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Despite economic uncertainty, an increasing number of Americans are ramping up their investment activity, when compared to levels seen in May 2010. The AlixPartners U.S. Financial Services Industry Outlook by AlixPartners, the global business-advisory firm, finds that 13% of Americans overall and 18% of self-described “investors” have accelerated their investing activity over the past seven months.

This month's study, released by Bankrate Inc., shows that Americans are nearly split when it comes to gauging their financial security. Despite the gradual economic rebound, many Americans still feel less comfortable with their finances now than they did 12 months ago.

One in six older Americans lives below the federal poverty line, according to a new government analysis which almost doubles the number of very poor seniors compared to the standard estimate.

President Obama is finishing up his State of the Union address for Tuesday evening and one of the points he will discuss is the current state of the country. According to Americans, the union is not doing so well. Just 3% of U.S. adults say the state of the country is excellent and 14% say it is good. More than two in five (43%) say that it is fair while 40% say it is poor.

New findings by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show that both employers and workers say they are not very knowledgeable about health reform, but that employers say they are likely to pass along any health benefit cost increases to workers - and, mostly, workers are expecting such cost increases.

The HSBC Small Business Confidence Monitor revealed that U.S. small business confidence remained positive at 108, a slight increase from 4Q2009 (106) but declined versus 2Q2010 (120). Although the U.S. economy is gradually gaining momentum, the U.S. small business economic outlook has retracted over the past six months amid local economic growth concerns. 80 percent of small businesses expect the economy to remain the same or increase in the next six months. The number of respondents expecting the local economy to grow dropped to 14 percent from 32 percent in 2Q2010. The HSBC Confidence Monitor also found that few U.S. small businesses plan to undertake any hiring in the next six months, with 76 percent of those surveyed expecting to keep the number of staff unchanged (versus 74 percent in 2Q2010).

In the wake of the passing of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act", companies across the country are reviewing the costs of continuing to provide employee health care benefits and considering their options. Indications point to an estimated net 10 percent reduction in access to employer-sponsored health benefits as of January 2014, according to the results of "Health Care Reform 360 degrees," a new national study by Market Strategies International, the highly-regarded global market research and consulting firm.

Citing an improving business environment, chief financial officers (CFOs) at large companies are more optimistic toward the outlook for their companies — even as their expectations on revenue and earnings growth moderate — according to key findings of the Deloitte CFO Signals quarterly survey for the fourth quarter of 2010. Overall, 53 percent of surveyed CFOs at North America's largest companies are more optimistic than they were in the previous quarter, and CFOs are expecting an average 8 percent rise in capital spending over last year.

Depending largely on age and income, between 4 percent and 14 percent of Americans who otherwise would have had adequate income to cover basic expenses in retirement became "at risk" of running short because of the housing and financial crisis of 2008–2009, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

Mortgage rates showed little movement this week, with the benchmark conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate nosing higher to 4.95 percent according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.4 discount and origination points.