Business is always executing a balancing act between opportunity and risk. Failure to grasp opportunity can mean ceding the advantage to competitors and diminishing the future of the enterprise. Risk cannot be avoided but must be appropriately compensated – a lesson that was hopefully learned a decade ago in the global financial crisis. In 2018, the U.S. economy is
advancing gingerly along a tightrope strung between those two poles. The ability to achieve balance and maintain forward motion is the defining question for the year ahead.