Toys in this category fell to 17 per cent from more than 20 per cent due to a weak demand for its owl-like robot Furby and "modest initial shipments" for Disney Princess and Disney Frozen merchandise.
Romney loses one state from this category this time around, due to a weak poll in Arizona.
National Semiconductor soured the rest of the bunch after it said that second- and third-quarter sales would be 6% to 8% below its first-quarter numbers due to weak demand from mobile phone and PC segments.
Construction experienced a second sharp slump in early 2012, while manufacturing - which had experienced a modest rebound up until late 2010 - has steadily declined in almost every quarter since then, in large part due to weak demand from the crisis-struck eurozone.
Production industries, which include manufacturing, decreased by 1.3%, due in part to weak demand from the eurozone, one of the UK's biggest trading partners.
In a statement, the company said "we expect earnings to remain subdued in the first quarter of 2019 due to difficult conditions for the memory business," thanks to unexpectedly weak demand from some of its data center customers.
But employers are mainly reluctant to hire due to weak demand and lingering anxiety after the financial crisis and recession.
The British Bankers Associationn, which represents the commercial banks, responded that the fall in lending was due to continuing weak demand.
Some of that decline can be assigned to retiring boomers, but some remains due to persistently weak demand.
World pulp prices increased continuously from mid 1999 to the third quarter of 2000 from US$540 per ton to US$710 per ton, but slowed at the end of 2000 due to the weak demand in the region.
The oil price is also falling due to a glut in supply and weak demand from the eurozone.
