By Cyril Swale, Grant Thornton – Earlier this year Grant Thornton published a global economic report. We interviewed 5,000 mid-market business leaders – the feedback revealed a more downbeat outlook for 2019.  Global optimism was a net 39 per cent, 15 per cent down on where the sentiment was in the summer of 2018, and the weakest optimism score since Q4 2016.  But we said it was not all bad news.