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Inflation in the 17 countries that use the euro was unchanged in the year to January at 2.7 percent, official figures showed Wednesday, reinforcing market expectations that the European Central Bank will decide to keep interest rates unchanged at its next policy meeting.

The first estimate for the month from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, was in line with forecasts and the euro was little changed around the $1.3125 mark.

Inflation has been running above the European Central Bank’s target of “just below 2 percent” since December 2010.

Even so, the eurozone’s central bank cut its main benchmark rate in November and December to a record low of 1 percent as it tries to shore up the foundering eurozone economy.

Further interest rate reductions from the bank, which is led by Mario Draghi, are widely anticipated, especially if inflation falls back further as last year’s energy and food price rises drop out of the annual comparison.

The bank announces its latest interest rate decision on Feb. 9 and the markets are pricing in a second straight month of no change.

One reason inflation is expected to moderate further toward target is the state of the eurozone economy. Many economists think the 17-nation bloc will slide back into recession this year despite some relatively optimistic signals in a raft of manufacturing surveys Wednesday. And with unemployment over 10 percent, the pressure coming from wage demands is likely to remain modest.

“The region is still in a precarious position and is unlikely to avoid falling back into another recession this year,” said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics.

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Cass Informations Systems reported fourth-quarter 2011 net income of $5.5 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $5.1 milllion, or 48 cents per share, in the corresponding period of 2010.

For the year, Cass–a Bridgeton-based provider of invoice payment and information services–reported record net income of $23 million, or $2.21 per share, compared with $20.3 million, or $1.95 per share, in 2010.

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The decision by Standard & Poor’s to cut the credit ratings of a number of euro countries and to strip France of its cherished top-tier standing met with a fairly calm market response Monday as attention turned towards Greece’s difficulties in thrashing out a deal with private creditors to reduce the value of their holdings of Greek debt

Europe’s debt crisis will likely remain the focus of attention across markets all week as a number of bond auctions are due at the same time as Greece tries to clinch a debt deal with its cast of creditors.

Monday is the first opportunity for traders to respond to S&P’s move, which came late Friday.

Analysts said the downgrades had been widely expected, especially in the bond markets, so there was very little shock at S&P’s announcement to strip France of its treasured triple-A rating and to cut its view on a raft of other euro countries, including Italy. One bright spot was that Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, retained its triple-A rating and had its outlook upgraded to stable from negative.

“After weeks of prevarication and lots of rumors, Standard and Poor’s finally put markets out of their misery on Friday,” said Michael Hewson, markets analyst at CMC Markets. “The surprise is it took so long.”

As a result, the response in the markets was fairly sanguine. In early trading Monday, the Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares was flat at 2,397 while the euro was up 0.2 percent on the day at $1.2670

A bigger headache for markets at the moment is whether Greece can clinch a deal with its creditors payday loan. Last October, Greece’s partners in the eurozone sanctioned a deal whereby Greece’s creditors agree a deal to reduce the value of their Greek debt holdings so that the country’s debt burden is reduced.

The deal with private investors, known as the Private Sector Involvement, or PSI, aims to reduce Greece’s debt by euro100 billion ($126.5 billion) by swapping private creditors’ bonds for new ones with a lower value. It is a key part of a euro130 billion international bailout, the second one for Greece.

It is expected that talks on the PSI will resume this coming week. On Tuesday, representatives of Greece’s creditors _ the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund _ will visit Greece for yet another round of inspections of its efforts at fiscal and structural reform and negotiations for the next tranche, the seventh, from the first bailout.

Negotiations over the second bailout will start after the PSI deal is clinched. Without a deal, Greece has been told it won’t get the next tranche of money due from its first bailout.

Without that money, Greece would find it more or less impossible to pay a big bond redemption in March and would face the prospect of defaulting on its debts, potentially triggering more mayhem in financial markets.

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Businesses increased their stockpiles in November to meet rising consumer demand, a gain that likely boosted economic growth in the final months of last year.

Inventories rose 0.3 percent in November, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That followed October’s 0.8 percent gain. Sales increased 0.3 percent after a 0.6 percent October increase.

Companies are building up their stockpiles again after cutting them over the summer amid fears of another recession. The increase is a positive sign for growth because it means many businesses are filling their shelves in anticipating of higher consumer spending.

Inventories rose in November to a seasonally adjusted $1.55 trillion. That was 17.7 percent above the low hit in the recession year of 2009.

This week, the Federal Reserve issued a report saying the final six weeks of 2011 were among the economy’s best last year. The report pointed to higher holiday and auto sales, along with increased travel.

The job market has brightened, too. Employers added 200,000 jobs in December. And the unemployment rate fell to 8 bad credit personal loan lenders.5 percent, the lowest in nearly three years.

Many analysts predict that economic growth rose to an annual rate of roughly 3 percent in the final three months of 2011. That would be an improvement from the summer, when the annual rate was just 1.8 percent. And it’s much better than the 0.9 percent growth rate in the first six months of 2011.

Many businesses reduced their inventory restocking in the summer after consumer spending slowed last spring in the face of higher food and gas prices. The slowdown, along with supply disruptions caused by March’s earthquake in Japan, weakened U.S. manufacturing and contributed to worries of another recession.

Stockpiles at the wholesale level account for about 27 percent of total business inventories. Stockpiles held by retailers make up about one-third of the total and manufacturing inventories represent about 41 percent of the total.

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Delivery companies such as FedEx Corp. (FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) added 42,200 jobs to payrolls in December, about a fifth of the total for all employers last month. History indicates the gain will be followed by a similar-sized loss in January.

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Lambert-St. Louis International Airport officials confirmed Wednesday that they are targeting an April reopening of the tornado-damaged C Concourse.

Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge told airport commissioners that restrooms in the concourse have been renovated and storm-damaged windows have been replaced.

Storm repairs are being made in concert with planned terminal renovations, which include new ceilings and lighting.

“We would like to do a behind-the-scenes public event before it opens,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “We kind of wanted to do a big splash for the business community.”

The event would likely occur a couple of days before the renovations are complete.

An EF-4 tornado slammed into the airport on April 22, causing extensive damage to the C Concourse, which remains closed. Airlines that were housed in that part of Terminal 1 were temporarily moved to other gates not in use at the time guaranteed pay day loans.

The tornado also broke numerous windows on the main terminal building, which remained boarded up for months. The tornado also damaged cars that were parked on the top level of the Terminal 1 hourly parking garage.

The extensive damage caused the first prolonged closure at Lambert since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks grounded air travel across the United States.

After emergency repairs and cleanup, the airport reopened to limited commercial air traffic within 24 hours.

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The job market is healthier than at any time since the end of the Great Recession.

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest since May 2008, a sign that the waves of corporate layoffs that have defined the past few years are all but over.

“This is unexpectedly great news,” said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.

It will take an additional step _ robust hiring, not just the end of layoffs _ to bring the 8.6 percent unemployment rate down significantly. Experts say that won’t happen until businesses are more confident about customer demand. And the European debt crisis could still cause damage here.

But the report on unemployment claims Thursday was the latest to suggest that the economy, two and a half slow years after the official end of the recession, may finally be picking up momentum.

The nation added 100,000 or more jobs every month from July through November, the first such streak since 2006. And the economy, which was barely growing when the year started, has picked up speed each quarter.

More small businesses plan to hire than at any time in three years, a trade group said this week. And another private-sector survey found more companies are planning to add workers than at any time since 2008.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits came in at 366,000, down from 385,000 the week before. Applications are nearing their pre-recession level of about 325,000.

The last time claims were so low, the nation was six months into the recession but didn’t know it yet. The unemployment rate was 5.4 percent _ a level almost hard to imagine these days. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for almost three years.

That spring of 2008, Bear Stearns, an investment house that predated the Depression, had been hobbled by its investment in subprime mortgages and was sold near collapse to JPMorgan Chase for a paltry $10 a share.

The worst was yet to come. Lehman Brothers collapsed four months later, credit froze, investors panicked and the stock market plunged. Businesses began slashing millions of jobs. Unemployment claims peaked at 659,000 in March 2009.

Unemployment claims are a measure of the pace of layoffs, and they have declined steadily for three months. Another government report this week showed that layoffs are lower than they were in most months before the recession.

But that’s just part of the picture. Business aren’t hiring with gusto. Unemployment fell 0.4 percentage points last month, but about half the decline was because people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed payday loan lenders.

“One of the features of this recovery is that hiring is exceptionally weak,” said Jeremy Lawson, senior U.S. economist at BNP Paribas.

And that doesn’t necessarily show up in unemployment claims. Many employers cut staffs to the bone during the recession. If they worry that business will grow weakly next year, they may hold off on layoffs _ but not hire, either.

“The hiring numbers will continue to look good but not great,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.

Besides waiting for demand to come back, companies have other things to worry about. A recession in Europe would hurt U.S. exports, and a collapse in European banks because of the debt crisis there would probably cause a worldwide panic.

Another concern: The economy has been here before.

In February, unemployment claims fell to 375,000. Companies added about 200,000 jobs a month for three months. But then oil prices spiked and Europe’s debt problem got worse. Employers added just 53,000 jobs in May.

The decline in unemployment claims comes as Congress wrangles over whether to extend long-term unemployment benefits, which are set to expire at the end of this year.

Lawmakers differ over how long benefits should last. The House passed a Republican bill Tuesday that would renew emergency aid but reduce the maximum duration to 79 weeks from 99.

Democrats want to keep the full 99 weeks. The measure is part of broader legislation in the Democratic-led Senate that would also extend a cut in the Social Security tax and put $1,000 to $2,000 in most Americans’ pockets next year.

In other economic news Thursday:

_ The prices companies pay for factory and farm goods rose 0.3 percent last month. The figure was pushed up by higher food and pharmaceutical prices. But energy prices barely rose, keeping inflation in check. In the year ending in November, wholesale prices increased 5.7 percent, the Labor Department said. It’s the smallest increase since March.

_ A mixed picture emerged for manufacturing. Factory output fell in November for the first time in seven months, according to the Federal Reserve. Manufacturers made fewer cars, electronics and appliances. But some economists noted that auto sales rose in November, suggesting that production will rebound. And the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia and New York said manufacturing expanded in their regions. Manufacturing has been a key source of economic growth this year.

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