SmallBusinessNewz

Sooner or later, what goes up will presumably in one sense stay up - the economy can't crash forever - but in the month of July, that wasn't quite the case.  The National Federation of Independent Business Index of Small Business Optimism slid again.

The NFIB said in a statement that it "lost 0.9 points in July and reached 88.1 following a sharp decline in June.  The Index has been below 93 every month since January 2008 (31 months), and below 90 for 24 of those months, all readings typical of a weak or recession-mired economy.  Ninety percent of the decline this month resulted from deterioration in the outlook for business conditions in the next six months."

More specifically, problem areas included the lack of employment growth, the frequency of reported capital outlays, sales figures, and cuts in inventories.

Bill Dunkelberg, the NFIB's chief economist, concluded, "The recovery in optimism that we are currently experiencing is very weak compared to recoveries after the 1982 and 1975 recessions.  The small business sector is not on a sustained positive trajectory, and with this half of the private sector missing in action, the economy's poor growth performance is not surprising."

On the bright side, at least the July slip was smaller than the June fall (of 3.2 points), and borrowing stats improved by three points.

Plus, although the Dow's still down for the day, it's recovered about 40 points from a low recorded early this morning.