Discover Small Business Watch Index Holds Steady-ish

The transition from January to December didn’t leave the average small business owner feeling much more confident about the future, according to new data from Discover.  Instead, the Discover Small Business Watch index dropped a little on a month-over-month basis, signaling a decline in optimism.

The good news is that the drop wasn’t huge.  The Index just dipped from 91.0 in January to 90.2 this month, which sounds pretty manageable.

Plus, the proportion of small business owners who rated the economy as poor decreased a little during the same period, heading from 57 percent to 56 percent, and 34 percent of owners said economic conditions are improving (up from 31 percent in January).

Still, the proportion of owners who experienced cash flow problems rose from 43 percent to 50 percent, and obviously, some of the other numbers aren’t great in an objective sense.

That led Ryan Scully, director of Discover’s business credit card, to observe, "Hope seems to be tempered by reality this month.  The number of small business owners seeing economic conditions getting better for their businesses is the highest we’ve seen since February 2008, but concerns over temporary cash flow show the biggest one-month spike since November 2009."

Those factors could make March a very interesting month.  Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well.