Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the opening bell on Aug. 15, 2019, in New York City.

Things were looking good for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It had been on an eight-day winning streak before Monday's morning's decline and the U.S. stock market bellwether is still close to a new record. But you would not know that from the way chief financial officers of major corporations are thinking about stock market value right now.

A survey of chief financial officers in the U.S. and around the world shows stock sentiment from within the C-suite as being far from confident. And that's a nice way of putting it.

When asked which will happen first — the Dow will cross above 28,000 for the first time or fall back below 23,000 — more than twice as many CFOs think the Dow will fall back below 23,000, according to the CNBC Global CFO Council Survey for the third quarter 2019.

Breaking down the CFO responses by region is important.

Asia-Pacific region CFOs are by far the most pessimistic about the short-term outlook for the U.S. stock market. Eighty percent of these CFOs think the Dow is more likely to first suffer a major sell-off of as much as 4,000 points.

The view from U.S. CFOs arguably is more important, and the telling result from this group is not extreme pessimism but lack of conviction. Among U.S. CFOs the most popular response to this question — chosen by 43% of CFOs — was "not sure."

These CFOs also were more likely to say the Dow will fall back to 23,000 (30%) than cross 28,000 (26%).

Across all three regions surveyed — North America, Europe and Asia — no group of CFOs held the belief that the Dow is more likely to cross 28,000 first.

The CNBC Global CFO Council represents some of the largest public and private companies in the world, collectively managing more than $5 trillion in market value across a wide variety of sectors. The Q3 2019 survey was conducted between Aug. 21 and Sept. 3 among 62 global members of the council. The survey was conducted after what had been a steep decline in the Dow in early August, and high volatility in stocks that continued throughout the month. Stocks were rebounding during the period of days in late August and early September when CFOs responded.

It is important to not overstate the importance of a single survey finding, but it does reflect the extent to which general uncertainty over the global economy and U.S. trade policy may be weighing on short-term market confidence from within the C-suites of major companies.