41.   In that environment, smaller companies, whose earnings are less likely to be influenced by broad economic trends, have gained favor.

42.   Indeed, it is hard to look at economic trends and come up an unalloyed pessimist.

43.   Investors have flocked to them as global economic trends have shifted since the end of the Cold War.

44.   It also could mean a renewed confidence in the economy and a deceleration in negative economic trends, such as company layoffs and despairing stock market declines.

45.   Later today, the Office of National Statistics releases the economic trends report for December.

46.   M. Ray Perryman, an economist who publishes a newsletter analyzing economic trends in Texas, agreed that NAFTA had brought new jobs and growth to the border region.

47.   No president can use words to change basic economic trends.

48.   Participants were to speak on trends affecting the competitiveness of businesses in Maine, as well as broad economic trends.

49.   Q. The machine tool business is very sensitive to economic trends.

50.   Politicians from liberals like Kennedy to conservative populists like Patrick Buchanan have cited the income gap as perhaps the most alarming economic trend of the last generation.