Economic leaders show less pessimism but remain cautious about spending

It’s fair to say that Britain’s finance chiefs are feeling optimistic, as revealed by the latest Deloitte survey. Though it might be a bit of a stretch to suggest they’re bouncing around like the March hare, the CFO Survey, which includes responses from 64 finance directors, including 11 FTSE 100 and 24 FTSE 250 companies – which make up over 10% of the London Stock Exchange by market value – indicates that a net 25% of them feels more confident about their businesses’ financial prospects than they did three months ago. For context, the long-term average of this series is minus two, which over the past year has been significantly below that, making the plus 25 a notable improvement and the most significant increase in sentiment since the Covid-19 vaccination began rolling out.