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The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the Euro Area increased 0.9 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) remained unchanged in April.

According to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, conducted April 12-16, small businesses remain hesitant to add more employees despite recent government incentives to promote hiring. When asked whether tax credits for hiring unemployed workers would encourage them to hire new employees in 2010, over half (52 percent) of respondents said “very unlikely.”

The reliance of financial institutions on emergency support through state guarantees is declining. This encouraging early indicator of a gradual return to market conditions in the banking sector is the key finding of the spring state aid scoreboard issued by the European Commission. Altogether, the Commission has approved crisis measures put forward by Member States for an overall maximum volume of €4131.1 billion. Guarantee umbrellas account for over three quarters of this volume, amounting to €3149.8 billion. The effective use of the possibilities for state guaranteed funding and of recapitalisation measures taken together amounted to €1235.2 billion, significantly less than a third of the total.

The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index retreated slightly to 89.0 in May, after three months of improvement. The Index, which measures managerial hiring activity online, had risen from 70.8 in January to 92.3 in April.

Small business employment grew by 0.1 percent in May, equating to a 1.6 percent annual growth rate, according to the latest Intuit Inc. Small Business Employment Index.

TrueCar.com, the authority on new car pricing, forecasted today that May 2010 light vehicle sales (including fleet) in the U.S. is expected to be 1,050,290 units, an increase of 7.0% from April 2010 and a leap of 13.6% from this time last year (on an unadjusted basis). May’s forecast translates into a SAAR level of 11.0 million new car sales.

The average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit a new record low this week, inching to 4.92 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.

GfK Financial Services, a division of GfK Custom Research North America, announced highlights from a new OmniWeb survey that reveals almost half of Americans (42%) prefer the government take a less significant role in the financial services industry. Comparatively, only 26% of respondents say they'd like to see more government involvement.

Economic activity in OECD countries is picking up faster than expected but volatile sovereign debt markets and overheating in emerging-market economies are presenting increasing risks to the recovery, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.