Wishful Thinking.

• Position: Christian & Timbers survey of chief executive officers - Brief Article - Polling Data

Is your CEO an indefatigable optimist, apt to imagine the rosiest scenarios for your stock and the market as a whole? Last February, Christian & Timbers, a Cleveland-based executive search firm, polled 225 CEOs nationwide for their predictions about where the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes would be by the end of 2000. Sixty-six percent predicted the Dow would hit 12,500, and 48 percent believed the Nasdaq would be at 5,000.

At the time, you'll recall, the Nasdaq was on an extended sprint that did take it over...