Deciding whether to put on the breaks or throttle forward

Roller coasters are great at amusement parks but are not what I like to see in business. However, this past year seems like a bit more of a roller coaster than I was expecting and I am seeing it in what I read and the surveys that are coming out. We started off with a great first quarter and the confidence indexes were glowing. We saw CEO’s starting to invest more, M&A activity was bolting forward and the world seemed right again. The next couple of quarters began to bring on a different story with the CEO’s we are talking to and based on the surveys and indexes from ChiefExecutive.net and others. Just in the past quarter we have seen yet another shift and things are off and going again. Despite the drop in economic confidence as of the 3rd quarter we are seeing a rise again in companies moving forward and making investment decisions.