Chief financial officers (CFOs) across U.S. companies said they’ve been able to navigate the challenges of increased energy costs as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but that’s done little to assuage their anxieties around future inflation, according to new Fed data.
A survey published on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business surveying 530 financial executives found a growing disparity between CFOs’ trust in their own companies versus the economy more broadly as the war in Iran ostensibly concludes. Executives reported being able to absorb increased costs, but feel more pessimistic about rising prices more broadly. While two-thirds of companies saw increased production costs last quarter as a result of energy price shocks, only one-third passed those increases to consumers. However, inflation was a growing worry, with 25% of firms naming it as their most pressing concern in second-quarter 2026, up from 9.5% last quarter. CFOs slashed U.S. economic growth projections from 2.1% last quarter to 1.8% this quarter.
