CFO Profit Optimism Hit a Record. Small Firms Aren't Sharing It.

Two CFO surveys landed on consecutive days this week, and read side by side they describe two different economies. One says finance leaders have never been more confident about profits. The other, which can split its answers by company size and balance sheet strength, shows that confidence concentrating at the top while smaller and cash-constrained firms move the other way. For any finance leader building a 2027 plan, a board narrative or a customer credit policy, the average is now the least useful number in the room.

A Record Reading, and a Crack Beneath It

Grant Thornton's Q3 2026 CFO survey, published September 24 and based on nearly 230 U.S. finance leaders, found that 80% expect their organization's net profit to grow over the next 12 months. That is the highest figure in the 18 quarters the question has been asked. The share expecting profit growth above 10% reached 35%, beating the previous high of 30% set in the fourth quarter of 2024. Only 24% said layoffs were possible in the next six months, the lowest reading since the second quarter of 2022.

What is striking is how little of that confidence rests on the economy itself. Only 46% of the same CFOs described themselves as optimistic about the U.S. economy. The profit outlook is being driven by what companies believe they control: 61% hold a positive view of customer demand, and 84% say the return on their AI investments is meeting or exceeding expectations. Finance leaders are betting on execution, not on a tailwind from the wider market.

The Fed-backed survey tells a more complicated story. The CFO Survey run by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, fielded from August 17 to September 4, put CFOs' optimism about the U.S. economy at 60.3 on a 100-point scale, roughly flat on the quarter. Respondents lifted their 2026 expectations for revenue, prices and unit costs, with mean revenue growth expected at 7.7%. But the headline index was flat only because two groups were moving in opposite directions: rising optimism among large companies was offset by declining optimism among small and financially constrained firms.

The Constraint Is Cash, Not Confidence

The size gap shows up most clearly in access to money. According to the survey's accompanying release, about 20% of small firms reported financial constraints that prevented them from covering costs or pursuing new opportunities, against roughly 10% of large firms. Among companies that were holding off on filling positions or cutting staff, more than half pointed to financial constraints. A smaller share of firms now plan investment in equipment, structures or land than two quarters ago, and a growing share cite unfavorable financing and higher liquidity needs.

"Overall, CFOs remain optimistic about the U.S. economy and their own company's prospects. Where there are challenges, they are most pronounced for small or financially constrained firms." – Sonya Ravindranath Waddell, Vice President and Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

That fieldwork closed before the Fed's September rate increase, so if anything it understates the pressure on firms that borrow at floating rates. The survey already listed monetary policy as CFOs' top concern, closely followed by inflation, with labor costs and profitability newly appearing on the list.

Main Street data points the same way. The NFIB's August Small Business Optimism Index fell 1.1 points to 98.7, still just above its 52-year average of 98.0. Underneath the headline, a net negative 9% of owners reported higher nominal sales over the past three months, a five-point drop and the weakest reading since November 2025. The Uncertainty Index sat at 89 against a historical average of 68, and the net share of owners planning to create jobs slipped three points to 17%.

Policy Gave, Tariffs Took, and Not Evenly

Grant Thornton's data also shows how uneven the policy backdrop has been. 44% of CFOs said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act benefited their organization and 21% said it caused harm. Tariffs cut the other way: 60% said trade policy shifts had hurt them, against 26% who had benefited. "When you look at it on balance, OBBBA gave to businesses, and tariffs took away," said David Sites, national managing partner of Grant Thornton's Washington National Tax Office. A company with the margin, tax capacity and supplier leverage to absorb the second while banking the first is in a very different position from one that has neither.

Even the confident CFOs are rationing effort. 43% named competing priorities and another 43% named budget constraints as obstacles to transformation, while 40% said technology infrastructure was their top need. Jennifer Morelli, a partner in Grant Thornton's transformation practice, put the discipline plainly: the best organizations "identify three to five core priorities they must get right." For smaller finance teams with thinner credit lines, that is not a best practice. It is the only way the plan gets funded.

The Playbook for a Two-Speed Economy

• Plan on your own segment, not the headline: A record CFO profit reading is an average across firms with very different access to capital. Build 2027 assumptions from data that matches your size, sector and balance sheet, and treat the national mood as context rather than input.
• Segment customers by financial strength: If one in five small firms cannot comfortably cover costs, your smaller customers are where payment delays and volume cuts will show up first. Review credit limits and terms for that group before year-end, not after the first missed payment.
• Stress-test the plan at a higher cost of money: The Fed survey closed before the September rate increase. Re-run liquidity and covenant models at current borrowing costs and make sure the downside case assumes financing gets harder, not easier.
• Separate policy winners from policy losers in the model: Quantify what OBBBA provisions added and what tariffs removed at the product and customer level. A blended margin that nets the two together hides which lines are carrying the business.
• Cut the priority list to what you can fund: With competing priorities and budget constraints tied as the biggest transformation obstacles, pick the few initiatives that move cash or margin within a year and defer the rest.
• Automate the fixed workload first: Reporting, reconciliation and compliance consume the same hours whether revenue is rising or falling. Taking manual effort out of that work is the quickest way for a lean finance team to buy time for forecasting and scenario planning.