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Small business confidence jumped 9.4 points from March to April, bringing the measure of small business confidence back to where it was at the start of the year, according to the Discover® Small Business WatchSM. The index rose to 85.1, up from 75.7. A similar jump occurred last year when the index gained 10.3 points from March to April.

The Emerging Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region will face a slow recovery from the global economic crisis in the year ahead and countries facing tight fiscal pressures should take care to target social spending on the most needy and vulnerable, the World Bank said at a press briefing at the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings.

The message from the White House and from economists over the past few months is that the economy has turned the corner. The economy is getting better, but jobs and employment may lag behind other good economic indicators. While they may hear all of this, the American public may not be quite ready to embrace this good news, nor the messenger. Two-thirds of Americans (67%) give President Obama negative ratings on the overall job he is doing on the economy while 33% give him positive ratings. This is almost unchanged from last month when 68% gave him negative ratings and 32% gave the president positive marks on the economy.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released its 2010 U.S. Online Auto Insurance report, based on behavioral data from comScore’s 1 million person U.S. panel and a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. Internet users to understand attitudes and intentions with regard to conducting auto insurance transactions online. The report found that U.S. consumers submitted requests for 38.8 million online quotes in 2009 and purchased a record 2.8 million policies online during the year, each representing an increase of more than 20 percent versus the previous year, as consumers sought ways to save on auto insurance during the recession.

Investments in “green,” or renewable energy-based companies, are becoming an accepted component of advice-driven investor portfolios, a new survey of financial advisors reveals.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) offer a variety of economic and environmental benefits over conventional gasoline vehicles, but their adoption has been slow in most developed countries. However, according to a recent report from Pike Research, acceptance of NGVs is actually quite strong in other parts of the world. The cleantech market intelligence firm expects that, out of 11.3 million NGVs estimated to be on the road by the end of 2010, three-quarters of those vehicles will be in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

In February 2010 compared with January 2010, the euro area (EA16) industrial new orders index rose by 1.5%. In January 20103 the index fell by 1.6%. In the EU271 new orders increased by 1.1% in February 2010, after a rise of 0.3% in January 2010. Excluding ships, railway & aerospace equipment, for which changes tend to be more volatile, industrial new orders rose by 2.5% in the euro area and by 1.9% in the EU27.

Despite challenging economic conditions, companies continue to invest strategically for the future, according to the 2010 US Investment Monitor (USIM) prepared by the Quantitative Economics and Statistics (QUEST) practice of Ernst & Young LLP.

Employers took 1,628 mass layoff actions in March that resulted in the separation of 150,864 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Now that health care reform has passed, President Obama is moving on to regulating the financial industry, picking a new Supreme Court Justice, education reform and other issues. Though he and the White House probably hoped for a bump in the polls after the health care debate, unfortunately, that is not the case. This month, two in five Americans (41%) give the president positive ratings for the overall job he is doing while 59% give him negative ratings. This is unchanged from March.