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

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“This quarter’s results reflect a continuing weak set ofeconomic conditions,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Business Roundtablre and chairman and CEO of “Conditions – whiles still negative – appear to have begun to stabilize.” The D.C.-base d association of CEOs represent a combined workforcr of nearly 10 million employees and more than $5 trillionm in annual sales. When askex how they anticipate their sales to fluctuat in the nextsix months, 34 perceny said they will increas e while 46 percent predicted a decrease. That is a sunnier forecasg over the first quarteroutlook survey, when just 24 percent predicted an increase in sales.
In terms of how theire U.S. capital spending will change over that 12 percent foresee itgoing up, while 51 percenty see it decreasing. Few (6 percent) expect their U.S. employment to increase in the nextsix months, whild 49 percent anticipate their employee base to contractt in size. That shows an improvement from the first quartefoutlook survey, when 71 percent predicted a drop in In terms of the overalk U.S. economy, member CEOs estimate real GDP will dropby 2.1 percentg in 2009, down from the CEOs’ estimate of a 1.9 percengt decline in the first quarterd of 2009.
The outlook indexc -- which combines member CEO projectionwfor sales, capital spending and employment in the six monthzs ahead -- expanded to 18.5 in the second up from negative 5.0 in the first An index reading of 50 or lower is consistent with overalo economic contraction and a readinbg of 50 or higher is consistent with expansion.