The Atlanta Federal Reserve publishes a monthly report titled “Business Inflation Expectations” (BIE) that contains statistics from a survey of regional businesses’ views on various factors that impact profitability. These factors include unit cost expectations, sales, profit margins, and price change expectations.
As described on the site:
Approximately 300 panelists receive the survey each month. Panelists represent businesses of various sizes headquartered within the Sixth District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and sections of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Panelists range from executives of large corporations to owner-operators of small businesses. The industry composition of the panel roughly reflects the makeup of the national economy. Nevertheless, survey responses are weighted by industry shares of national gross domestic product.
A couple of excerpts from the BIE Survey (involving 190 firms) of June 21 include:
Respondents indicate that, on average, they expect unit costs to rise 1.8 percent over the next 12 months, roughly in line with the recent year-ahead inflation forecasts of private economists.
also:
The special question asked respondents to assign likelihoods to various price change scenarios over the coming year.
Respondents’ mean expectation (weighted by industry share of GDP) for the change in the average price of their products and/or services was 1.5 percent.
Here is a chart depicting responses to the question of Year-Ahead Price Change Expectations:
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StratX, LLC offers the above commentary for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by these outside parties.
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StratX, LLC (stratxllc.com) is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future business conditions, and offers corporations and businesses advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to increase revenue and profitability.