Today’s post comes from guest contributor Peter Essele, a portfolio manager on Commonwealth’s Preferred Portfolio Services^® Select platform.

Coming out of the financial crisis, one of the darling trades for many investors was the bank loan (i.e., floating-rate) space because of its low duration and supposed ability to withstand a rise in interest rates. The selling point was that the “floating-rate” component of the investment’s yield would offer an increasing payout when rates began to rise. So why are prices declining instead?

Feeling and living gratitude is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your life. Ever since listening to Shawn Achor speak at a Commonwealth conference several years ago, I have been writing down at least three things I am grateful for every day.

Last week was a busy one, with several important releases that provided a mixed bag of both support for a continued slowdown and a suggestion that growth remains solid despite that slowdown. Let’s take a closer look.

Last Friday, I was on set with TheStreet to discuss what’s ahead for the economy and markets with host Gregg Greenberg. From consumer income and spending growth, to a potential normalization in the energy sector, find out why I think 2016 will be a better year than many people currently expect.

Once again, it’s time for our monthly update on risk factors that have proven to be good indicators of economic trouble ahead. For the first time since I started this update, we now have a yellow light—in consumer confidence—along with some other signs of weakness.

Recently, I’ve been working on the 2016 outlook, reviewing all of the usual data that we highlight monthly, as well as developing a series of other projections on wages, income, spending, corporate profits, and so forth. Although the consumer remains healthy, one of the things that has caught my eye has been a surprising deterioration in a number of business-related components of the economy, and it has me thinking about what this could mean in terms of an economic slowdown.

In my latest Market Thoughts video, I provide an update on the U.S. economy, along with recent global market performance. I also discuss the decline in spending growth that has likely resulted from lower consumer confidence levels.

As we move into the holiday shopping season, we find ourselves deluged by catalogs, sales, advertising, and—in my case—impassioned pleas by my seven-year-old son for toys. Spending really doesn’t seem to be a concern, at least in terms of not enough of it.

This post is a follow-up of sorts to one I wrote a couple of weeks ago, “U.S. Dollar Still Failing to Collapse.” As expected, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided to add (as of next October) the Chinese currency to the list of reserve currencies. Also as expected, the world is not ending just yet.

Despite the Thanksgiving holiday, there was quite a bit of data released last week. Let's take a closer look.