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Americans are gaining faith that the economy is on the upswing. The monthly Consumer Confidence Index surged to the highest level since April and is approaching a post-recession peak.

The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose almost 10 points to 64.5, up from a revised 55.2 in November. Analysts had expected 59. The level is close to the post-recession peak of 72, which the index reached in February.

The surge in December builds on another big increase in November, when the index rose almost 15 points from the month before.

One component of the index that measures how shoppers feel now about the economy, rose to 46.7, up from 38.3 in November. The other barometer, which measures how shoppers feel about the next six months, rose to 76.4, up from 66.4.

Improving confidence is in line with retail reports of a decent holiday shopping season.

Economists watch the confidence numbers closely because consumer spending _ including items like health care _ accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. Still, the December confidence reading is below the 90 level that indicates an economy on solid footing.

Analysts are cautious about whether the gains are the start of something more sustainable.

“While consumers are ending the year in a somewhat more upbeat mood, it is too soon to tell if this is a rebound from earlier declines or a sustainable shift in attitudes,” Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.

Even with the increase in confidence, shoppers are still nervous about their jobs and the overall economy according to the preliminary results of the survey, which ran Dec pay day loans. 1-14.

Those claiming jobs are “plentiful” increased to 6.7 percent from 5.6 percent, while those claiming jobs are “hard to get” decreased to 41.8 percent from 43.0 percent. Those anticipating more jobs in the months ahead increased to 13.3 percent from 12.4 percent while those anticipating fewer jobs declined to 20.2 percent from 23.8 percent.

That’s because while the job market is steadily improving, unemployment _ at 8.6 percent _ is still high. And housing remains wobbly. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of home prices, also released Tuesday, dropped in October in 19 of the 20 cities it tracks. It was a second straight declining month, further evidence of a bumpy housing recovery.

Heading into the holiday season, store executives were nervous about consumers’ willingness to spend. Merchants offered big discounts on holiday merchandise and lured shoppers with expanded hours.

After a record spending spree over Thanksgiving weekend, the season’s semi-official start, shoppers retreated for a few weeks. Then stores saw a surge of shopping the week before Christmas as consumers took advantage of better discounts.

The National Retail Federation now expects a 3.8 percent increase in holiday sales, up from its original forecast of 2.8 percent made in September when the economy’s recovery looked more uncertain. More data will be released this week that will offer more clues about stores’ last-minutes sales surge before Christmas.

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Asian stocks fell Wednesday after the U.S. lowered its economic growth estimate for the third quarter and climbing yields on Spanish bonds magnified worries over Europe’s debt load.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2 percent to 17,882.10. South Korea’s Kospi lost 2 percent to 1,789.83 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.6 percent to 4,066.80. Japanese stock markets were closed for a public holiday.

Wall Street slipped Tuesday after a government report showed the U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate from July through September, down from an initial estimate of 2.5 percent. Economists had expected the figure to remain the same.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.5 percent to close at 11,493.72. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.4 percent to 1,188.04. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1 percent to 2,521.28.

Higher borrowing costs for Spain, meanwhile, renewed worries about Europe’s debt crisis. The higher rates suggest that investors are still skeptical that the country will get its budget under control despite a new government coming to power this week.

Investors have been worried that Spain could become the next country to need financial support from its European neighbors if its borrowing rates climb to unsustainable levels.

Greece was forced to seek relief from its lenders after its long-term borrowing rates rose above 7 percent. The rate on Spain’s own benchmark 10-year bond is dangerously close to that level, 6.58 percent payday advance lenders.

Underscoring jitters was the lack of market reaction to an announcement by the International Monetary Fund that it will provide quick cash on flexible terms to countries facing sudden financial stress.

“Failure of this news to result in significant gains across markets shows just how cautious investors are,” Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne said in a report.

Concerns remain that Europe’s debt crisis is pushing the region toward recession, which would slow industrial activity in countries around the world that export to Europe.

Australian resource shares took a big hit after the country’s House of Representatives approved a proposal to impose a windfall profits tax on big mining companies. The Senate is expected to endorse the measure in early 2012.

BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, fell 2.6 percent. Rival Rio Tinto lost 1.6 percent and Energy Resources of Australia slid 4.2 percent.

Benchmark oil for January delivery was down 65 cents to $97.36 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.09 to finish at $98.01 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3466 from $1.3509 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose slightly to 76.99 yen from 76.97 yen.

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Enterprise Holdings’ revenue rose to $14.1 billion for its 2011 fiscal year, a record for the privately-held company and a 12 percent increase from 2010.

Clayton-based Enterprise’s brands include Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent a Car. Its fiscal 2010 revenue was $12.6 billion.

For its 2011 fiscal year that ended July 31, Enterprise grew its daily rental fleet by nearly 10 percent, to more than one million vehicles, the company said in a statement payday loans guaranteed no fax. The company had more than $2 billion in corporate travel revenues for fiscal 2011.

Enterprise, which is owned by the family of founder Jack Taylor, does not disclose profit figures.

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Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB on Thursday reported a 4 percent rise in third-quarter profit as strong mobile broadband sales and increased market share offset weaker margins.

Ericsson said third-quarter net profit rose to 3.8 billion kronor ($574 million) from 3.7 billion kronor in the same period a year ago. Sales for the July-September period were particularly buoyant, increasing 17 percent to 55.5 billion kronor.

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said sales were driven by a continued strong demand for mobile broadband as well as increased services revenues.

“Our performance year-to-date reaffirms our indications of a strengthened global market share,” he said.

However, the increased share of services business, as well as a higher proportion of coverage projects and accelerating network modernization projects in Europe had a negative impact on the company’s gross margin, which decreased to 35 percent from 39 percent a year ago.

Greger Johansson, an analyst with research firm Redeye, said the margin was weaker than expected, which could lead to a slightly negative reaction in the stock market Faxless payday loans.

“The positive thing is that both sales and profits were clearly better than expected,” Johansson said. “The negative is the gross margin and the fact the company indicates it will remain weak going forward.”

He said the low-margin modernization projects in Europe also weighed on the result of Ericsson’s “most important segment,” networks.

The company also said the effects on its supply chain from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March had run their course.

Looking ahead, the company said it “cannot exclude somewhat more cautious short-term operator spending,” considering the economic uncertainties in parts of the world.

Ericsson is the world leader in rolling out and upgrading mobile network infrastructure as the world’s wireless users grow in number, boosting demand for ever-faster network speeds. Its biggest competitors are China’s Huawei and Finnish-German joint venture Nokia Siemens.

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Forecasters say Jova has become a hurricane out in the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday evening that Jova had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (121 kph) but was still far from land. It was moving east-northeast at 3 mph (5 kph) and was about 440 miles (708 kilometers) west-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.

No coastal watches or warnings had been issued, but current forecast models show Jova it could make landfall over Mexico by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Irwin has weakened to a tropical storm in the eastern Pacific, about 930 miles (1497 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Baja, Calif personal loans for people with bad credit. It was expected to start moving toward land in the coming days. Irwin had maximum sustained winds of about 70 mph (113 kph).

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Philippe continued to weaken far from land.

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The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged on Thursday, holding off on a step many think the eurozone’s chief monetary authority will eventually take by year-end to support a weakening economy.

Markets waited for bank head Jean-Claude Trichet’s last news conference to see whether the ECB would announce new measures to support shaky banks under pressure from the Greek debt crisis.

The bank’s 23-member governing council left the refinancing rate at 1.5 percent, ignoring calls to loosen its policies to fight mounting signs of a slowdown in the eurozone economy.

The bank’s caution contrasted with the Bank of England’s decision to buy another euro75 billion ($116 billion) in securities from banks, a step which expands the supply of money in the economy and can promote economic activity.

That makes the Bank of England the first major central bank to move to counterract the slide in global growth that has intensified since this summer.

Most think the ECB waited this month because the latest inflation figures were higher than expected and it typically likes to signal rate moves at least a month ahead of time. It hadn’t done so ahead of Thursday’s meeting. Rate cuts tend to boost inflation.

Trichet will turn the job over to Bank of Italy head Mario Draghi at the end of the month. But the European debt and banking crisis means his last days in office are not offering any chance for a leisurely goodbye.

Markets are now waiting to see if Trichet will announce at the news conference additional measures to steady Europe’s banks. Possible steps include opening the central bank’s credit window and offering unlimited loans to banks for six or 12 months or both. Normally the longest lending period is three months. The bank loaned euro49.75 billion ($66 billion) to 114 banks in August as an anti-crisis measure.

Eurozone leaders fear the effects on their banking system from Greece’s debt crisis. A default on Greek bonds could inflict losses on the banks that hold Greek bonds. Those default fears are keeping banks from lending to each other for fear they won’t get paid back, leaving some European banks dependent on ECB credit to keep running.

Experts and investors are increasingly resigned to the view that Greece will eventually default on its debts. The country faces bankruptcy if it does not get its next euro8 billion installment of money under a 2010 bailout; the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and ECB say a decision won’t come until the end of the month.

European Union finance ministers have asked the bloc’s banking supervisor to draw up a report on banks’ capital levels, a European official said Thursday, amid fears that the worsening debt crisis could trigger another credit crunch.

Banks’ ability to survive steeper losses on Greek debt will be one of the scenarios assessed in that report, the official said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she was in favor of a coordinated recapitalization of European banks if that was deemed necessary.

European officials have already agreed to give their euro440 billion bailout fund the power to bail out troubled banks. But the changes agreed in July are still awaiting votes in some national legislatures, and the spread of the crisis has led many economists to conclude the fund is too small to effectively reassure markets.

That delay leaves the ECB reluctantly holding the line against the crisis. It has bought Italian and Spanish government bonds, keeping those countries borrowing costs from rising because of market contagion from Greece. Greece, Ireland and Portugal all had to turn to the eurozone countries for bailouts because rising interest rates and fears of default left them unable to affordably refinance their debt burdens. Those countries are small enough to bail out, but Italy, the No. 3 eurozone economy, is too large for that.

The ECB has said it expects the eurozone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to take over the bond purchases as soon as it can.

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CLAYTON

U.S. stocks alternated between gains and losses Friday after European finance ministers pushed back a decision about how to solve the region’s debt crisis.

Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. lost one-fifth of its value after reporting sharply lower revenue and income. The company is facing stiff competition from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and phones that use Google Inc.’s Android software.

At 11:17 a.m. Eastern time, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 5 points to 11,439. It had been up as many as 99 points earlier.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 1, or 0.1 percent, to 1,208. The Nasdaq composite index rose 2, or 0.1 percent, to 2,609.

Traders are waiting for news from a gathering of European finance ministers. The group is meeting in Poland to discuss a debt crisis that threatens to engulf several countries. They are joined by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who helped craft the response to the 2008 financial crisis.

The group will not decide until next month whether Greece has qualified for its next round of bailout money, its leader said early Friday. Geithner had urged his counterparts to provide a decisive solution to the crisis.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet is expected to speak after European markets close, around midday in New York.

Analysts said some stock-sellers were pocketing profits after a week that lifted shares nearly 5 percent. Antony Conroy, head trader for BNY ConvergEx Group, said traders’ sentiment is mixed, with some buying undervalued stocks and others selling on long-term concerns about Europe.

“Even though we’ve had a good couple of days, people still believe there’s a good chance that the credit crisis in Europe is going to cause something like a 2008 event,” he said.

Stocks rose every day this week, their first four-day winning streak since August. The rally lifted the Dow and the S&P by about 5 percent. The Dow is still down 1 percent for the month, the S&P 0.3 percent.

Research in Motion said after the market closed Thursday that it lost ground against competitors in the three months ended Aug. 27. The company sold far fewer tablets and phones, struggling in a category dominated by the iPhone and iPad.

The troubled company has lost more than half of its market value this year. RIM said July that it would lay off 2,000 workers, about 10 percent of its work force.

Stocks have not risen for five days in a row since the week ending July 1, before nervousness about the sluggish economy and Europe sent shares falling.

Markets surged on Thursday after five central banks said they would offer unlimited dollar loans to the European banks. Some banks have been unable to borrow to pay for their daily operations. They can’t get loans from other banks because no one knows how much bad debt they hold.

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Japan’s government has unveiled a $100 billion loans program to ease the strains of a strong yen and encourage companies to turn adversity into opportunity.

The one-year facility announced Wednesday by the finance ministry aims to prompt Japanese companies to shift their yen holdings into foreign currencies and spur overseas mergers and acquisitions.

A strong yen erodes the value of exporters’ profits abroad but it also makes potential acquisitions outside of Japan less expensive.

Through the program, the government will send foreign currency reserves to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The state-operated bank would then extend loans to commercial banks so they can help companies with overseas investments and secure natural resources.

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