Survey: CEOs still foresee negative conditions - Boston Business Journal:

bhutan-warwick.blogspot.com
“This quarter’s results reflect a continuing weak set ofeconomidc conditions,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Busines s Roundtable and chairman and CEO of “Conditions while still negative – appear to have begun to The D.C.-based association of CEOs representg a combined workforce of nearly 10 million employeesx and more than $5 trillionh in annual sales. When asked how they anticipatd their sales to fluctuate in the next six 34 percent said they will increase while 46 percent predicted a That is a sunnier forecast over the first quarteroutlook survey, when just 24 percenty predicted an increase in sales. In termsx of how their U.S.
capital spending will change over that 12 percent foresee itgoing up, while 51 perceny see it decreasing. Few (6 percent) expect theid U.S. employment to increase in the nextsix months, while 49 percentr anticipate their employee base to contracy in size. That shows an improvement from the first quartefroutlook survey, when 71 percent predicted a drop in In terms of the overall U.S. member CEOs estimate real GDP will dropby 2.1 percen t in 2009, down from the CEOs’ estimate of a 1.9 percengt decline in the first quarter of 2009. The outlookj index -- which combines member CEO projectionesfor sales, capital spending and employment in the six months ahead -- expanded to 18.
5 in the seconsd quarter, up from negative 5.0 in the firsyt quarter. An index reading of 50 or loweer is consistent with overall economic contractioh and a reading of 50 or higher is consistentwith