US small business confidence edges up in June, NFIB says

Small businesses in the US grew more confident in June, the results of a closely followed survey revealed.

The National Federation of Independent Business's index of small business optimism increased from 89.4 points in May to 91.0 in June.

That was better than the 89.9 level forecast by economists.

Commenting on the details of the report, Kieran Clancy at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said they were consistent with some US central bank officials' judgement that the "acute" phase of the regional banking crisis was over.

Nonetheless, Clancy believed that credit availability would continue deteriorating in the back half of 2023 and weigh on small companiues disproportionately.

Because they were captives of their local banks, that would have knock-on effects for capital expenditures, carry inventories and hiring.

As regards inflation, the proportion of firms reporting higher selling prices declined to 29%, which pointed to a "material" downshift in core services prices excluding rents over the next year or so, although it did not say much about the exact timing, he said.

The jobs market indicators contained in the same report - which were first released on 6 July - pointed to a slowdown in non-farm payroll growth to around 100,000 by early fall and suggested that resilience in hourly wages would not last.

However, Clancy noted that the decline in the sub-index for hiring intentions followed unexpected strength in April and May which might indicate that a temporary in job growth still lay ahead.

"We await the Homebase employment data for this week—the July payroll survey week—with great interest, and we’ll publish our analysis of the numbers next Tuesday."