World Gloomiest Country Ranking

Grant Thornton surveyed executives at more than 7,200 businesses around the world for its latest International Business Report 2009.

Here is the result of Optimism/Pessimism Ranking key countries.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/01/0126_business_expectations/1.htm

-　Result is somewhat similar to my previous posted survey:
38% of American Think It is Good Time to Buy Real Estate.

-　Ranked worst are 1) Asian countries that suffer declining export such as Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong and 2) key European countries with significant slow down in real estate (Spain, Ireland, UK, etc..).

- Among BRICs, excluding Russian, they are quite optimistic on econony. Russian has been hurt quite bad due to declining energy price and subsequent meltdown in stock and currency.

- It is a bit surprising to see countries like Australia, Viet Nam and South Afria are optimistic about economy.

Rank	Country	Optimism/Pessimism Grade:
1	Japan	-85
2	Spain	-65
3	Thailand	-63
4	Frank	-60
5	Belguim	-58
6	Argentina	-53
7	Taiwan	-50
8	Ireland	-50
9	Hong Kong	-49
10	UK	-47
11	Italy	-45
12	Sweden	-40
13	Finland	-40
14	Netherland	-37
15	USA	-34
16	Greece	-34
17	Denmark	-34
18	Turkey	-24
19	Chile	-24
20	New Zealand	-15
21	Poland	-12
22	Mexico	-7
23	Germany	-3
24	Russia	-2
25	Malaysia	-2
26	Canada	2
27	Australia	11
28	Singapore	15
29	China	30
30	Viet Nam	31
31	South Africa	35
32	Armenia	46
33	Brazil	50
34	Phillipine	65
35	Botswana	81
36	India	83

As Japanese native, I am very sad to see how pessimistic Japanese are. Various research constrant rank Japanese as the most pessimistic on economy. Since economy is driven by the optimism/pessimism, I do see no way out for Japan to get out of recession for a while. IMF also downgrade GDP growth forecast to -2.6%, one of worst among G7 countries. I guess Japan has not gained the confidence in economy since the burst 80's bubble economy.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/update/01/index.htm

Anyway --- Happy Investing!!!!!