51.   Speculation that rates would rise increased Monday when federal Treasurer Peter Costello said the economy had been performing strongly in recent months.

52.   The robust U.S. economy is performing so well that not even an interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve is enough to rile politicians.

53.   The stock market is a leading indicator of how investors feel the economy will be performing in six to nine months down the road, said analysts.

54.   Then they will be able to see for themselves whether the economy is performing well or not.

55.   Under Premier Vladimir Meciar, its economy has performed better than expected.

56.   Zeti said that in the past five years the trend has been that the economy performs the best in the last quarter of the year.

57.   In some respects its economy has performed better than those of most of its new partners in the first half of the current decade.

58.   An upbeat Shuhei Ogata, chief representative of Matsushita Electric Group in Thailand, said the Thai economy was performing better than others in the region.

59.   Apart from unemployment, the French economy was performing strongly, he said.

60.   But the constraints have eased, prompting faster production growth in July and August and sparking optimism that the economy would perform more robustly in the second half.