2016 is off to quite a start.  We mentioned last quarter that the situation in China had potential to impact the economy in the United States, and this week is evidence of that.  While the turmoil in the stock market doesn’t directly represent the state of the larger economy, it does indicate the sentiment of...Read More

The economy, and investors, too, are in a sort of holding pattern currently.  Nobody is ready to make a move (not even the Fed), because it’s unclear what’s coming next.  The data is no help.  One day we will hear that the U.K.’s inflation rates have dropped below zero, the next that consumer sentiment in...Read More

As predicted, China’s rapidly decelerating economy is having an impact on the markets here in the U.S.  China’s central bank has taken drastic efforts to try to prop up their economy, which only makes its struggles more obvious.  This news, along with lower than expected productivity growth, has caused the U.S. Ten Year Treasury yield...Read More

A recent article on Bloomberg.com mentioned the current U.S. economic recovery as having the potential to be the longest in more than 150 years, surpassing even the 10 year expansion of the 1990s.  While that title sounds good, it seems to be an indicator of how bad things were and how slow the recovery, rather...Read More

Happily, it seems most of the country’s winter is finally over.  Some economists expect that the end of the interminable cold weather will mean a pickup in the nation’s economy, but last week brought us a disappointing jobs report that has many concerned.  The jobs report showed that the U.S. added approximately 126,000 jobs in...Read More

Happy New Year!  Cooper Capital ended 2014 on a high note, thanks in part to a long rally in the bond market.  We have seen a large jump in values recently, which is always nice as long as we keep things in perspective.  That perspective is that bond prices are currently inflated, and some economists...Read More

Expectations – Friend or Foe?  On Friday, headlines proclaimed economists were “shocked” by the May jobs report that showed 69,000 jobs were added, compared to the 150,000 that were predicted.  This news led to a major sell off on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 275 points.  Is such a reaction due...Read More

Pop Quiz  Does Friday’s downgrade of U.S. Treasuries signal something new?  It does not.  Does it mean that the U.S. has been recognized as the rotten apple in the global economic barrel?  Nope.  Does this mark a major change in the relative value of U.S. Dollar to other major currencies, and will there be a...Read More