{"id":428277,"date":"2026-03-10T17:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/us-february-nfib-small-business-optimism-index-98-8-vs-99-6-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:25:10","slug":"us-february-nfib-small-business-optimism-index-98-8-vs-99-6-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/us-february-nfib-small-business-optimism-index-98-8-vs-99-6-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"US February NFIB small business optimism index 98.8 vs 99.6 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior 99.3<\/li>\n<li>Full report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfib.com\/news\/monthly_report\/sbet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is a minor setback but the index remains above its 52-year average of 98. This is not a market moving report and it certainly won&#8217;t be now that the focus is solely on the US-Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said: &#8220;Although optimism declined slightly, small businesses report feeling more certain in February as they look toward the coming months. High sales and increased profits made February a more positive month for many owners, but competition from large businesses is putting stress on Main Street firms as they navigate the current economic climate. Labour quality and sales improved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index is a monthly economic indicator that measures the &#8220;pulse&#8221; of small businesses in the United States. Published by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) since 1973, it is considered a leading indicator of the health of the U.S. economy because small businesses account for roughly 50% of the nation&#8217;s private-sector workforce. Despite this, it&#8217;s not a market moving report because of its volatile nature and the fact that it mostly correlates with the ISM PMIs.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior 99.3 Full report here This is a minor setback but the index remains above its 52-year average of 98. This is not a market moving report and it certainly won&#8217;t be now that the focus is solely on the US-Iran war. NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said: &#8220;Although optimism declined slightly, small businesses report [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}