The optimism of Brazilian businessmen reached the lowest level in the past four quarters. That's what the quarterly survey CFO Survey - Global Business Outlook reveals, conducted by São Paulo School of Economics (FGV/EESP), Duke University and CFO Magazine, with the support of BMFBovespa and the Brazilian Institute of Finance Executives (IBEF).According to the study, those responsible for the financial decisions of Brazilian companies are the least optimistic in the world regarding their country's economy. The trend is opposite to that found in other regions evaluated by the survey, such as the United States, Europe, Asia and the rest of Latin America - with the exception of Argentina and Venezuela. This consistent decline in optimism is a bad sign for the Brazilian economy. The prospective nature of our index provides a preview of the economic performance for the next quarter. Thus, this new decrease may be anticipating another quarter of poor economic performance, warns EESP professor and co-director of the Global Business Outlook survey, Gledson de Carvalho.The results also indicate a decrease in growth expectations for employment and investments and the internal concern of Brazilian companies with the maintenance of profit margins. This concern is consistent with a low growth expectation for the prices of their own products and a much higher wage growth.The survey was completed on December 5th and involved the participation of 1,016 executives, including 400 from the US, 245 from Asia, 141 from Europe, 191 from Latin America (51 Brazilians) and 39 from Africa.