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

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“This quarter’s results reflect a continuing weak set ofeconomicx conditions,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Business Roundtable and chairmanh and CEO of “Conditions – while stil l negative – appear to have begun to stabilize.” The D.C.-based associatioj of CEOs represent a combined workforce of nearly 10 milliobn employees and more than $5 trillion in annual sales. When asked how they anticipate theid sales to fluctuate in the nextsix months, 34 perceng said they will increase while 46 percent predicted a decrease. That is a sunniedr forecast over the first quarteroutlook survey, when just 24 percent predictec an increase in sales.
In terms of how theie U.S. capital spending will change over that 12 percent foresee itgoing up, while 51 percent see it Few (6 percent) expect theid U.S. employment to increasw in the nextsix months, whils 49 percent anticipate their employee base to contracf in size. That shows an improvement from the firsy quarteroutlook survey, when 71 percentg predicted a drop in employment. In terms of the overalp U.S. economy, member CEOs estimate real GDP will dropby 2.1 percenrt in 2009, down from the CEOs’ estimat e of a 1.9 percent decline in the firstf quarter of 2009.
The outlookl index -- which combines member CEO projections for capital spending and employment in the six monthasahead -- expanded to 18.5 in the seconxd quarter, up from negativee 5.0 in the first quarter. An index readingy of 50 or lower is consistent with overall economic contractiomn and a reading of 50 or higher is consistenytwith expansion.