The Trial Balance is CFO’s weekly preview of stories, stats, and events to help you prepare.
Part 1: Duke-Fed Survey, Multiplan’s CFO, and ‘The Fresh CFO’ Morning Routine
This week, reporter Adam Zaki will publish a story on the upcoming Duke University and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta’s quarterly CFO survey. Zaki will also publish a Q&A with Multiplan’s CFO Jim Head, where they discuss artificial intelligence, the M&A market, healthcare costs, and more. (3/27 and 3/28, respectively)
Chris Ortega, CEO and fractional CFO of Fresh FP&A, will be featured in this week’s edition of the 6 a.m. CFO series. Ortega, who was a competitive boxer before his corporate finance career, finds ways to tie the value of success, failure, competition, and positive energy into his morning. (3/28)
Part 2: This Week
Who says you can’t get big money in accounting? AI accounting startup FundGuard raised $100 million in new venture capital, according to a Bloomberg story this morning. The company sells a cloud accounting platform for asset managers. While the narrative has been that startups are having trouble raising new rounds, the last few days have seen several large financings. For example, two rideshare startups recently raised more than $250 million; HeyGen, an AI video generation platform, garnered $60 million; and Cohere, which develops a large language model for the enterprise, is reportedly in talks to secure $500 million from VCs (at a $5 billion valuation).
As is evident from some of the company descriptions, AI-anything is attracting interest. But more VC money will also shake loose if it looks safe for late-state startups to price initial public offerings. Last week brought some positive market feedback, as both Astera Labs and Reddit posted strong first-day returns. In this short week for the markets (they’re on holiday Friday), only three small deals are scheduled to price — Boundless Bio (the largest, at $100 million), Mobile-Health Network Solutions, and Alta Global Group.
A fresh round of inflation data hits the wires on Good Friday (the reason the markets won’t be open). The forecasts for core PCE — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure — call for a 0.3% increase in February and a 12-month index rate of 2.8%. Fed funds futures prices are implying a 65% probability of a June 12 rate cut. After this Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases PCE index numbers only two more times before that June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
The affordability of housing has been the focus of inflation discussions lately, and this week will see numbers on new home sales, pending home sales, and the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
While higher mortgage rates have cut into housing affordability, the industry is also calling attention to the lack of housing supply. Mike Fratantoni, chief economist of the the Mortgage Bankers Association, told a House committee last week that “housing supply is millions of units short of that needed to support the corresponding demographic demand.”
Earnings this week: McCormick, GameStop, Paychex, Carnival, Jefferies, H.B. Fuller, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Progress Software, Cintas, Sprinklr, Franklin Covey, Concentrix, Land’s End.
Part 3: A CFO’s Cybersecurity Action Plan
A data security breach is one of the chief financial officer’s biggest nightmares. These nightmares can be especially intense for small business CFOs who lack a chief information security officer. Steve McNally, CFO, treasurer, and secretary of The PTI Group of Companies, will offer seven practical steps to help finance chiefs of small businesses enhance or build practices to prevent cybersecurity risk. (3/26)