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Mortgage rates were down for the third week in a row, with the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate falling to 5.07 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.42 discount and origination points.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released the 2010 addition of its annual State of Online Banking Report. The study, based on a survey of more than 2,500 U.S. Internet users and behavioral data from comScore’s 1 million person online consumer panel, found that bank and credit card institutions experienced a decline in customer satisfaction for the second consecutive year as the economic environment weighed down consumer sentiment. On the positive side, the study also found that 64 percent of Americans now utilize online bill pay, an increase of 19 percentage points versus the previous year.

Employers initiated 1,564 mass layoff events in the first quarter of 2010 that resulted in the separation of 221,150 workers from their jobs for at least 31 days, according to preliminary figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both events and separations decreased by record amounts from the same period a year earlier, when layoffs and associated separated workers reached program highs (with data available back to 1995).

The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index rose for the second consecutive month in April and remains at its highest level in six years. The Index attempts to track consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending.

There were 2.7 million job openings on the last business day of March 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The job openings rate was unchanged over the month at 2.0 percent. The hires rate (3.3 percent) was little changed, and the separations rate (3.1 percent) was unchanged in March. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by industry and geographic region.

Building on last month's improvements, the personal financial status of the American consumer is on the rise, according to the latest results from the Consumer Reports Index.

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) increased again in April for the eighth consecutive month. The index now stands at 94.7, up from March's revised figure of 93.9. The index is up 7.1 percent from a year ago.

Kronos® Incorporated announced the May release of the Kronos Retail Labor Index™, a family of metrics and indices that analyze the relationship between the demand and supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector, and provide a distinct and early indicator of the overall state of the economy. The May 2010 release includes data for April 2010.

Home values in most U.S. markets continued to decline in the first quarter of 2010, as the Zillow Home Value Index fell 3.8 percent year-over-year, and 1 percent quarter-over-quarter, to $183,700. However, home values in several large California markets show signs of having reached a bottom, according to the first quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

The Real Estate Roundtable's latest quarterly "Sentiment Survey" suggests that the decline in commercial real estate (CRE) markets and property values has begun to level off — and that capital is becoming somewhat more available — although tremendous uncertainty remains about the pace and strength of recovery, with numerous respondents emphasizing the need for much stronger job creation.