business contraction
business slowdown
business downturn
business depression
business decline

Moreover, when the two came together, it cannot be said that the stock market collapse was the cause of the business contraction.

Business contraction, when it came, pushed stock prices down.

In business until the 1990s the company turned to pressure vessels and submarines, but the historic firm went under in the business contractions of the decade and was finally shut down in 1994.

For example, only a quarter of the 200 responding members of the National Association of Business Economists now expect a business contraction in 1988, half as many as predicted a recession in November.

But for now the eyes are mainly on the performance of the economy, and on the National Bureau of Economic Research, the private body that has been designated the official arbiter of business contractions and expansions.

In 2001, after 44 years of service, the restaurant closed the branch due to a business slowdown.

"A business slowdown for the right reasons is good for the stock market," he said.

But at street level the business slowdown and slump in share prices are having little observable effect.

He attributed the move to a business slowdown.

"We have a capping of wage increases with the business slowdown that began earlier this year," he said.

Then came the stock-market debacle of 1987 and the ensuing business slowdown.

There is agreement, however, that some form of business slowdown seems inevitable during the latter half of 1989.

Additionally, some of the actual customers went broke before paying their bills due to the general business slowdown.

American Express, in a statement, said it "has the financial capacity to accommodate the current business slowdown and any areas of expressed concern."

"First, we experienced lower-than-expected September sales due to a business slowdown in all geographies," he said.

By artificially inflating a company's earnings per share, repurchases can mask business slowdowns, for example.

While business slowdowns are investors' primary concern, the continued absence of finance chiefs does not help foster confidence in the two companies, analysts said.

Like Japanese automakers, Saturn committed itself to never lay off a worker, using business slowdowns, for example, as opportunities to provide extra training.

That decline followed a three-tenths of 1 percent dip in February and was interpreted by the stock market as more evidence of a business slowdown.

The Dow industrials are not pulling the rest of the market up after them, he said, and the bond market rally signals a business slowdown ahead.

While the report was similarly interpreted by some stock traders as new evidence of a business slowdown, it provided no clear direction for the market, which ended mixed.

"The reason is the business slowdown in the service sector first in the East and now in the West, where the defense industry is also sluggish."

Most residents of Bon Temps take the new revelation fairly well; Merlotte's initially sees some business slowdown, but then it returns to normal.

The Government's chief economic forecasting gauge rebounded smartly in April after two straight declines, thereby allaying concerns that the current business slowdown could quickly turn into a recession.

As the year began, Wall Street executives were resigned to a business slowdown, if only because so much financing was done during the early 1990's, when interest rates were falling and stock prices were rising.

Saturn, his largest account - it will reportedly spend more than $100 million a year on advertising - does not dominate the agency, although fear that it would has contributed to a business slowdown, he conceded.

The company said the economic crisis in Asia had depressed orders and led to a business slowdown, but critics also noted that the 1998 stock award, taken as a charge against earnings, turned a profitable quarter into one with a $480.8 million loss.

The airlines have announced plans to eliminate more than 100,000 jobs for pilots, flight attendants and other crew members, and Ms. Farrow will be watching for personnel moves that use the postattack business slowdown as cover for unrelated problems.

As tentatively expressed by economic historian Charles Kindleberger, in 1929 there was no lender of last resort effectively present, which, if it had existed and were properly exercised, would have been key in shortening the business slowdown[s] that normally follows financial crises.

Partly because of the war in Iraq and partly because of a business slowdown, traffic has anyhow been low, said Adrian Blumenblatt, a black-cab driver, and so the emptier streets and easier driving since Feb. 17 have seemed all the more dramatic.

He left the radio network in 1992 during a business downturn.

So the business downturn has threatened the city's extravagant public services, considered the best in California.

Market professionals, naturally enough, differ on ways to play a business downturn.

With other projects, they are expected to add 8,000 jobs in a city emerging from a business downturn set off by the state's recession.

And economists are reassured because all this activity suggests that the next business downturn is still too far in the future to glimpse.

The result is a prolonged business downturn.

The Fed move was seen as insurance against a business downturn as well and the threat this would pose to corporate profits.

By 1912, a business downturn caused by the Panic of 1910-1911 wiped out the original stockholders.

A business downturn around 1840 in New Jersey found Campbell overextended.

Despite the investment plans, southern Thailand is bracing for a short, sharp business downturn for the second half of its peak season.

The inventory buildup was in large part responsible for the business downturn that struck the chip industry in 2000 and persisted into 2004.

Kenneth Safian, the head of the firm, said his index was "pretty close" to signaling a business downturn.

For example, the four-month stretch from October 1987, the month stock prices crashed, through January 1988 was not followed by a business downturn.

Unable to adapt quickly to the business downturn, it struggled as its revenues grew only 1 percent while its cost structure ballooned.

The financial printing industry has ridden the Wall Street business downturn like a hapless passenger on a falling airplane.

For two years, the industry has been buffeted by the most severe business downturn in its history and has lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

He noted that short-term interest rates had yet to turn negative when adjusted for inflation; typically that occurs during business downturns.

LAST fall, as the drop in the stock market rattled the financial community, another kind of business downturn spread panic among nonprofit organizations.

By nudging interest rates down, the central bank sought to head off a business downturn that today's report of a rebounding consumer sector makes more remote.

Most notably, Alcatel, like Lucent, has had to recover from a dire business downturn just a few years ago.

That and a general business downturn caused the West to go through a period of decline and finally in 1940 the West Hotel was demolished.

In January, Jill Abramson, managing editor for news, wrote about maintaining quality during a business downturn.

He still hasn't used any, holding them as a hedge against a business downturn so that he will have enough stashed away to keep making sales trips.

A corporation that borrows too much money might face bankruptcy or default during a business downturn, while a less-levered corporation might survive.