Chief executives are feeling their gloomiest in more than a year as surging oil prices, rising interest rates and international instability weigh on business confidence, a bankers' survey has found.
The deterioration in sentiment was sharpest in Europe, where CEOs appear doubtful of the economic recovery, according to a survey of companies in the US, Europe and Japan by Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank.
The quarterly survey, published today, is based on reports by bankers of chief executives' plans. The overall measure of the general business outlook fell from 77.6 points in May to 56.5 this month. It was the weakest figure since April of last year.
Ms Sandra Lawson, senior global economist at Goldman Sachs, said: "Our bankers cite interest rates, oil and commodity prices and 'overall geopolitical risk' as the issues worrying their corporate clients."
The slump in confidence was largely a result of a steep decline in the outlook of European CEOs, which dropped from 75.9 to 51.8 points, close to the 50-point mark that divides those who think business conditions are improving from those who think they are worsening. There was also a sudden fall in optimism in the US. - (Financial Times Service)
