Small business owners are actually spending again. New equipment. Trucks. Facility upgrades. Not just planning—doing.

This matters because small businesses don't spend on capex when they're scared. They sit on cash. They wait. The fact that both actual and planned spending ticked up in the latest NFIB survey tells you something about confidence beneath the surface.

Not euphoria. Just the quiet decision to invest in the business. To expand capacity. To bet on next year being better than this one.

That's the kind of signal that doesn't make headlines but shows up in GDP six months later.