Survey Finds Top Executives Pessimistic

Confidence in the U.S. economy among the nation’s top executives during the fourth quarter of last year plunged to its lowest level in more than 20 years, and their short-term outlook remains pessimistic, a new survey shows. The Conference Board’s business confidence survey, which measures corporate chiefs’ attitudes about the overall U.S. economy and their respective industries, dropped 16 points from the third quarter to a reading of 31. This is the lowest level of confidence recorded by the influential private research firm since the second quarter of 1980, when the reading was 29.