Should the U.S. economy ride out this business cycle without going into a painful recession, we’ll of course need to credit the almighty consumer (and the federal largesse sustaining some of her spending) as well as the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. But we’ll also need to bigly tip our collective cap to the leaders of the country’s large companies.

U.S. corporations are being run more nimbly today than ever before. CEOs, CFOs and their teams can better view what their customers want, how their suppliers are helping them and which proposals deserve their capex. The painful pandemic times only honed those instincts and focused those investments, resulting in smarter decisions and fewer overextensions.

Those trends have added nuance to economic stats – sometimes to the point of frustration as adjacent data points contradict each other – and to firms’ forecasts such as this recent one from engineering firms. Companies have become very adept at tapdancing around potholes rather than tentatively tiptoeing past them. Below are some stories from across Endeavor that speak to that dynamic.

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– Geert De Lombaerde