Speaking at his alma mater Goldman Sachs’s Financial Service Conference on Thursday, NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Niederauer said he was struck by the gloom and doom that seems to have come over other CEOs.

“I was at a dinner hosted by (Bank of America CEO) Ken Lewis,” he said, of a recent soirée that brought together about a dozen or so unidentified CEOs. “Everyone was pessimistic.”

They were pessimistic about the state of the economy, the stock markets, and just about everything else, he said. The last to speak when Lewis went around the table to gauge guests’ feelings about the economy, Niederauer said he was the only optimistic one.

“I don’t think unemployment is going up to 10-11 percent,” he said, though most of his dinner companions seemed to think so.

“I am optimistic- we have a new president who’s optimistic,” he said. “The market is trading on psychology and it makes no sense.”

Compared to many CEO’s, he indeed has reason to be optimistic. For one, other CEO’s in the financial sector have had to turn down eight-figure bonuses and contend with being public enemy #1. Meanwhile, his exchange created a stir this weekend after apparent discussions with Deutsche Börse about a potential merger sent its stock soaring.

What’s more the market’s volatility has spiked trading volumes of late, and NYSE ’s floor-trading specialist-based market making system, recently considered obsolete, proved popular during the worst days of the crisis.

But his optimism might be tempered by the expected slowdown in trading volumes next year. And he said he is concerned that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission might overreact to the market troubles and over-regulate the potentially lucrative exchange-traded market for credit default swaps (CDS) NYSE and other leading exchanges are eyeing.

Investors buying freshly diluted equity has become something of a refrain in Europe. Barclays raised 4.5 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) from investors including Qatar and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui to rebuild capital and pursue growth. That drove the London bank’s shares up more than 5 percent. Existing shareholders will get a chance to buy up to 4 billion pounds of shares at a discount, with outside “anchor” investors underwriting the fundraising. The fact that the capital raising was well-flagged and successfully completed was enough to encourage buyers.

Also rising 5 percent were shares of UBS, as the New York Post reported the Swiss banking giant has hired Lazard to conduct a strategic review, lending a touch more credence to the talk that the bank is looking to split its wealth management and investment banking businesses. UBS’s share could also be reacting to the Barclays news, which shows that sovereign wealth funds haven’t gone into hiding.

Qatar, which on Tuesday agreed to sell 25 percent of its stock market to NYSE Euronext, is in talks with London and German stock exchanges about new partnerships, according to Al Arabiya Television. Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, agreed to sell a stake in the Doha Securities Market for $250 million in a bid to become the booming region’s financial hub. “Qatar is in talks with the London Stock Exchange and the bourse in Germany to build new strategic partnerships,” Al Arabiya Television reported, citing Hussein al-Abdullah, executive board member for the $60 billion Qatar Investment Authority.

Other deals of the day:

* Dalian Port plans to buy an 18.9 percent stake in Jinzhou Port for about 1.91 billion yuan ($278 million) to become its second-biggest shareholder and a strategic partner, Jinzhou Port said.

* Chinese steel mills are seeking to buy an equity stake in Australian iron ore prospector Brockman Resources, Managing Director Wayne Richards said, adding that his firm was open to an approach.

* Idea Cellular, India’s fifth-largest mobile operator, said it would buy Spice Group’s 40.8 percent stake in another mobile firm, Spice Communications, at 77.3 rupees per share.

* Sweden’s Assa Abloy said it had bought Rockwood Manufacturing, a maker of door hardware in the United States, for an undisclosed sum.

* China’s Changsha Zoomlion Industry Science and Technology Development said it had won a joint bid with Goldman Sachs and two other investors to buy Italy’s Compagnia Italiana Forme Acciaio SpA, or Cifa, for 271 million euros ($421.9 million).

* Progress Software Corp said it will buy IONA Technologies PLC , a software integration technology company, for $106 million.

* Southeast Asia’s largest property developer CapitaLand said it had paid S$250 million ($183 million) for 62 percent of a retail mall in Malaysia.