FINANCIAL TIMES: Business leaders’ confidence in their industries and the global economy deteriorated sharply in the months preceding the latest market turmoil, according to the FT/Economist Global Business Barometer.
The survey of more than 1,500 executives worldwide, conducted between June 22 and July 29, suggests that the corporate world was rapidly losing faith in the future even before panic broke out in global stock markets last week.
The business barometer, which was conducted for The Financial Times and The Economist by the Economist Intelligence Unit, found that 33.8 per cent of respondents expected business conditions in the global economy to worsen over the next six months, outnumbering the 23.3 per cent who thought conditions would improve. Two months earlier, there were twice as many optimists as pessimists… (more)
