Indicators show continued economic strength

The 1st Choice Bank/Northern Colorado Business Report Index of Leading Economic Indicators has been modified significantly for this first presentation in 1999.We retained the six indicators we published last quarter and added a measure of the number of bankruptcies. We then recalculated our composite indicator using bankruptcies. Then, and this is a major addition, we constructed indexes for each of these seven indicators and, finally, aggregated these index numbers into a composite index of economic growth in Northern Colorado.The new bankruptcy series illustrates a negative influence on growth. Bankruptcies slow growth because when people and companies can’t pay their debts,…