83% of CFOs say U.S. stocks are overvalued, even as optimism about their companies rises

Good morning. CFOs are feeling better about their own companies even as they become more cautious about markets and the broader economy. And concern is growing about the technology they’re racing to deploy. 

Deloitte’s Q3 2026 CFO Signals survey, which polled 200 North American finance chiefs at companies with at least $1 billion in revenue, found that the CFO Confidence Score climbed to 6.1 from 5.9 last quarter, moving back into “high” territory.

Ninety percent of respondents said they were more optimistic about their companies’ financial prospects, even as risk appetite cooled slightly, with 53% saying now is a good time to take greater risks, down from 59% in Q2. But Ed Hardy, U.S. financial services leader at Deloitte, noted that CFOs’ views on the relative attractiveness of debt and equity financing changed little.

More striking to Hardy was the gap between how CFOs view their own businesses and how they view the broader market. There was a sharp increase in the share of CFOs who believe U.S. equity markets are overvalued: 83%, compared with 49% in Q2. Despite that, equity attractiveness remained flat in Q3, while debt attractiveness increased four percentage points.

“If they feel it’s overvalued, buying might not be the most objective thing to do,” Hardy told me, adding that elevated valuations are prompting finance chiefs to “search for the highest use of capital,” which is a dynamic he connects to rising investment in AI.

AI and technology are also becoming a growing source of both opportunity and risk. Technology deployment, including generative AI, was among CFOs’ leading internal........

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