麻豆影院

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Colorado business confidence holds steady heading into second quarter of 2016, says CU-麻豆影院 index
March 31, 2016听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Richard Wobbekind
Colorado business leaders are still optimistic entering the second quarter of 2016, but that optimism is projected to slightly dip ahead of the third quarter of the year, according to a CU-麻豆影院 report.
Released today, the Leeds Business Confidence Index shows the same level of optimism now as was recorded at the start of the first quarter with an overall reading of 55.4. Meanwhile, a decrease in confidence is expected ahead of the third quarter of 2016, says economist Richard Wobbekind (WAH-be-kin).
CUT 1 鈥淚 think the number one reason is they鈥檙e looking at the national economy and the GDP performance and they鈥檙e just hearing a lot of feedback from the national economy not being quite as strong. The forth quarter GDP was 1.4 percent. And then in addition to that we have these global concerns that have been out there. (:18) The politics 鈥� the political situation and particularly the elections are causing a lot of concern amongst the people responding to the survey.听 鈥� (:27)
Wobbekind says the concern about the presidential elections is very high on the minds of Colorado鈥檚 business leaders.
CUT 2 鈥淭hey talk about specific candidates names in those surveys and perhaps that they are not happy with the positions they鈥檙e taking or the direction they鈥檙e going so they really feel pretty strongly about the election situation in terms of what鈥檚 coming up in the not-too-distant-future.鈥� (:18)
Number 2 on that list of concerns, says Wobbekind, is low oil and gas prices.
CUT 3听 鈥淭he business community, I believe, at large is realizing that low commodity and energy prices are dampening the growth of the economy. So they are seeing that. They are seeing the negativity, if you will, in terms of growth of those low energy prices and maybe not seeing as much of the positive impacts that others had been saying would come 鈥� higher consumer spending an so on. (:23) In fact we don鈥檛 see high spending. So even with these low energy prices we don鈥檛 see the consumers really being very active in the market place.鈥� (:31)
But even with these concerns Wobbekind says business leaders are still upbeat about Colorado鈥檚 economy.听听听
CUT 4 鈥淎bsolutely. It鈥檚 still in expansionary territory and, in fact, if you look at the sub-components of the index 鈥� particularly sales and profits - they still are very strong numbers. Well above 50. (:12) And even capital expenditures and hiring are in the expansion category 鈥� a little bit slower than they were but still in the expansion category.鈥� (:17)
For more on the Leeds Business Confidence Index visit the Leeds School鈥檚 Business Research Division page.
-CU-