{"id":65295,"date":"2020-01-04T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-business-leaders-are-feeling-more-optimistic-amid-trade-deals-and-federal-economic-policy\/"},"modified":"2020-01-04T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T12:00:00","slug":"colorado-business-leaders-are-feeling-more-optimistic-amid-trade-deals-and-federal-economic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-business-leaders-are-feeling-more-optimistic-amid-trade-deals-and-federal-economic\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado business leaders are feeling more optimistic amid trade deals and federal economic policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Southbound
Southbound Interstate 25 traffic lanes bog down to a crawl at the interchange with Interstate 70 just north of downtown Denver on July 11. Faced with the fresh start of a new year, Colorado\u2019s business community is feeling a bit rosier about the state\u2019s economic prospects, according to a new survey.<\/span>David Zalubowski\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The index surveys over 200 members<\/a> of the business community. After months of wavering confidence, the numbers jumped slightly to 50.8 \u2013 just .8 points above neutral.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s still lower than it has been in the years since the recession, when that number has often been closer to 55 or even higher.<\/p>\n

Still, Richard Wobbekind, senior economist at Leeds School of Business, said the rise in confidence is an indication that fears of a recession have been somewhat dispelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people six months ago were very much focused on, \u2018Are we going in a recession in the first part of 2020?\u2019\u201d Wobbekind said.<\/p>\n

But now, low rates of unemployment and growth in wages indicate things are heading in the right direction. The index also suggests businesses plan to do more hiring in the next few months than they have recently, although probably less than they did heading into 2019.<\/p>\n

Wobbekind attributes the growth to the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates and the promise of an end to the trade war with China.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to see those sort of signs of optimism from monetary policy,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that was really an important part of the index changing direction, going positive, but again, not hugely, hugely positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confidence in the state\u2019s growing economy has proved more secure than the business community\u2019s confidence in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business leaders in Colorado really don\u2019t see the national economy as going great guns,\u201d Wobbekind said.<\/p>\n

That tracks with the actual economic performance of the state relative to the nation, although Colorado\u2019s growth has slowed recently. Confidence in the national economy improved heading into 2020, but still remains negative overall.<\/p>\n

While the index indicates hope among businesses is rebounding, it\u2019s still tenuous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see another quarter or two,\u201d Wobbekind said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s unlikely to change soon. Major election years are typically pretty muted for economic changes. Older, traditional businesses typically go into a holding pattern, waiting to see what kind of government they\u2019ll be working under.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to keep their eyes open, try to be slow and steady with growth if they can be,\u201d Wobbekind said. \u201cBut they\u2019re not looking to make an enormous change until they see the actual resolution of trade agreements, the actual resolution of the election, what kind of environment they\u2019re operating in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southbound Interstate 25 traffic lanes bog down to a crawl at the interchange with Interstate 70 just north of downtown Denver on July 11. Faced with the fresh start of a new year, Colorado\u2019s business community is feeling a bit rosier about the state\u2019s economic prospects, according to a new survey.David Zalubowski\/Associated Press The index […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2518],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-economic-policy"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65295"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}