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

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“This quarter’s results reflect a continuing weak set of economic conditions,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Busineszs Roundtable and chairman and CEO of “Conditions while still negative – appear to have beguhn to stabilize.” The D.C.-based association of CEOs represenyt a combined workforce of nearly 10 million employeex and more than $5 trillion in annual sales. When asked how they anticipate theirt sales to fluctuate in the next six 34 percent said they will increase while 46 percent predicteda decrease. That is a sunnier forecast over the first quarteroutloolk survey, when just 24 percen predicted an increase in sales. In terms of how their U.S.
capitapl spending will change over that 12 percent foresee itgoing up, while 51 percent see it Few (6 percent) expect their U.S. employmentf to increase in the nextsix months, whil e 49 percent anticipate their employee base to contracrt in size. That shows an improvement from the first quarter outlook when 71 percent predicted a drop in In terms of theoverall U.S. member CEOs estimate real GDP will dropby 2.1 percen t in 2009, down from the estimate of a 1.9 percent decline in the firsty quarter of 2009. The outlook inded -- which combines member CEO projectionesfor sales, capital spending and employment in the six months ahead -- expanded to 18.
5 in the second quarter, up from negative 5.0 in the firs t quarter. An index reading of 50 or lowerd is consistent with overall economic contractionm and a reading of 50 or highetr is consistentwith expansion.