Chart of the Week – Small Business Resilience

Small businesses are responsible for approximately 50% of U.S. gross domestic product and create more jobs than medium and large businesses together. How are they doing?

According to a July survey, small business optimism is about average, but down modestly from June. Aggregated real-time data from Womply, a business intelligence provider, shows trends in small business activity have been largely flat since the beginning of July. This fits with our theory that the strong leg of the post-Covid recovery occurs in the current quarter. We continue to expect the recovery in small business to be un-even, depending on the type of business. Support them where you can.

NFIB Small Business Optimism Index

Source: National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Womply, Bloomberg. Data shown is from January 1990 through July 2020. This chart is being provided as a general source of information for education purposes only, and is not intended as a recommendation to purchase, sell, or hold any specific security or to engage in any investment strategy.