The Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation’s Monthly Confidence Index.Confidence in the equipment finance market declined slightly from April to May, according to the Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation’s Monthly Confidence Index.
The foundation, a non-profit that conducts research on the equipment leasing and finance industry, reported a 67.5 index, which is slightly lower than the April index of 70.7. The index is determined by a qualitative assessment of the $903 billion equipment finance industry, through a comprehensive survey of key equipment finance executives.
This month’s findings included:
- Over the next four months, 30.8 percent of executives believe business conditions will improve, down from April’s number of 44.4 percent. While none reported they believed conditions would worsen, 69.2 percent believe conditions will remain the same.
- Just 3.9 percent of respondents evaluated the U.S. economy as excellent, down from 7.4 percent in April. The overwhelming majority of executives – 96.2 percent – rated the economy as fair, while no respondents evaluated the economy as poor.
- The number of survey respondents who believe U.S. economic conditions will improve over the next six months has declined to 34.6 percent from 40.7 percent who believed so in April. The percentage of survey respondents who believe the economy will stay the same jumped to 65.4 percent from 55.6 percent in April. Although 3.7 percent responded in April they believed conditions would worsen, that number declined to zero in May.
For more information from the MCI, visit the report on the foundation’s website.
