RJ and Makay

In the past two months, investors’ confidence in their outlook for global growth and corporate profits substantially slipped, according to a May Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of global fund managers.

The proportion of respondents who believe the world economy would be strengthening in the next 12 months fell to a net 10%, down from 27% in April and 58% as recently as February. Only 9% of respondents are expecting corporate profits to improve in the coming year.

A recent nationwide survey issued by Citi, conducted by Hart Research Associates, revealed that there is a widening gap between men’s and women’s outlook for the economy. The survey found since March only 50 percent of men believe business conditions where they live will get somewhat (46 percent) or much (4 percent) better in the next 12 months compared to 56 percent of women who believe that business conditions will get somewhat (51 percent) or much (5 percent) better. In addition, men’s expectations for their own financial situation have declined while women’s expectations held steady.

Other survey findings include:

• Today 62 percent of men are somewhat (47 percent) or very (15 percent) optimistic that their own financial situation will get better over the next twelve months, down four points since March

• The percentage of women who are somewhat (47 percent) or very (19 percent) optimistic remains unchanged at 66 percent since March, the percentage of women who are very optimistic has risen to 19 percent, up four points since March

Yesterday, KPMG released the findings from a survey of 134 CEOs and C-level execs in the banking and financial services industry. The survey covered a variety of topics including views on further improvement in business conditions, employment picture, investing in growth, expectations of further write-downs and bank failures expected, other regulatory developments deemed likely, and investment management findings.

The survey results are pretty interesting.

Here are the bullets about the findings:

90 percent of the banking and financial services executives believed…