The Vistage CEO Confidence Index is the only comprehensive report of small- and mid-size company CEO opinions and projections, providing a leading indicator for employment, capital expenditure, sales, revenue and profit trends. This tool provides a snapshot of current business trends based on Q4 2011 Confidence Index survey results. You can view the national results by region, industry and gender to see how the CEO responses compare to your own opinions. Then download the widget to share on your blog or website.

More than twice as many CEOs thought that the economy had improved in the latest survey compared with one quarter ago. CEOs were not only more optimistic about prospects for the national economy, but also about the outlook for their own firm's performance during the year ahead. The Vistage CEO Confidence Index was 98.8 in the fourth quarter 2011 survey, up from 83.5 in the third quarter and reaching the highest level since the start of 2011 (105.2). The 18% increase from the third quarter to the fourth quarter was the largest quarterly gain since the start of the recovery in 2009, as every component of the confidence index improved.

These expected gains prompted CEOs to plan increases in employment and fixed investments in anticipation of higher revenues and profits during the year ahead. Lingering economic and political uncertainty was still a top concern, mentioned by nearly half of all CEOs. The failure of Congress to address the national debt added to this uncertainty, with two-thirds of CEOs saying that it had negatively affected their business plans.