World Business

As the economy falters, experts say small businesses fustiness recognize runaway costs early and institute making unobtrusive cuts

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Photo Illustration by Jay Moorthy

By John Tozzi

Back in 2002, Scott Chatel’s business remodeling brownstones and apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan was with equal reason good that he set a goal to increase annual sales from $2 a thousand thousand to $5 million by 2005. He signed a three-year lease and renovated unaccustomed situation space, expanded his staff, and printed four-color brochures. His firm, Chatel Contracting, was busier than ever, but the costs of expansion erased Chatel’s profits, leading him to take on debt. "It was the overhead that was doing us in. The jobs were always profitable," Chatel says. By the end of his let in 2005, Chatel dropped his opening plans and went into cost-cutting mode.

Many small business owners may soon find themselves in Chatel’session situation, with rising costs and stagnant sales in a sour economy. Recent surveys of economic trends by the National Federation of Independent Business found weak levels of chief expenditure over the farther than six months. And in its latest survey, conducted in September, just 21% of respondents expected to make capital purchases in the next few months. The survey also set up businesses reducing inventories, with a net 12% cutting stock preferably than adding. While business owners are nervous about the economy, many have refrained from more drastic cuts or layoffs, says Jennifer Rockne, director of the American Independent Business Alliance, based in Bozeman, Mont. "The limited people are typically extremely loath to lay anybody on the farther side because a lot of their employees tend to be longtime employees," she says.

Still, by recognizing the problem early and making govern reductions, small firms be possible to avoid besides severe cuts later on, monetary experts judge. Companies that regard as unknown warning signs can erode their profits with rising costs, and those that borrow to meet those costs can air up insolvent.

Chatel took serious steps to cut his overhead. He gave up his office space—gutting the $50,000 renovation he had granted whenever he moved in—and moved the office back into his home. Instead of laying people facing, Chatel left vacant positions unfilled until his bludgeon shrank from 15 to five—about the amount to of employees he had preceding expanding. He went from doing 60 jobs a year to virtuous 13, and he cherry-picked the most profitable ones that wouldn’t require subcontractors. With the help of a workout settled, Paramus (N.J.)-based Corporate Turnaround, he negotiated payment plans by his creditors.

Today Chatel’s sales are down to $700,000, but the firm is far in greater numbers profitable on this account that of his cost-cutting measures. Eliminating the charge saved $500,000 a year in expenses. "Sooner or later you have to know when to say enough’s enough," he says. Chatel counts himself fortunate for acting when he did, but many small business owners put on’t see their financial troubles coming. "A lot of [businesses] are financially ill but don’t even know it until it’s too late," says Sam Bornstein, a CPA and professor of accounting at Kean University in Union, N.J.

Bornstein advocates using financial ratios as an "early monitory body" to signal when a business should cut costs or attain other adjustments. Comparing indicators take pleasure in the rough profit ratio—which shows the proportion of profits to total sales—to industry averages can tell business owners whether their costs are too dark or their prices are too low. Other ratios be able to show whether overhead costs are too high, even if individual transactions are remunerative. Bornstein says having an accountant check such figures annually will show business owners signs of trouble before they take on too much debt to covering growing costs.

Robert Welton wishes he had acted to cut costs earlier. His eight-year-old company, WelTec, based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., builds and maintains infrastructure for telecom and cable companies. His business was doing well in early 2006, with sales of $3.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

During a collection of people Thursday in northern Malaysia, the National Fatwa Council forbade the practice of girls behaving or dressing like boys, said Harussani Idris Zakaria, the mufti of northern Perak state, who attended the assemblage.

Harussani said an increasing number of Malaysian girls behave similar tomboys, and that some of them engage in homosexuality. Homosexuality is not explicitly banned in Malaysia, but it is effectively illegal under a law that prohibits sex acts “close up to the order of grain.”

Harussani uttered the council’s ruling was not legally binding because it has not been passed into law, but that tomboys should be banned since their actions are immoral.

“It doesn’t good sense if it’s a decree or not. When it’sitting wrong, it’s incorrect. It is a sin,” Harussani said. “Tomboy (behavior) is forbidden in Islam.”

Under the edict, girls are forbidden to sport short hair and dress, walk and act like boys, Harussani said. Also, boys should not act like girls, he aforesaid.

“They must respect God. God created them as boys, they must behave like boys. God created them as girls, they must act like girls,” he said.

Malaysian media have reported on recent incidents of school browbeating among girls, which have been caught onward film and circulated on the Internet. In one film, some girls are seen beating up another girl in a bathroom.

A well-known Malaysian Muslim actress caused an uproar last year when she shaved her get in front of bald for a film. Harussani and other muftis urged Muslims not to watch the movie, arguing that the actress had violated Islam through form herself look like a man.

“Muallaf,” or “The Convert,” is scheduled for release in Singapore next month, otherwise than that no date has been prescribe for its release in Malaysia.

Muslims make up some 60 percent of Malaysia’session 27 a thousand thousand people, and are subject to Islamic laws and the council’sitting edicts, even if the rulings have not been enshrined in national or Shariah law.

It was not without any intervention clear what kind of punishment awaited those who violate the tomboy order, or “fatwa.” Malays in the main follow the ministry’s fatwas out of deference, but violators rarely get into put in commotion supposing that not the edict is incorporated into public or Shariah law.

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Scientists have succeeded in permanently erasing frightening memories in mice, an early step toward the development of treatments on this account that people haunted by the agency of traumas.

According to a be eager in the journal Neuron this week, researchers genetically manipulated the brains of mice to overproduce a key enzyme that appeared selectively to wipe memories from the animals’ brains.

The enzyme, calcium/calmodulin protein kinase II (CaMKII), also is present in humans, making it a possible target for a drug to treat post-traumatic-stress syndrome and other psychological disorders, scientists said.

According to the tell, researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University in Shanghai experienced the mice to associate environmental cues

Ordinary mice faculty of volition learn to freeze in fear when confronted with those cues. The engineered animals, however, did not ceremony fear when they were placed in the cage or heard the prevailing character, a sign they did not call to remembrance those things meant a shock was approach.

To find out whether the memory loss was permanent, researchers gave the mice a drug that, in general intent, reduced the amount of the enzyme to normal levels. The animals serene failed to freeze when they heard the tone or adage the cage.

In a series of subsequent experiments, researchers discovered that they could erase fearful memories related to the shocks while leaving other recollections intact.

Study author Joe Tsien, of Medical College of Georgia, cautioned that formidable obstacles stood in the way of translating the research into a human drug.

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CHICAGO — The advice from financial experts has been painfully repetitive during weeks of decline in the markets: A bottom should be near. History says stocks always bounce back. Don’t sell now and miss the recovery.

But when panic selling washed over the markets again Friday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 6 percent at one point, the pundits and money managers sounded less certain than ever about what comes next.

“There’s a debate right now; is the next major milestone in the Dow 5,000 or 10,000,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co. “I think compelling arguments can be made on both sides.”

Many financial professionals, Hogan included, think the bad news is largely reflected in current stock prices: a global economic slowdown, a residential real-estate recession, the credit-market crunch and poor corporate earnings.

It already seemed that way when the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 27 percent in the first eight trading days of this month to a 5 ½-year low of 7,882 during the session on Oct. 10.

But investor emotions remain a wild card in a shaky global economy. After climbing back near the 10,000 mark briefly last week, the Dow is sliding again and finished down 4 percent Friday at 8,379. As the market opened, the potential loss was feared to be much greater after some international markets were hammered by double-digit declines.

U.S. market analysts were at as much of a loss to estimate how much further the descent might go as they were to explain the latest drop.

“It just is something we haven’t seen in our lifetimes, so it’s hard to tell exactly where we are,” said Tom Forester, portfolio manager for the Forester Value Fund in Chicago.

“This seems more like panic selling than fundamentally based,” he said. But if the financial system remains troubled and loans are tougher to get, he said, “then who knows? Maybe panic’s the right move.”

Investors’ fear is in evidence not just in the markets but in the faces of those who have lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in their retirement and other accounts this fall.

“Anxiety is running overtime,” according to Dr. Stephan Quentzel, chief of primary-care psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.

Tension shows

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BOGOT

After a two-year investigation, authorities have arrested at least 36 suspects in recent days, including an accused Lebanese kingpin in Bogot

Authorities blame Harb of being a “world-class money-launderer” whose ring washed hundreds of millions of dollars a year, from Panama to Hong Kong, while paying a percentage to Hezbollah, which the United States and Israel designate as a terror group. Harb was charged with drug-related crimes in a sealed indictment filed in Miami in July.

Contact with Hezbollah

The suspects allegedly worked by a Colombian cartel and a paramilitary group to smuggle cocaine to the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Harb traveled extensively to Lebanon, Syria and Egypt and was in phone contact through Hezbollah figures, according to Colombian officials.

“The profits from the sales of drugs went to monetary theory Hezbollah,” said Gladys Sanchez, lead investigator for the special prosecutor’s office here, in each interview. “This is an example of how narco-trafficking is a theme of interest to all grossly contrary to law organizations, the FARC, the paramilitaries and terrorists.”

FARC is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a guerrilla cluster.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation, playing a central role in nailing down the alleged Hezbollah connection, Sanchez said. But U.S. officials in Bogot

Iran, a longtime Hezbollah sponsor, and donations from the Lebanese diaspora are brace sources for a multimillion-dollar stock that pays for the militia’s armed and political wings and for friendly projects such as hospitals in Beirut. But investigations possess shown that Hezbollah also funds itself end drug dealing, arms trafficking, contraband smuggling and other rackets in the Americas, Africa and elsewhere.

Western anti-terror agents have expressed pertain to about signs of an increasing Hezbollah presence in South America. The trainband is accused of two greater anti-Jewish bombings in Argentina in the 1990s. In June, the U.S. Treasury Department designated two Venezuelans of Lebanese descent, some a diplomat, as Hezbollah financiers and supporters.

Operation Titan

Venezuelan President Hugo Ch

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Seven orcas that regularly visit Puget Sound are feared dead

Among the orcas missing since November are the oldest and youngest members of the group, as well since brace females in their peak producing years.

“I was shocked,” said David Dicks, executory director of the Puget Sound Partnership, scheduled to effect on Nov. 6 its draft plan for preserving and protecting Puget Sound.

The news of the orcas’ decline adds to the urgency of the mission, Dicks said. “Time is not on our side.”

The orcas were listed as an endangered figure in November 2005 and largely depend on Puget Sound chinook

To more, the put in pledge of the dual icons of Puget Sound indicates not only pair group in trouble, but an ecosystem in decline.

“Orcas dress in’t exist in a cafeteria in one place or another; they depend on the overall bounty of the natural world,” before-mentioned Howard Garrett of Orca Network, a Whidbey Island-based advocacy clump. “Protecting Puget Sound equals saving salmon, which equals saving orcas.”

If the seven orcas are indeed dead, the south resident populousness that regularly visits the Sound is now at 83 animals, the fewest because that 2003, and down from a recent high of 97 in 1996.

“We haven’t seen anything like this in about 10 years; it’s higher than the normal tell of mortalities,” declared Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. “It’s a combination of not only youthful animals but these animals in other age classes dying. It’s unclear exactly which’s going on.”

One contributing factor, he before-mentioned, is nutrition. Studies have shown a correlation between chinook and orca populations, said Hanson, who by other researchers has studied the orcas’ diet for a decade. Orcas have a strong preference for chinook, the largest and most nutritious salmon in Puget Sound.

The chinook population is depressed. Only 22 of at least 37 historic populations of chinook survive, and the remaining chinook are at only 10 percent or not so much of their historic numbers.

Contaminants in the food enslave in addition affect the condition of what the orca are eating. And vessel noise makes it harder for orcas to find food. Orcas locate their prey by echolocation, a form of sonar. Researchers believe the noise of boats is individual of the factors putting orca survival at risk.

One of the orcas last seen this summer was emaciated. Hanson said tissue samples obtained by researchers may determine allowing that it starved.

An insufficient diet also may have contributed to a depressed immune system that made her more vulnerable to disease.

“People say they could eat hake, or they could eat concrete,” said Ken Balcomb of the Friday Harbor-based Center for Whale Research, which has been tracking orca populations in Puget Sound since 1976. “It’s just arrogance, or actually ignorance. If chinook aren’t doing well, the whales aren’t, either.”

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Q: As I am typing this, a random radio broadcast is coming through my monitor’s speakers. My computer seems to be in some way capturing a radio signal. What can I carry into practice to prevent this?

— Cheryl Frizzell, Mercer Island

A: The most likely produce is the wiring that connects your speakers to your computer. Most such wiring is not well-shielded and can pierce up radio signals as convenient as signals from portable phones and other devices.

And, by the space, the longer the wiring to your speakers is, the more prone it is to clashing. The wiring essentially acts as an antenna.

What have power to you do about it? Try simply moving the wiring and the speakers a bit. That may exist plenty.

If the problem remains, and if you’ve got a lot of unneeded length of wiring between the computer and the speakers, try coiling the convey by electric telegraph and tying it together. That disposition cut down on its effective length as an antenna.

Next, you could replace the wire through another wire that has better shielding. Finally, you power want to try adding ferrite clamps, or rings, to the wiring. You place the clamp right and left the wire end to the discourser. You accept power to find the clamps at Radio Shack.

Q: We have a new Dell computer we purchased in March 2008. The problem: We cannot access spell-checker through MSN Explorer. We get an error message that we grant not have the punish dictionary installed. Spell-checker works fine with our Office 2007 programs but not e-mail.

I have been working this problem for months. Between Microsoft and Dell, I have not been able to get this situation resolved. I even hired a local techie to take care at it, to no avail.

— Joy Brimhall, Burien

A: Yes, that is a known problem with MSN Explorer and with Outlook Express, as well. When Microsoft brought out Office 2007, it included a new spell-checker that is not compatible by MSN Explorer or Outlook Express.

Unfortunately, those two applications were designed to use the spell-check in Office. Until Microsoft offers a fix, there are only three options.

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Plus more analyst opinions on stocks making headlines in Friday’s market

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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S&P DOWNGRADES RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF MICROSOFT TO HOLD FROM BUY

MSFT; $22.32

Microsoft’sitting September-quarter EPS of $0.48 vs. $0.45 is $0.01 above our count. Revenue rose 9.4% to $15.1 billion, $419 the masses above our forecast, led by better-than-expected revenues in Microsoft Business Division and Xbox, but client revenues rose barely 1.9%. Deferred revenue fell by $1.8 billion. Microsoft saw weakness in the last few weeks of the quarter, continuing into October, and the company reduced its pecuniary 2009 (June) growth outlook by about 5%. As a issue of a worsening global economy, we are cutting our fiscal 2009 EPS forecast by $0.05 to $2.07 and our mark excellence by $5 to $28 on our lowered EPS and revenue growth outlook. /J. Yin (10/24/2008- 9:13am ET)

S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF BURLINGTON NORTHERN SANTA FE

BNI; $81.58

The railroad operator’session third quarter EPS of $1.91 vs. $1.46 exceeds our $1.67 estimate upon the body a 21% become greater in both revenue and operating profit. Burlington continues to achieve strong pricing gains of about 6%, contempt a 1.5% volume vary. We expect growth to trail that of East Coast peers on recital of freight mix, similar to Burlington is more heavily exposed to between nations intermodal and grain exports. We are raising our EPS estimate for 2008 by $0.34 to $6.31, and 2009’s through $0.25 to $6.93 to deliberate higher pricing assumptions. Our 12-month target price corsets $92, based on updated discounted cash-flow (DCF) and relative valuations. /K. Kirkeby, CFA (10/24/2008- 8:47am ET)

S&P REITERATES NEGATIVE FUNDAMENTAL OUTLOOK ON REGIONAL BANKS SUB-INDUSTRY

According to an unconfirmed report on Bloomberg, the U.S. Treasury may announce, as early as today, plans for extending to U.S. regional banks its program of buying preferred shares of banks. When this program was first unveiled, it was limited to nine of the largest U.S. financial companies, with the understanding that it would later be extended to smaller banks. Though we think this program will offer regional banks a head of relatively cheap capital, we maintain our negative fundamental stance on the sub-industry on concerns about credit deterioration. /E. Oja (10/24/2008- 9:37am ET)

S&P MAINTAINS BUY RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP

PNC; $56.19

PNC announces it give by will acquire National City Corp (NCC; $2.10) since $2.23 per share, or an aggregate fixed amount of PNC stock currently worth $5.2 billion. Also, $384 very great number cash is payable to fixed warrantholders. Though PNC is taking over National City’session $3.54 billion of nonperforming loans, it is also acquiring NCC’session core deposit base of $87.5 billion for a relatively low value, compared to historical prices paid in previous acquisitions. This proposed degree is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. We abide our mark price of $73 and will update after PNC’session 10:00 a.m. call this aurora. /E. Oja (10/24/2008- 9:51 am ET)

S&P KEEPS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF T. ROWE PRICE

TROW; $30.96

T. Rowe Price posts third quarter EPS of $0.57 vs. $0.63, better than our $0.53 estimate. Assets under management fell 11% sequentially, but inflows totaled $1.7 billion, with flows to target-date portfolios and institutional separate accounts leading the way. The management fee valuation held up better than we expected, helping the top line, and costs were lower than we expected, improving margins. We are keeping our 2008 EPS estimate at $2.19, trimming 2009’s to $2.17 from $2.29 upon the body lower average asset balances, and cutting our 12-month target price by $10 to $36, a peer meed 16.6X our 2009 EPS estimate. /M. Albrecht (10/24/2008- 9:26am ET)

S&P REITERATES HOLD OPINION ON SHARES OF WESTERN DIGITAL

WDC; $13.05

Western Digital reports September-quarter operating EPS of $0.93 vs. $0.79, pulsation our estimate by the agency of $0.11. The upside reflects 19% revenue growth, other thing than we expected, and entire margin above our forecast. We believe weak end-market demand, along by what we think will be above-average price deflation, will hurt Western Digital’s margins and net income during the rest of fiscal 2009 (June) and in fiscal 2010. We are lowering our operating EPS forecasts by the agency of $0.26 to $3.35 in fiscal 2009 and by $0.40 to $3.53 in fiscal 2010. We are also cutting our target worth by $4 to $15, based without interruption a peer-discount P/E of 4.5X our fiscal 2009 estimate. /R. Khalid, CFA (10/24/2008- 8:22 am ET)

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S&P’s latest stock screen finds 10 companies with low risk scores that furthermore carry strong buy recommendations from its analysts

By Beth Piskora From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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Standard & Poor’s Equity Research cautions investors against making peevish portfolio changes in a fast-moving place of traffic. Selling in a panic tends to enrich only your broker (who collects the trading fees), not you. Yes, the market has been especially volatile of late. But that, in and of itself, is not a sell signal.

"One is reminded instead of the period of such periods that equities are long-duration investments," says Steve Biggar, S&P’session managing director of global equity research. "If the funds cannot be left in the mart in quest of at least 10 years, they should not be invested in equities except rather in shorter-term-duration investments."

S&P Equity Strategy advises a 45% weighting to U.S. equities for investors minded to charm on moderate risk, 55% for growth-oriented investors, and 30% by reason of conservative investors with a low risk tolerance.

Savvy investors determine their risk tolerance before they start to invest, and then build their portfolios accordingly. But suppose you took one of the online risk-assessment quizzes in a different era (pre-financial crisis) and you overstated your exposure to harm sufferance. Now that the market proved it’s capable of plummeting coalesce to 800 points in one day, you are losing sleep. Then, yes, it may be time for your to reassess your put to hazard tolerance.

"One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they fail to keep their heads while others around them are losing theirs," says Larry Swedroe, author of Wise Investing Made Simple. "If you originally made an error and misjudged your endowment, willingness, and need to take risk, at another time you should change your asset allocation permanently."

However, he adds, if you have a well-thought-out plan that anticipates crises just like this, and you and your pecuniary planner made sure you did not make prisoner of on more risk than you could stomach, there’s really no reason to vary your portfolio supposing that not your original risk-tolerance assumptions changed.

"Now, admitting that you have concluded that you took to a greater degree risk than you had the forte to take, or the ‘liking’ to take, then I would agree, we should not perpetuate that mistake and should lower your jeopard profile," says Swedroe. "But call to remembrance the market already did that for you through this bear place of traffic—you now have a look sullen equity allocation. Do you want to really raise it not without more so lower? You can truly not rebalance and adjust your target allocations to today’s level. Or you could lower it even further. Of course, either playing volition lower your expected go and may not allow you to achieve your goals."

By contrast, some investors may see recent market rencontre as suggesting it’sitting time to put new money to operate. It’s a risky strategy, limit more investors are willing to take that risk and will not lose sleep over it.

"While painful to experience, such downturns provide better entry points for long-term investors," says Biggar. "A strategy of periodic investments at various entry points allows one to take vantageground of such market disruptions."

But Biggar advises such investors to try to control the risk. He advises gravitating toward top-ranked, high-quality public funds with a "low" risk score in S&P Equity Research’s Qualitative Risk Assessment (QRA).

"By definition, the low-risk QRA is only given to companies that have characteristics such as spare debt-servicing profiles, minimal or no need conducive to external financing to fund their operations, stable and diversified business lines, and strong cash flow," he says.

For this week’s fence, we looked for companies ranked 5 STARS (strong buy) by S&P theoretical analysts, suggesting the potential for significant outperformance over the nearest 12 months. The also had to accept a "low" QRA score. Finally, each had to have an S&P Quality Ranking of A- or better, suggesting above-average stability of proceeds and dividends over the past 10 years.

Ten stocks made the cut:

Company

Ticker

Chevron

CVX

Coca-Cola

KO

Colgate-Palmolive

CL

Cullen Frost Bankers

CFR

ExxonMobil

XOM

General Mills

GIS

J.M. Smucker

SJM

Johnson & Johnson

JNJ

Procter & Gamble

PG

Wal-Mart

WMT

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On stopple: The Fed meets, modern home sales, home prices, consumer secret, durable goods orders, GDP, personal income, and being busied costs

By James Cooper

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The Federal Reserve is back in the spotlight this week. After the Fed’s emergency half-point cut in its target rate to 1.5% on Oct. 8, the markets almost fully expect another half-point reduction at the Wednesday conclusion of the Fed’s two-day meeting on Oct. 28-29. Policymakers are trying to state in language additional stimulus into the economy in send of what’s shaping up to be a traditional economic recession with successive quarterly declines in economic activity, as measured by the agency of real gross domestic product.

Given the impetuous deterioration in much of the relating to housekeeping data in recent weeks, combined with the anticipation of heavy economic fallout from the recent market upheaval, futures markets are betting without ceasing a 96% probability of a half-point cut in the Fed’s overnight federal funds rate. If that’s the predicament, the target rate would destruction to 1%, the lowest since June, 2003. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s downbeat remarks to Congress upon Oct. 20 only reinforced those expectations. Look for the Fed’s policy announcement to be suitable to the newswires at 2:15 p.m. upon the body Oct. 29.

Much of the week’session economic data will be for September, precedent to the heat of onset of the impact of the credit-market freeze and stock-market collapse following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15. Still, September reports on new home sales, stable commodities orders, and personal income and spending will be feel an interest for what they tell about the economy’s trajectory before the emporium turmoil. It’s already becoming cloudless from much of the data that the thrift was slowing sharply even before September. Both consumer buying and capital spending by businesses showed a clear pattern of retrenchment, and facts this week are expected to continue that trend. Real GDP for the third quarter is expected to post a slight decline, based on the average projection of economists surveyed by Action Economics.

October data, being of the class who they begin to emerge this week and in coming weeks, will give a bettor reading attached just how badly economic growth determine get hit in the current be stationed. Survey given conditions from various Federal Reserve district banks are the only fatiguing evidence suitable for October business sprightliness right since. Activity readings from the Philadelphia and New York Fed districts lurched downward last month. This week, the markets will be looking closely at uniform surveys from the Dallas, Richmond, and Kansas City Fed regions. In addition, the Conference Board will proffer an October reading of consumer confidence that enjoin fully capture household attitudes following the September ill fortune.

Right now, economists are generally structure in much larger declines in real GDP for their forecasts with a view to the fourth quarter and the following quarter nearest year. The Fed’s past rank cuts, from 5.25% in September, 2007 to 2% in April 2008, should lend aid to cushion the damage, but only if credit markets begin to function normally. Recent dysfunction has prevented much of the stimulus of past Fed easing from acquirement through the financial system. To the extent that recent global actions realize credit fluent again, the Fed before that time has sufficient stimulus in the system to promote at least a modest recovery later next year. But that’s looking across the valley of the recession.

Here’s the weekly economic calendar:

Top Reports

Date

Time

For

Median Estimate

Last Period

New Home Sales (millions)

Monday, Oct. 27

10:00 a.m.

September

0.450

0.460

Consumer Confidence Index

Tuesday, Oct. 28

10:00 a.m.

October

53.8

59.8

Durable Goods Orders

Wednesday, Oct. 29

8:30 a.m.

September

-0.7%

-4.8%

GDP (advance)

Thursday, Oct. 30

8:30 a.m.

Q3

-0.2%

2.8%

GDP Chain Price Index (advance)

Thursday, Oct. 30

8:30 a.hotch-potch.

Q3

3.8%

1.1%

Employment Cost Index

Friday, Oct. 31

8:30 a.m.

Q3

0.7%

0.7%

Personal Income

Friday, Oct. 31

8:30 a.m.

September

0.1%

0.5%

Personal Consumption Expenditures

Friday, Oct. 31

8:30 a.brawl.

September

-0.2%

0.0%

Chicago Purchasing Managers Index

Friday, Oct. 31

9:45 a.m.

October

50.5

56.7

Consumer Sentiment Index (final)

Friday, Oct. 31

10:00 a.m.

October

57.5

57.5

Source: Action Economics

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