. small business optimism index remains positive in September

Small business optimism in the U.S. continued to stay positive in September. The NFIB’s small business optimism index dropped slightly to 107.9 from August’s 108.8. The September headline print came in a bit below market projections, but still marked the survey’s third highest reading.

In spite of some back pedalling among the survey details, most subcomponents continue to be close to multi-year or multi-decade highs. Plans to add inventories and capital outlay plans saw a reversal of last month’s gains. The trend in the latter though continues to be widely positive. Moreover, ‘actual’ capital outlays rose four points to 60 percent in September.

A few of the main subcomponents still managed to make headway in September – the most marked being the share of businesses reporting current inventories as ‘too low’ and expectations for higher real sales which moved up two and three points respectively on the month.

While the performance of labor market indicators was similarly mixed, the readings among this segment continue to be widely positive. Intentions to increase employment gave back last month’s three-point gain, coming in at 23 percent. In the meantime, unfilled job openings held remained at an all-time high of 38 percent.

The share of businesses reporting few or no qualified workers, and quality of labor concerns among companies eased off slightly on the month; however, stayed elevated at 53 percent and 22 percent respectively.

Competition for qualified workers pushed up the share of businesses raising and planning to raise worker compensation. The former rose sharply five points to an all-time high of 37 percent, while the latter rose three points to 24 percent. A similar share of businesses also intent to raise average selling prices.

At 18:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at -24.6095. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex