Landlords of Portland, rejoice. Although the city’s residential real estate market remains in the doldrums, the rental market is flourishing.

Every year, the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas sponsors a seminar about the female bike consumer. “It’s always the same material — how women have the buying power in the U.S.,” says Joan Martocello, a manager at Bike Gallery, a Portland bike store chain. “Then you go into bike shops and still see the girlie posters.” Even in cycle-friendly Portland, says Martocello, the male-dominated bike shop environment “is quite a bit intimidating for women.”

The global sales of North American semiconductor equipment producers have bounced back from their recessionary lows of mid-2009 to levels not seen since 2007. 

A Canadian mining company is gathering permits and underground data in preparation for developing the first large-scale gold mine in Oregon in decades, as the price for gold hovers at $1,600 per ounce.

Venture capital investment in Oregon leaped 114.5% in 2010.

A loophole large enough to drive your truck through while jabbering on your cell phone has been nailed shut.

Should budding entrepreneurs strike out on their own? Or is it more effective to pool resources with like-minded business owners? That was the dilemma facing the “micro mercantes” tamale vendors, a group of low-income Latinas who participate in a microenterprise program sponsored by Hacienda Community Development Corporation.

For decades, people have been sweating and stretching as an instructor leads the way (think Jazzercise, step aerobics or Jane Fonda). As long as misery loves company, it seemed group fitness classes would endure. But in the past few years — since the recession — group classes have become even more in vogue, a trend that’s buoyed a Portland-based startup.

A scaled-down plan for importing liquefied natural gas at Bradwood Landing is quietly working its way through the regulatory system after the failure of a proposed $650 million LNG project at the same location.