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Despite the economic downturn, U.S.-based companies continued to lead in completing merger-and-acquisition (M&A) deals with emerging or high-growth market companies during the first half of 2009, according to KPMG International's latest Emerging Markets International Acquisition Tracker (EMIAT) study.

The outlook for U.S. light vehicle sales is beginning to improve, according to a recent R. L. Polk & Co. analysis. Polk estimates new light vehicle sales in 2010 will be up 9.6 percent over 2009, to 11.2 million units, with third quarter 2010 sales estimated to be the strongest, at an anticipated 28 percent of the annual total.

Most people in the U.S. want to go back to when the 'times were good,' not realizing that the 'good times' they remember were nothing but an illusion created by the Federal Reserve's artificially low interest rates.

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ increased 0.3 percent from the revised August number, the first increase since January 2008. The index now stands at 88.5 and is down 15.6 percent from a year ago.

The global economic crisis has reversed the impressive economic growth of recent years in Emerging Europe and Central Asia, hitting families hard with higher unemployment and lost wages. Financially weaker governments will need to protect poor people while strengthening institutions and infrastructure to attract investors, the World Bank said at a press briefing at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings.

More than half (55 per cent) of midmarket businesses continue to find the credit process difficult and delayed, despite Alistair Darling's call for banks to improve lending. And, while finance is expected to become more readily available from a core group of lenders, 46 per cent of borrowers have no confidence that the cost will improve over the next 12 months.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government.

In August 2009, compared with July 2009, the volume of retail trade fell by 0.2% in the euro area (EA16) and by 0.3% in the EU27. In July retail trade dropped by 0.2% in the euro area but remained stable in the EU27.

Between 2000 and 2008, the value of EU27 exports of goods to Brazil grew by 56%, while imports nearly doubled. This led to an increasing EU27 deficit in trade in goods with Brazil, up from 1.8 billion euro in 2000 to 9.5 bn in 2008. In the first half of 2009, the value of EU27 exports to Brazil fell to 9.3 bn compared with 12.0 bn in the first half of 2008, and imports decreased to 12.6 bn from 17.5 bn. As a result, the EU27 trade deficit with Brazil fell, reaching 3.3 bn in the first half of 2009, compared with 5.5 bn in the same period of 2008. It should be noted that the fall in the value of EU27 trade with Brazil recorded between the first half of 2008 and the first half of 2009 is in line with the general downward trend in the EU27's total external trade over the same period.

In August 2009 compared with July 2009, the industrial producer price index rose by 0.4% in the euro area (EA16) and by 0.2% in the EU27. In July, prices decreased by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively.