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Mortgage rates moved up notably this week, with the average rate on the benchmark conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate rising to 4.71 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.36 discount and origination points.

MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, a macroeconomic report tracking national retail and services sales, today provided summary results for performance of specific U.S. retail industries in November, 2010. From a sector-by-sector point of view, sales in most categories continued to gain momentum over an already strong October showing.

comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 29 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $13.55 billion has been spent online, marking a 13-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion in online spending, up 16 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.

Fitch Ratings today published a special report stating that credit growth in China has not slowed materially from the rapid pace in 2009, despite the fact that headline data point to a slowdown. The agency states that Chinese banks have been offloading CNY trillions in loans in 2010 by artificially reducing their holdings of discounted bills and by re-packaging the loans into investment products for sale to investors.

Online advertised vacancies rose a modest 47,400 in November to 4,457,200 following an increase of 113,700 in October, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL) Data Series released today. The nation’s Supply/Demand rate stood at 3.37 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in October (the last available unemployment data)—a figure that is down from a peak of 4.73 in October 2009. Nationally, there are 10.4 million more unemployed than advertised vacancies.

In October 2010 compared with September 2010, the industrial producer price index rose by 0.4% in the euro area (EA16) and by 0.5% in the EU27. In September 2010, prices increased by 0.3% in both zones.

GDP increased by 0.4% in the euro area (EA16) and by 0.5% in the EU27 during the third quarter of 2010, compared with the previous quarter, according to first estimates released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the second quarter of 2010, growth rates were +1.0% in both zones.

Annual analysis released today from ForeSee Results suggests that retailers have reason to be cautiously optimistic about the upcoming holiday season. Customer satisfaction with online retailers on Cyber Monday was the same this year as last year, 73.1 on the American Customer Satisfaction Index's (ACSI) 100-point scale. However, satisfaction throughout the 2010 Thanksgiving holiday week and weekend was higher this year than in 2009, which bodes well for retailers hoping to see increasing holiday revenues.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had improved in October, increased further in November. The Index now stands at 54.1 (1985=100), up from 49.9 in October. The Present Situation Index rose to 24.0 from 23.5. The Expectations Index increased to 74.2 from 67.5 last month.

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.3 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of the combined hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. Output increased 3.7 percent and hours worked increased 1.4 percent in the third quarter. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) Nonfarm business productivity increased 2.5 percent from the third quarter of 2009 to the third quarter of 2010, as output increased 4.3 percent and hours worked rose 1.7 percent.