The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad’s (IIM-A’s) Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES), which examines the amount of slack in the economy by polling a panel of business leaders about their inflation expectations, has said that while the past five months’ survey had found around four-fifths of the firms reporting ‘much less than or somewhat less than normal’ profit, the latest round in June suggested that profit expectations are beginning to show “early signs of optimism.”