Economic upturn, elevated business confidence and tax reform will support strong investment.
The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA), which represents the $1 trillion equipment finance sector, reveals its Top 10 Equipment Acquisition Trends for 2018. In 2018, businesses are expected to make their largest capital investments since 2012, according to ELFA. ELFA distilled recent research data, including the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation’s 2018 Equipment Leasing & Finance U.S. Economic Outlook, industry participants’ expertise and member input from ELFA meetings and conferences in compiling the trends.
Among the top trends ELFA forecasts for 2018:
Capital spending will have its strongest performance in six years. Following a significant improvement in equipment and software investment in 2017 over 2016, investment will continue robust growth in 2018. Elevated business confidence, fewer regulations and a broad-based cyclical upturn in the U.S. economy, due in part to the strongest global economy in over a decade, will contribute to a healthy business investment trend before potentially waning toward year end.
Look for strengthening positive momentum in financed equipment acquisitions. Although the growth of financed equipment acquisitions last year did not exceed overall equipment and software investment growth, equipment finance industry indicators point to increased financing of equipment acquisitions in 2018. The few persisting industry headwinds should be outweighed by a historically high propensity to finance and a healthy equipment and software investment forecast of 9.1 percent.
Tax reform will help unleash pent-up demand by businesses for new equipment. Long awaited corporate tax cuts will have businesses pulling the trigger on the equipment acquisitions they had been putting off. Multiple measures of business confidence, including the Monthly Confidence Index for the Equipment Finance Industry, back the probability for increased equipment spending.
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