The back-to-school shopping season has already gotten underway with 29 percent of households reporting that they have begun to shop, according to a special ICSC-Goldman Sachs consumer tracking survey. While the percentage of consumers shopping for back-to-school items at this time of the season is lower than in 2012 (33 percent), it is still higher than in all other years since 2004. Although the season has officially begun, two-thirds of households reported that August is when they will do most of their back-to-school shopping.

"New business reality." That's an apt way to describe the position of any company that has just emerged from four years of reorganization under Chapter 11 of U.S. bankruptcy law. And it's precisely the challenge that Delphi Automotive faced back in 2009, when it sought to reinvent itself and shore up relations with an army of suppliers.

European occupier appetite for industrial and logistics property is expected to rise significantly in the next two years, according to a survey of senior property investors, developers and occupiers conducted by CBRE.