Monthly Archives: February 2015

[02/24/15]  U.S. consumers are feeling a bit less confident this month, but their spirits are still at the highest levels since before the Great Recession. The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped this month to 96.4 from a revised 103.8 in January. The February and January readings are the highest since before the recession officially started in December 2007. Consumers are modestly less confident about current economic conditions and considerably less confident about the next six months. They are slightly more likely to say jobs are "hard to get" than they were in January. A year ago, the consumer confidence index was a much lower...

[02/09/15]  U.S. stocks slipped on Monday, on the heels of disappointing Chinese economic data and increased tensions over Greek debt negotiations, though the decline was limited by another gain in oil prices. China's exports fell 3.3 percent from a year ago while imports tumbled 19.9 percent, well short of expectations, raising concerns about the health of the world's second-largest economy. "China is a negative and Greece is a negative, certainly Greece is something investors have lived with for a while and it’s not a huge surprise," said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey. Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ruled out any extension of its international bailout on...