by Calculated Risk on 7/13/2010 07:47:00 AM

From the NFIB:

The National Federation of Independent Business Index of Small Business Optimism lost 3.2 points in June falling to 89.0 after posting modest gains for several months. The Index has been below 93 every month since January 2008 (30 months), and below 90 for 23 of those months, all readings typical of a weak or recession-mired economy.
...
Over the next three months, 8 percent plan to reduce employment (up one point), and 10 percent plan to create new jobs (down four points), yielding a seasonally adjusted net 1 percent of owners planning to create new jobs, unchanged from the May reading and positive for the second time in 20 months.
...
“Hiring and capital spending depend on expectations for growth in future sales, so the outlook for improved spending and hiring is not good,” said [William Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist].

Small business owners continued to liquidate inventories and weak sales trends gave little reason to order new stock.

The key problems are a shortage of customers and also falling prices (via WSJ): “widespread price cutting continued to contribute to reports of lower nominal sales.”

Updates: something to remember: "Small businesses" includes a large percentage of real estate related companies - so weak housing skews the results. The press release will be here, and the report here.