Business Confidence

Business confidence is a leading economic indicator which measures the current state and future expectations of businesses about key factors such as production, orders and stocks. Increased or higher than expected figures for business confidence are positive and supportive for the economy and the local currency as they are correlated with higher levels of employment, investments and economic activity such as exports and imports. Higher levels of business confidence reflect increased optimism about current and future economic conditions.
In the UK or Great Britain the CBI Business Optimism in the UK dropped to -11 in the fourth quarter of 2017 from 5 in the previous period. It was the lowest reading since the third quarter of 2016, as growth in output, domestic orders and export orders slowed down. Business Confidence in the United Kingdom averaged -3.43 from 1958 until 2017, reaching an all-time high of 55 in the third quarter of 1959 and a record low of -75 in the first quarter of 1974.
In general in a robust economy, high or rising figures about business confidence should be expected. UK being in the Brexit negotiations scheduled to officially occur in 2019, is expected to witness volatile figures of business confidence in 2018, as the British Pound and its relative performance against other currencies can play a pivotal role in the exports for the UK, which can influence both the business confidence and economic growth as well.