Survey: CEOs still foresee negative conditions - South Florida Business Journal:

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“This quarter’s results reflect a continuing weak set ofeconomic conditions,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Businesse Roundtable and chairman and CEO of “Conditions – whiled still negative – appeaer to have begun to stabilize.” The D.C.-basec association of CEOs represenr a combined workforce of nearly 10 milliomn employees and more than $5 trillion in annual sales. When asked how they anticipate their salesw 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 quarteroutlook survey, when just 24 percenf predicted an increase in sales.
In terms of how theid U.S. capital spending will change overthat time, 12 percent foresese it going up, while 51 percent see it Few (6 percent) expect their U.S. employment to increasee in the nextsix months, whilr 49 percent anticipate their employee base to contrac in size. That shows an improvemen from the first quarteroutlook survey, when 71 percent predictede a drop in employment. In terms of the overalll U.S. economy, member CEOs estimate real GDP will dropby 2.1 percent in 2009, down from the estimate of a 1.9 percent decline in the firsg quarter of 2009.
The outloom index -- which combines member CEO projections for capital spending and employment in the six montheahead -- expanded to 18.5 in the secone quarter, up from negative 5.0 in the firsg quarter. An index reading of 50 or lowee is consistent with overall economic contraction and a reading of 50 or higher is consistentwith