GOOD MORNING, CFO
The only newsletter a CFO needs to start the day right. (Made for CFOs who don’t have time to read five newsletters)
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☕ Here’s what smart CFOs read before their first Zoom of the day…
HEADLINES & DEADLINES
Inflation finally looks like it got the hint
July CPI cooled to 0.2% MoM and 2.9% YoY, with core at 0.2% MoM and 3.2% YoY. Energy ticked higher, while pork and airfares got cheaper.
Translation: still not a confetti moment, but the direction won’t terrify your pricing committee.
Markets did their happy dance after the print. Stocks rallied and Treasury yields fell to multi-month lows, and futures priced a very high chance of a September rate cut. If you squint, you can almost see your interest expense breathing out.
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Small biz mood: best since 2021
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose to 100.3 in July, its highest reading since late 2021.
Hiring plans and labor availability improved, which could ease wage pressure at the margins. Owners still grumble about costs, but fewer are slamming the panic button.
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CFO shuffle watch: FTI Consulting
FTI Consulting announced a CFO transition. Ajay Sabherwal will step down and Paul Linton takes over as interim CFO, effective immediately.
File under: succession planning you wish every portfolio company had ready.
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CAMT relief you can actually use
The IRS/Treasury dropped Notice 2025-28 with interim rules meant to make the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax a little less migraine-inducing.
Highlights include simplified methods for partnership items and a taxable-income election to compute CAMT for certain companies.
Hand this to your tax lead before they start another spreadsheet colony.
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FAST FACTS
2.9%: July headline CPI YoY. Not zero, not doom. Progress.
100.3: NFIB optimism reading, best since 2021.
High odds of a September cut priced after CPI. Your treasury team already knows.
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CFO-APPROVED WATCHLIST
Read: The full BLS CPI release if you enjoy charts with tiny gridlines and bigger implications.
Skim: NFIB’s July small-biz write-up for color on hiring, prices, and sentiment. (Wall Street Journal)
Ping your tax lead: IRS Notice 2025-28 on CAMT simplifications. It is not glamorous, it is useful.
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MORNING HACKS
Rate-risk refresh: After the CPI move, re-run interest-expense sensitivities at 25–50 bps lower by Q4 and pair with a “no-cut” scenario. Use this to time refis and tweak debt mix.
SMB demand proxy: If you sell into the long tail, plug the NFIB series into your pipeline model as a demand leading indicator. It just turned up.
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Written by the caffeine-fueled finance nerds behind Good Morning, CFO.
✉️ Forward to a CFO who pretends they “don’t read newsletters.”