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CFO Brew

Kristen Talman

cfobrew.com

Fourth quarter of 2023 could be steady

 North American and Western European markets show signs of hopefulness amid a challenging financial and job market. 

Economic indicators point to steady trends for Q4

Drew Adamek

Disruptions for 2023: Place your bets

Now taking bets on a few scenarios that aren’t out of the question.

After years of unpredictable disruptions CFO Brew tries to get ahead of the curve for 2023

The dot-com bubble burst two decades ago

Tech companies are facing headwinds not seen since the early 2000s when the dot-com bubble burst. 

Finance chiefs see parallels between the dot-com bust and the current techlash 

Hundred dollar bills with stock exchange board

Economy

Natasha Piñon

Let’s do our own poll. How confident are 

 about the state of the US economy? Well, there ya go. We had a feeling.

Consumer sentiment dropped in September, while long-term inflation expectations rose, according to a preliminary monthly reading from the University of Michigan.

The confidence index dipped to 55.4, from 58.2 in August. That was lower than the 58.1 

. Meanwhile, consumer expectations about long-term inflation climbed to 3.9%, up from August’s 3.5% reading. In the year ahead, consumers expect prices to climb by 4.8%, unchanged from last month.

“Consumers continue to note multiple vulnerabilities in the economy, with rising risks to business conditions, labor markets, and inflation,” Joanne Hsu, the director of the university’s consumer surveys, said in a statement. “Likewise, consumers perceive risks to their pocketbooks as well.”

That isn’t too much of a surprise. In case you haven’t been following along: The consumer sentiment report arrived after a spate of disappointing data for the US economy.

The day before, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 

 consumer prices rose 0.4% in August, with food at home prices rising particularly high.

, August’s jobs report showed the US added just 22,000 jobs for the month. Earlier 

, the BLS revised its prior data, revealing the US added far fewer jobs than previously thought in 2024 and 2025.

So, we’ll ask again: How confident are 

Consumer sentiment drops in September 

The reading comes after a spate of disappointing news about the US economy. 

Consumer prices rose 0.4% in August, pushing the annual inflation rate to 2.9%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday. That’s the highest annual pace since the start of 2025.

Economists polled by Dow Jones were looking for readings of 0.3% and 2.9%, respectively, 

Your wallet probably already knew about all this. Grocery and gas prices climbed in August despite falling in July. Food at home prices rose 0.6%, the highest monthly increase in almost three years, 

The core inflation reading, which removes the more volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.3% in August, putting the annual increase at 3.1%. The Federal Reserve pays close attention to core inflation, and the latest reading could complicate the Fed’s future decisions on rate cuts, given “

Thus far, the Fed has held rates steady all year, moving carefully as the 

 of President Trump’s tariffs, particularly on consumer prices, remains unclear.

 showing more cracks than previously known in the job market, the CPI report makes clear the tight spot many Americans find themselves in.

Also on Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 

 (or earnings adjusted for inflation) increased 0.7% YoY in August. But you wouldn’t know it talking to US consumers.

“The consumer aspects of this are actually more problematic politically than the tariff aspects are right now for the administration,” Tyler Schipper, associate professor of economics and data analysis at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told CNN. “Even if real earnings are up, consumers don’t perceive it that way, and this report indicates that things at the grocery store are still getting more expensive.”

Change purse with a receipt coming out of it

Consumer prices climbed in August 

Your wallet probably already knew about all this. 

Courtney Vien

Tariffs. So many tariffs. Retaliatory tariffs. Negotiations. Deals. The invoking of obscure trade laws. 2025? Nope. 2018.

In his first term as president, Donald Trump placed tariffs on Chinese goods, steel and aluminum, and washing machines and solar panels. Countries retaliated with tariffs on US imports. Some of the tariffs expired, some were removed or extended through negotiation, and others have stuck around.

CFOs and finance leaders who worked through the first Trump trade war might be experiencing déjà vu. Some of the 

 the first time around still apply today. But there are some key differences between 2018 and the current round of tariffs that can make strategizing for them more of a challenge.

The biggest target of Trump’s first trade war, by far, was China. The US government concluded that China was using unfair trade practices around intellectual property, technology, and innovation. Invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, it levied a 25% tariff affecting $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, mostly mechanical parts and equipment, in spring 2018. China retaliated with a 25% tariff on $50 billion in US imports, largely vehicles and agricultural products like soybeans. In September 2018, the US added tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China again followed suit by tariffing an additional $60 billion in US imports.

This particular trade “battle” ended in January 2020 after negotiations between the two countries, in which China agreed to purchase an extra $200 billion in US imports by December 2021. (China 

But that wasn’t all. In February and March 2018, the US invoked a little-used provision of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to levy tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports, worth around $48 billion in total. China retaliated, and so did other countries, among them Canada, Turkey, and India. The EU placed 25% tariffs on more than 

 of US goods, including corn, bourbon, jeans, motorcycles, and suntanning beds. (Can tariffs be passive-aggressive?)

The US levied more targeted tariffs, meant to benefit specific American industries, as well, like on imported solar panels and washing machines.

In some ways, the first trade war hasn’t really ended. In 2022, President Biden chose to extend some of the solar panel tariffs for four more years, and in 2024 he placed new tariffs on Chinese goods including semiconductors, EVs, batteries, minerals, and magnets. Then came 2025, and, well, you know the rest.

Economic effects were muted, and mostly negative: 

How did the first Trump trade war affect the US economy? Its long-term effects are hard to separate from other factors such as the pandemic and 

The short-term effects were modest. Some US industries and regions “benefited from additional protection from competition,” Kari Heerman, director of trade and economic statecraft at Brookings, told CFO Brew, and saw “some pretty small gains in terms of employment.” But in broader terms, the US experienced “a manufacturing recession in 2019,” Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told us. US manufacturers that imported tariffed inputs, such as parts, materials, and equipment, exported less than those that weren’t exposed to tariffs, because their costs and therefore prices grew, he noted.

And US sectors that China and other countries retaliated against saw employment dip. “China basically stopped buying soybeans from the United States to the point where we had to 

,” Miller pointed out. China still imports far fewer agricultural products from the US than it did prior to the 2018–19 tariffs, Heerman told us.

“Even after Covid, we lost a lot of our [Chinese] 

,” Heerman said. “We were able to find some alternative markets, and that’s fine for some commodities, but the ones that were really China-heavy—pork, soybeans, sorghum, some of the nuts and fruits—never really came back,” Heerman said.

The tariffs the Trump administration has levied in 2025 are different from the first round. The 2018–19 tariffs were largely targeted at China, and affected “things that businesses buy rather than what consumers buy,” Heerman said. The new tariffs touch far more countries and sectors.

Consumer demand was also higher, generally speaking, in 2018–19 than it is today. Then, companies “felt more confident that they could pass on” the costs, Miller said. “The importers are absorbing a greater share of the tariffs this time around.” In sectors where demand is high right now, such as electrical equipment, 

Business leaders could have a difficult time gauging how much the tariffs should affect their long-term investments. On the one hand, “tariffs tend to be sticky,” Heerman said, because they’re legally and politically difficult to unwind. On the other hand, companies may be reluctant to make large investments in, say, factories, if they think a new presidential administration could undo the tariffs, Miller said.

In fact, both Heerman and Miller argue, tariffs could disadvantage US manufacturers that, like those in many other developed nations, source cheaper parts and labor from abroad. Placing tariffs on these inputs will inflate manufacturers’ cost structure, Miller said. When the US “goes it alone” with tariffs in a world where trade is globalized, Heerman said, US producers will face “a cost increase that their competitors outside the US don’t face.” That could make their exports pricier and thus “less attractive and less competitive on the global market,” Miller said.

Tariffs can work in certain limited cases, Miller and Heerman agreed—for instance, if a country has evidence that a competing nation is “subsidizing an industry and dumping product” in a way that threatens a key sector the first country wants to protect, Miller explained.

But they both caution that, today, broadly applied tariffs make little economic sense. Trade has just become too global.

“Our biggest exporters also tend to be our biggest importers,” Miller said. He likened the current round of tariffs to “fighting a Pickett’s Charge against essentially all the economic theory on trade over the last 40 years.”

As far as tariffs go, history repeating itself might not be a good thing.

Before the Trump trade war, there was the other Trump trade war

 The 2018 tariffs are and aren’t like the ones we’re seeing today.

No one likes it when a teacher pulls out a red pen. Revisions are rarely 

 to jobs numbers, we have a feeling the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn’t a fan of the red pen either.

 than initially reported in 2024 and early 2025, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday, fueling concerns that the once seemingly sturdy job market has harbored deeper cracks than we previously realized.

Annual revisions to payroll data demonstrated a 911,000 drop from previous estimates. That’s a decrease of over 50% from the 1.79 million total jobs the BLS previously reported.

The leisure and hospitality sector was especially hard-hit by the revisions, subtracting 176,000 jobs from initial estimates. Professional and business services, as well as retail, were also revised down significantly. Ultimately, most sectors, with the exception of transportation, warehousing, and utilities, were downwardly revised.

The corrections arrive as part of the BLS’s annual benchmark review of jobs numbers. The BLS historically updates the figures using more comprehensive data from state unemployment tax filings, which take longer than the business surveys it initially uses for jobs numbers.

A full revision, which economists expect to be less negative, will arrive in February, per the 

. But if the corrections hold, they would mark the largest annual revision to jobs data to date, 

Job growth in the US through March was lower than previously reported 

The revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics fuels concerns about a weakening labor market.  

We love an offbeat economic indicator as much as the next person. 

In 2025, we’ve got a new one to add to the list—and it might have your friends and colleagues looking like indie sleaze-era hipsters. Beware the skinny jeans.

 of our current moment has sent shoppers flocking to the same places as Williamsburg-dwellers in the late aughts: thrift stores.

In Q2 2025, thrift store visits were up 39.5% compared to the same period in 2019, according to a new report from Placer.ai, which provides retail foot traffic data. That’s much higher than the 9.5% climb seen in the clothing industry more broadly during the same time.

 amongst cash-strapped consumers has been a 

, “foot traffic data shows that thrifting’s move into the mainstream has been years in the making,” the report notes.

Looking at year over year trends, “visit increases outpac[ed] per-location gains, suggesting that the segment’s growth is partly driven by store openings,” the report said. “Yet established locations are thriving too, with average visits per location continuing to rise even against last year’s strong benchmarks.”

With new stores bringing in more customers and visits to existing locations rising, it’s likely that “thrifting’s momentum reflects true market expansion rather than merely a redistribution of demand,” the report added.

Notably, the median household incomes of thrift store trade areas also climbed, from $73,300 in 2019 to $75,500 in 2025. Additionally, the share of visits from those living outside urban areas also “climbed consistently over the past six years, making secondhand shopping a fixture of consumer culture across regions and income levels,” the report noted.

In any case: Prepare to see some vintage flannel.

The latest offbeat economic indicator could have loved ones looking like indie sleaze-era hipsters 

Shoppers flocking to the same places as Williamsburg-dwellers in the late aughts.

Finance leaders’ views on their companies’ economic prospects have been on a downswing these last two quarters, according to the AICPA and CIMA’s 

 for Q3 2025. Slightly over a third (37%) of respondents said they felt optimistic about how well their companies would perform in the next year, the same percentage that said so 

. That’s a marked decline from Q1, when 50% expressed optimism about their companies’ prospects, and Q4 2024, when 53% did.

Respondents’ predictions about their organizations’ earnings potential also slid downward these past two quarters. In Q1 they estimated their revenue would grow by an average of 3%, but last quarter they predicted a more anemic 1% growth rate. This quarter they foresaw 1.5% revenue growth, on average. Profitability predictions followed a similar pattern, falling from 1.7% in Q1 to -0.3% in Q2, and ticking back up to 0.1% this quarter.

The survey, which is conducted quarterly, polled 275 CEOs, controllers, and other senior leaders with CPA credentials at US organizations. Around half (51%) of survey respondents were CFOs. The majority (81%) of the organizations represented were private or public companies; the others were nonprofits, government entities, and other types of institutions.

Concerns about tariffs could be driving some of the CPA executives’ muted forecasts. Almost two-thirds (64%) of respondents said tariffs were having a negative impact on their organizations, and only 3% said tariffs had a positive effect. More than half (58%) said their organizations faced “moderate to significant” 

, down from the 67% who said so last quarter. Respondents reported using various strategies for handling tariffs, including raising prices (30%), cutting costs (24%), and looking into supply chain changes (23%).

 haven’t changed much from last year. A little over half (51%) said they had the right number of employees, while 17% said they had too few but were holding off on hiring, and 16% said they planned to hire. In Q3 

, similarly, 55% said their workforce was the right size, 15% wanted to hire but were hesitant, and 14% planned on hiring.

Finance leaders’ optimism has dipped in the past six months

Two-thirds say tariffs are having a negative impact on their organizations.

Alex Zank

The US added just 22,000 jobs in August, continuing its stubborn trend of “little change since April,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its first monthly jobs release since President Donald Trump 

Last month’s job gains were well below economists’ expectations of 75,000, 

 reported. The August jobs report “likely keep[s] the Federal Reserve on track for a widely anticipated interest rate cut later this month,” the outlet noted.

The BLS also significantly revised its June jobs numbers from a gain of 14,000 to a loss of 13,000. It revised its July numbers upward from an increase of 73,000 to 79,000. On the whole, that makes June and July employment numbers “21,000 lower than previously reported,” the bureau noted.

Unemployment remained at 4.3%, also little changed from the previous month. The health care sector added jobs, but the federal government and the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector shed jobs.

Friday’s jobs report is the latest batch of data the folks at BLS released this week. The other numbers didn’t tell a much better story for the US economy, though a boost in worker productivity offered a bright spot.

The BLS earlier reported that job openings fell to just under 7.2 million in July from the roughly 7.4 million openings recorded in June. Layoffs increased by 12,000 from June, totaling just over 1.8 million. Job openings hit their lowest level since September 2024, and layoffs reached a 10-month peak, CFO Dive 

On Thursday, hte bureau also revised Q2 worker productivity upward to a 3.3% increase from the previous quarter. BLS previously estimated a 2.4% increase.

 As CFO Brew previously reported, Trump’s decision to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August set off 

 in some economic circles. Experts told us they worried Trump will turn the BLS, long an apolitical agency, into a partisan sounding board.

And soon, these numbers may not come out as regularly. Trump’s nominee for commissioner, EJ Antoni, 

 the BLS should stop posting the jobs report on a monthly basis “until it is corrected.”