According to the latest stats the US economic recovery will be modest and slower than previously expected. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's survey of 43 professional forecasters shows that the economy will grow at 2.2% annual rate in current quarter, down from the estimate of 2.8 percent three months ago. As for the unemployment rate it was forecast to make up 9.6% in Q4 unchanged from the previous estimate. Meantime, forecasters downgraded the growth in jobs expected over the next four quarters.

PC sales have surged by 23% compared to last year, pushed mainly by growing demand in Asia.  Thus, if in the first quarter of last year 66.5 million PCs were shipped, the first quarter of 2010 showed 81.5 million sales.

Online retail sales will return to growth in 2010 and to double-digit growth by 2011, eMarketer Inc. predicts. The eMarketer forecast calls for an increase in e-retail sales to over $189 billion by 2013, which would represent a 9.56% compound annual growth rate from 2009 to 2013. The firm forecasts U.S. e-retail sales this year will total $131.4 billion, down about 0.7% from $132.3 billion last year, but will grow 7.5% next year to $141.3 billion. The firm projects growth rates of 11.5% in 2011 and 10.0% in 2012, before slipping back to 9.2% in 2013 as e-commerce matures.

As chief economist and Fact & Opinion Economics, Robert Brusca, stated Thursday, despite the economy has started its recovery, Obama needs to become more of a cheerleader to help it along.Brusca also predicts strong growth in the second semester of this year, mentioning the improvement in employment volume. 

According to the Reuters analysts survey, Deutsche Bank AG's second-quarter net profit increased by 68% to 1.092 billion euros (or $1.56 billion), boosted by its investment banking arm. At the same time, loan provisions moved up sharply leveraged by economic slowdown.

As it became known, on weekends China's top banking regulator published a strongly worded warning concerning the risks of country's surge in loan growth in the first half of this year. According to the words of Liu Mingkan, the head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the risk of real-estate loans must be under strong control as the country's banking loans growth has led to accumulated risks also increasing, despite the first half of the year reflected loans expanded rapidly and helped play an important role in stabilizing the economy.

As it became known, The World Bank announced it allotted a record $US58.8 billion as a bailout in the fiscal year just ended as it scrambled in a move to support countries cope with the global economic crisis.The World Bank said yesterday, that the results of end of the 2009 fiscal year, ended June 30, reflected a 54% growth over the previous year and "a record high" for the global development institution. 

Latest figures for online retail sales turned out to be the lowest since records began, revealing growth of just 8% for May 2009. Online sales for May 2009 totalled over £3.7bn. Growth for May 2009 represented a 3.5% dip compared to April 2009 as people abandoned their computers to enjoy the Bank Holiday sunshine. But there is one positive impact - sales in the health and beauty sector shot up by 14.9% month on month.

The Monster Employment Index Europe, that provides monthly insight into online recruitment trends across the European Union, revealed recession in March.Thus The Monster Employment Index Europe dropped 3 points in March as a result of fluctuations across the major European markets. Yearly the Index remained down, dropping 58 points, or 34% since March 2008.

On Wednesday the projections for the economic growth in China during 2009 were lowered by the World Bank with the warning made to the Chinese government that the bank will be impeding China’s ambitious goals to boost the economy to higher levels.

Annual revenue of eBay is expected to increase to $10 billion to $12 billion in 2011 in comparison with $8.5 billion in 2008 revenue, online auction giant announced on Wednesday.The leader in ecommerce sector eBay expects significant growth from its payment service PayPal and Internet telecom service Skype over the next three years.The company expects PayPal revenue to reach $4 billion to $5 billion in 2011, compared with $2.4 billion in 2008. eBay believes that Skype revenue may come to stand for over $1 billion in 2011.

Group of the leading economists, implementing a new survey, presents a forecast that shows a far deeper and more painful recession ahead in the first half of the year, but a modest pickup in the second half of 2009, followed by a solid recovery in 2010.

ClickandBuy facilitated a total of more than 900 million euros in internet payment transaction in 2008. The company is anticipating a further growth in the volume transactions and cross the 1 billion euro line in 2009. Currently, more than 14,000 dealers and about 12,000,000 end customers the company’s services. ClickandBuy holds e-money license validated inside Europe. The company is planning to enter new international markets and expand its business operations inside Europe in 2009.

Online retail spending declined 3 percent in Q4 2008 compared to last year, reports comScore. Though the overall ecommerce sales grew by 6 percent to $130.1 billion in 2008, the growth is considerably lower than in preceding years.Retail e-commerce growth in the U.S. has declined in the past two years. Quarterly growth rates had remained in the around of 20 percent in 2007.

MasterCard Incorporated disclosed its full-year and fourth-quarter 2008 operating results for Europe. According to the results the company has shown a double-digit growth in spite of hard economic situation throughout the world. For the full-year 2008, the European region reported double-digit growth in company gross euro volume with 15.5 %, purchase volume with 15.7 %, purchase transactions with 13.2 % and cash transactions with 10.5 %, against 2007. European customers made 6.4 billion purchase transactions using MasterCard cards in 2008.