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This Valentine’s Day, workers have growing concern that openly dating a coworker could jeopardize job security or career advancement, according to the 2010 Office Romance Survey conducted by Monster.com®, the leading global online career and recruitment resource and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc., on behalf of Spherion Corporation.

Rates for most mortgage products retreated this week, but not the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage, which remained at 5.15 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.49 discount and origination points.

Home values across the country declined again in the fourth quarter of 2009, as the Zillow Home Value Index fell 5 percent year-over-year, and 0.5 percent quarter-over-quarter, to $186,200. That marked the 12th consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines, according to the fourth quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released its Q4 2009 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, which showed that online retail spending reached $39 billion, up 3 percent versus year ago. Total retail e-commerce spending reached $129.8 billion for the full year 2009, marginally below the previous year’s total of $130.1 billion.

AutoMD™, the most comprehensive and unbiased free online auto repair resource, released the results of a survey revealing that car owners are putting many more miles on their current vehicles, 50,000 or more, than on their previous vehicle - with the majority of respondents planning to keep their vehicle until it dies. The report also revealed that the economy is influencing many to do their own repairs and pay more attention to maintenance on their current vehicle.

The EU should create a "new climate diplomacy", and its future budget must provide enough funding to protect against, and adapt to, climate change, say MEPs in a resolution approved on Wednesday. The EU's commitment to combating climate change must not falter, and it must unilaterally set a CO2 reduction target greater than 20% for 2020, despite the Copenhagen summit's disappointing outcome, urge MEPs.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for Japan increased 1.3 percent. The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) increased 0.5 percent in December.

Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace are currently 4.81 percent, down six basis points from 4.87 percent at this time last week. The 30-year fixed mortgage rates hovered at or below 4.80 percent for most of the past weekend and neared 4.75 percent on Monday.

Online recruitment activity in Europe slipped by a seasonally-mild seven percent between December 2009 and January 2010 compared to a twenty percent decline during the same period last year. More notably, the long-term trend continues to improve; the annual rate of contraction shrunk in each successive month since September 2009. Opportunities were down 12 percent compared to January 2009. Together, these signs point to subtly improving conditions in 2010.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry over the three month period between September and December 2009. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers age 13 and older, as well as the most popular forms of content and activity accessed via mobile device. The report found Motorola to be the top handset manufacturer with 23.5 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 41.6 percent market share.