Deloitte’s latest CFO Signals report, a quarterly survey of North America’s leading chief financial officers, finds that CFO confidence rebounded this quarter even as executives remain measured in their assessment of the broader economy. Against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, the Q3 report reveals CFOs remain optimistic about their own companies, even as their appetite for risk cools and technology-related concerns rise.
Highlights include:
- CFO confidence inches back into “high” territory: The CFO Confidence Score rose to 6.1 from 5.9 in Q2, returning to the “high” confidence range.
- Company optimism remains resilient: 90% of surveyed CFOs say they are optimistic about their companies’ financial prospects; 37.5% rate the current North American economy favorably.
- Technology risks stand out among business challenges: Technology deployment, including GenAI, was CFOs’ most-cited internal concern (50%), while cybersecurity topped the list of external concerns (50%).
- Slight cooling on CFOs’ appetite for risk: 53% of CFOs say now is a good time to take greater risks, compared to 59% last quarter.
- Financing remains relatively attractive: 55% of CFOs say equity financing is attractive, while 50% say the same about debt financing, suggesting CFOs continue to see multiple paths to capital amid a shifting risk appetite.
- Growth expectations are mixed: CFOs expect revenue to grow 4.6% and capital expenditures to increase 4.3% over the next year, both modestly higher than last quarter, while expectations for earnings, dividends, domestic wages and salaries, and domestic hiring declined.
- Scale: Introduced in Q2/25, the CFO Confidence Score measures CFO confidence in economic conditions and capital markets. The range of the score is 1 to10, with 8 to 10 indicating very high confidence.
