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Economic and business confidence among Chief Financial Officers in Europe demonstrates slight signs of improvement in Q1, but for the second straight quarter, remain behind their U.S. counterparts, found the most recent survey of CFOs conducted by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. Despite a small dip in confidence, U.S. executives' optimism remains stable as they expect large gains in net earnings in the next 12 months. With expectations of substantially higher oil prices for the immediate future, CFOs overall see inflation as a mounting concern but have yet to experience a widespread impact from other world events, such as the Japanese earthquake.

Consumer prices in the OECD area rose by 2.7% in the year to March 2011, compared with 2.4% in February. This increase was driven by an acceleration in energy prices which grew by 12.4% in March, compared with 10.2% in February. Food prices continued to rise at relatively high rates: 3.2% in March (compared with 3.1% in February).

Regions are the economic engines of the world economy and are increasingly playing a driving role in the push for innovation and economic competitiveness, but disparities between rich and poor areas are growing and will require renewed government policy attention, according to a new OECD report.

The worldwide smartphone market grew 79.7% year over year in the first quarter of 2011 (1Q11), driven by a combination of vendors releasing highly anticipated models, widespread availability of older smartphones at lower prices, and sustained end-user demand. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone vendors shipped a total of 99.6 million units in 1Q11, nearly double from the 55.4 million units in the first quarter of 2010.

As the global economy recovered, worldwide operating system (OS) revenue totaled $30.4 billion in 2010, a 7.8 percent increase from 2009, according to Gartner, Inc.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index ® (LEI) for Mexico declined 0.2 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index ® (CEI) increased 0.6 percent in February.

The recovery stalled in 2010, despite record terms of trade and support from policy stimulus. Households, businesses and farmers are attempting to repair over extended balance sheets in the aftermath of a property boom. The effects of two damaging earthquakes will further retard the recovery and make the outlook highly uncertain.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for Australia increased 0.6 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) remained unchanged in February.

Despite an array of bright, vibrant car colors, U.S. customers on the coasts and customers in most European countries prefer the classic core colors – white, black, silver and gray.

Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, coupled with the disaster in Japan, threatens the sustainability of the global economic recovery, but the momentum of growth is thought to be strong enough in most regions to absorb the shocks. However, global economic growth projections are being reduced, dropping to around 4% for 2011. Despite the fact that short-term oil and gas supply and demand remains relatively balanced, oil prices have gone up in anticipation of supply shocks.