One in five executives named rate pressure as a top business concern
Corporate financial leaders remain broadly confident about the US economy heading into the final stretch of 2026. However, the latest quarterly CFO Survey from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta tells a more complicated story.
The survey, conducted between Aug. 17 and Sept. 4 and drawing responses from 517 financial executives, found that 20% of chief financial officers now cite the current level of interest rates and the potential for future rate hikes as their top concern, up from under 15% in the prior quarter.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted on Sept. 16 to raise its benchmark rate by 25 basis points, pushing the target range to 3.75%–4%. That's the first rate increase since 2023 and sent the 30-year fixed mortgage rate above 7%.
Small firms face a widening gap
The survey's most consequential finding is the growing divide between large and small organizations. While rising optimism among large companies is accompanied by strong revenue and employment growth expectations for 2026 and 2027, smaller firms are moving in the opposite direction.
Twenty percent of small businesses reported financial constraints severe enough to prevent them from covering costs or pursuing new opportunities, roughly double the approximately 10% rate recorded among their larger counterparts.
"Overall, CFOs remain optimistic about the U.S. economy and their own company's prospects," said Sonya Ravindranath Waddell, vice president and economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
"Where there are challenges, they are most pronounced for small or financially constrained firms."
That divergence is playing out in capital spending decisions. A smaller share of firms plan capital investments over the next six months compared to two quarters ago.
Among those holding back, the share citing unfavorable financing conditions or a need to preserve liquidity climbed to 42%, up from 32% six months earlier, a warning that tightening in commercial and construction-related lending was already underway before the September hike landed.
What it means for lending professionals
About 90% of companies across the survey still expect demand over the next year to be about the same or stronger, a surface reading that obscures a growing cohort of businesses that want to expand but cannot finance it.
Among the 12% of firms not filling open positions or reducing headcount, over half cite financial constraints as the direct cause.
The CFO survey findings and the September decision confirm what analysts forecasting a subdued US housing market through the rest of 2026 had anticipated: borrower hesitation is not seasonal. It is structural.
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