* Publicis shares down 1.4 pct
* Businesses "optimistic" in general on Trump -Levy
* Levy reiterates tone of caution over Q4 (adds Levy's comments on Q4, shares)
By Mathieu Rosemain
BARCELONA, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Business circles remainoptimistic about the future economic policies of U.S.President-elect Donald Trump, Publicis Chief ExecutiveOfficer Maurice Levy said on Friday.
Levy also expressed caution over prospects for Publicis'fourth quarter, saying they were "rather uncertain", due tocompanies' reviews of marketing budgets at the end of the year.
"Trump's election, following the initial surprise, wasrather reassuring," Levy said in an interview on the sidelinesof Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media and Telecoms conference(TMT) in Barcelona.
"Everybody knows that he's a pragmatic... he's not anideologue at all," added Levy, whose French company is theworld's third-biggest advertising group.
Trump's promise to invest heavily in U.S. infrastructurecould generate jobs and boost consumer spending, Levy said.
"There's an inconsistency between his promise to cut taxesand his promise to massively invest in infrastructure, butmarkets only see the big picture, and companies are generallyoptimistic as well as - above all - the middle-class ofconsumers, which feels even more optimistic," he said.
The impact on Publicis of Trump's election is likely to befelt during 2017 rather than in the fourth quarter, Levy added.
In October, Publicis had reported that its underlying salesgrowth had stalled, held back by the previously-flagged loss oflarge media accounts in the United States in 2015.
WPP, the world's largest advertising group, had alsoreported last month a slowdown in its underlying sales growthduring the third quarter.
Levy said at the time that the fourth quarter would continueto be affected by the loss of some contracts - a cautiousoutlook which he reiterated on Friday.
"We have some headwinds for which we have already expresseda lot of caution. One can expect a rather uncertain fourthquarter," he said.
Publicis' shares were down 1.4 percent in late sessiontrading, underperforming a 0.3 percent fall on France'sbenchmark CAC-40 index. (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain,Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)