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Consumer confidence in the overall economy is down this month, according to the latest data released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®. The CEA Indexes also show that consumer confidence in technology spending is down as well.

Mortgage rates retreated further this week, with the benchmark conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropping back to 5.09 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.45 discount and origination points.

Accounting professionals and small businesses are poised for progress as long as they continue to invest in new technologies, marketing and advertising and face-to-face time with clients.

Beyond.com, Inc., the world’s largest network of niche career communities, released its Fourth Quarter 2010 Career Trend Analysis Report, which revealed that the largest percentage of online job postings are for positions with less than one year of experience, capturing 78 percent of all postings across the network. This represents more than a 13 percent jump compared to entry-level job postings from one year ago, indicating a healthy uptick in the creation of jobs, particularly for this new generation entering the workforce.

The Corporate Executive Board released results from its quarterly Business Barometer survey, which pointed to several signs of economic improvement in the fundamentals of U.S. businesses. Driven by anticipated increases in consumer confidence, hiring and capital spending, the collective optimism of the more than 400 senior executives who participated in the survey boosted its sentiment index by 1.5 – to 50.6 in Q1 2011 from 48.9 in Q4 2010 – marking the second consecutive quarter of executives' improved economic outlook.

Despite a U.S. economic recovery from the depths of the financial crisis, nearly half of Individual Investors trusted financial services companies less in 2010 than the previous year. Edelman's second annual Trust in U.S. Financial Services Survey found that of the 46 percent of respondents whose trust levels declined, most (57%) cited financial services companies "acting in a greedy manner" and 18 percent maintained that the "industry itself has made the problems worse." Individual Investors are those with household incomes of at least $50,000 and that have at least $10,000 of investable assets.

Since the recession began, more workers are starting their work day on time. A new CareerBuilder survey reveals that 15 percent of workers said they arrive late to work once a week or more, down from 16 percent in 2009 and 20 percent in 2008. This national survey was conducted among 2,482 U.S. employers and 3,910 U.S. employees between November 15 and December 2, 2010.

With unemployment rates still high, analysts believe emergency savings accounts are more important than ever. However, this month's study, released by Bankrate Inc., shows that little more than half of Americans have more money in savings than credit card debt.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of private-company executives surveyed for PwC US's Private Company Trendsetter Barometer say they're optimistic about the US economy's prospects over the next 12 months. This is the highest level of confidence that Trendsetter chief executives have shown about the US economy since the second quarter of 2007 (when their confidence level was 64%) and up 24 points from the third quarter of 2010. Meanwhile, optimism in the global economy also rose, with 56% of private companies that have an international presence expressing their confidence in global economic growth, compared with 43% in the previous quarter.

Data through December 2010, released today by Standard & Poor's for its S&P/Case-Shiller(1) Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 3.9% during the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index is down 4.1% versus the fourth quarter of 2009, which is the lowest annual growth rate since the third quarter of 2009, when prices were falling at an 8.6% annual rate. As of December 2010, 18 of the 20 MSAs covered by S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and both monthly composites were down compared to December 2009. Both Los Angeles and San Francisco reported negative annual rates of return in December, leaving San Diego and Washington DC as the only two cities where home prices are increasing on a year-over-year basis, +1.7% and +4.1%, respectively.