Australian chief financial officers are feeling more optimistic about the financial prospects of their companies over the coming months, according to new research released by Deloitte today.
The latest Deloitte CFO Survey recorded its most positive sentiment reading in the past 12 months, with 38 per cent of those surveyed saying they were more optimistic than they were three months ago.
Commenting on the research, Deloitte chief operating officer Keith Skinner said the more positive view was reflected across many parts of the survey, with the perceived levels of higher-than-normal external and financial uncertainty also dipping for the first time in a year.
Even though CFOs are still expressing some concern about the uncertainty and volatility in international markets, the firming US economy and signs of greater stability in Europe seem to have injected some long overdue confidence at home, Skinner said.
However he said no one was under any illusions about how long it would take for Europe to sort itself out, or that the US recovery was going to continue to send out mixed signals for some time.
"But it is looking increasingly less like the global recession that everyone had feared," Skinner said.
