There is a lot of money coming in and out of Southwest Florida, and surprisingly, at times the SWFL economy is outperforming national indexes.  

Before, Florida Gulf Coast University economic researchers were only looking at data after it came in, from how many people were visiting to where people were buying houses and what they were buying in the store.

Now, they have a brand new tool at the Regional Economic Research Institute, helping us better see where our economy is heading in real time, all because so many people are investing. 

“We see a lot of Collier County residents getting their income from investments. about a third of residents. so one of the major investments is in stocks,” said FGCU economic and finance research student Lily Hobson. 

Hobson and Andrea Santana teamed up to help create the SWFL Stock Index, taking the 15 companies headquartered in Southwest Florida and comparing their stock performance to the S&P 500.

“On average the South Florida index was outperforming the s&p 500 from 2020 to 2022,” said Santana. “The most exciting part is just realizing how investors expectations have evolved over time.” 

Using this data, RERI Director Dr. Amir Neto says they can see how SWFL was hurt from the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, recovered, then hit by inflation and give better predictions to where we could go next.

“When the economy is doing well in the nation, Florida is doing better and Southwest Florida is doing even better,” explained Neto. “And when and the opposite is true, when the nation is doing bad, Florida is doing worse, and Southwest Florida even worse.” 

Their data is showing, after nearly three years, the SWFL economy is tracking below the S&P, not bad, but shows where SWFL needs to grow. 

“The difference is that we don’t have the same exposure that the s&p 500 has to this big tech companies such as the a.i. company, Nvidia,” said Santana. 

Out of 15 companies qualifying to track from Sarasota to Naples, Roper Technologies, the only technology company, held the heaviest weight to the local economy; industrials, healthcare, consumer goods following.

“We can’t control the area that we’re looking at. so we may miss out on some of those very big investment opportunities,” said Hobson. 

“I think it’s just important to understand what’s happening with these companies that are in Southwest Florida. You know, they may not be the biggest employers, but still they are the they’re such a big impacts. Like if you look at Hertz, which is a big part of our index, you know, we see students, they are here at our college, you know, employing students.” 

Next to technology, SWFL’s next biggest area of investment is coming from real estate. However its not tracked within the Index because no company is headquartered in SWFL.