P.M. BRIEFING : Business Hopes Drop, Poll Shows

NEW YORK —  Business executives’ expectations for higher sales and profits have dropped to their lowest level in four years, Dun & Bradstreet Corp. said today.

In a quarterly survey of 1,500 business executives, the sales optimism index for the 1989 fourth quarter fell to 60, down 7 points from the third quarter and 10 points from the fourth quarter of 1988, D&B; said.

“After two years of consistently strong expectations, business executives are getting skittish,” said Joseph W. Duncan, corporate economist and chief statistician of D&B.;