Forbes: Was Monday's Market Plunge A Mega-Capitulation? Nah!

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Important question for anyone with money in the markets: Did we see a capitulation Monday? If we did, it wasn’t a mega capitulation of the types which mark major turning points.

Yes, Monday on the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 1,000 points at the open and indeed it does seem to have been at least a temporary turning point. As I write, stocks are continuing to rally. But I don’t think it was a capitulation. 

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TheStreet: Hate Wild Gyrations in the Stock Market? Blame Technical Trading

By SIMON CONSTABLE

New York ( TheStreet) -- Volatility is back in the stock market in a big way, and it isn't going anywhere quickly. 

Why? A big part of the story is so-called technical trading by computers and analysts who care little for the economic or business fundamentals of the companies that are bought and sold. Instead, many decisions to buy or sell securities are being driven by changes in stock prices using what can seem like arbitrary "rules." 

"This phenomenon is here to stay," says Milton Ezrati, senior economist and market strategist at Lord Abbett. "The problem is that it is automatic and it involves massive amounts of securities."

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OZY: Why You Shouldn't Melt Down With The Markets

By SIMON CONSTABLE

We understand. You’re freaking out. If only a little.

Sure, the Dow managed to plunge — and we mean plunge, more than 1,000 points yesterday morning — before recovering some. The end result over the past few market days is pretty awful. It’s now at its lowest close since February 2014.

But the real question, and we’re not just trying to make you feel better, is not where the market is heading, but where the economy is heading. And here, it’s not so bad.

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Forbes: 10 Key Takeaways From The Market Meltdown

By SIMON CONSTABLE

I’m getting a lot of questions about the stock market sell off. Here are ten takeaways.

1. Stocks don’t go up forever. That’s always been true. This time is no different.

2. Stocks don’t go down forever. You may recall that in the dark moments of early 2009 it looked like stocks were finished, like forever. Eventually they recovered. They will again.

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Forbes: Business Lessons From Bukowski

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A new book of Charles Bukowski’s writing just came out in late July, and I’m lucky enough to have read it.  It has some useful lessons for students of business as well as budding writers.

On Writing, is a collection of letters, or fragment’s thereof, he wrote throughout his long career. Many of them have never before been published. In case it’s slipping your mind, among many other things, Bukowski wrote Ham on Rye, a working class answer to Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.

The letters are superb. What interests me for this column is what you can learn if you are in business.

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TheStreet: With S&P 500 in a 'Blue Period,' Investing in Art May Give You a Mona Lisa Smile

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet)-- Price gains for works of fine art have ground to a near-halt. What's worse, even those small gains are increasingly driven by fewer and fewer mega-priced trophy pieces. It could mean continued bad news for auction houses like Sotheby's (BID) , but it's a boon to investors wanting a good buy outside of the stock market.

Average price gains for fine art sold at auction are close to zero this year, according to new data from the Mei Moses World All Art index, which tracks the prices of such works. On the chart below, the rolling three-year average of price movements for 2015 is barely even visible, just a touch over zero, assuming prices for the remainder of 2015 remain static. It's a world away from the double-digit gains seen year after year in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008. Read more here.

Photo by judith girard-marczak on Unsplash

TheStreet: Six Reasons to Discount Dire Warnings on the Stock Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet)-- All summer long, it seems we've been warned that stocks are just moments away from falling off a precipice and into oblivion. But I'm still skeptical. Why? There is rarely an announcement at a market top.

Here are some other reasons to be broadly bullish on stocks like those in the S&P 500 and the SPDR S&P 500  (SPY) exchange-traded fund that tracks that index.

Read more here.