TheStreet: Why Financial Crises Aren't Such a Bad Thing for Your Wallet

By SIMON CONSTABLE

In the seven years since Lehman Brothers failed, tipping the world into a financial crisis, the U.S. government has enacted a plethora of regulations to prevent another one.

But trauma aside, there are some tangible benefits to such a crisis, from a Darwinian winnowing of weak businesses to curbing extreme risk-taking. Here are some:

OZY: The Real Costs of a Government Shutdown

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Two years ago, inside Washington’s Beltway, bars extended happy hours, drinks flowed plentifully and furloughed government workers cheerfully toasted one another. The scene was a result of an impasse in Congress over spending, and when it was all over, everyone went back to work — while, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, costs totaled some $24 billion in lost output across the economy. Even worse: The government saved zilch because workers were given back pay for the time they were at home (or in the bar).

Legislators in Washington appeared to be headed for a similar showdown this week, until the White House and congressional leaders reached a tentative deal to raise the $18.1 trillion federal debt limit.

Read more here.

U.S. News: 6 Reasons to be Bullish on Stocks

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Believe it or not, there are still reasons to be bullish on stocks, and not just because pundits keep showing their angst on business TV. (They are often wrong.) Here are some key points for investors to consider.

World economic growth should improve. Forget the idea that the world economy is about to come to a standstill because China hit a bump in the road. Growth is picking up, says Jeffrey Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. in Boston.

Read more here.

TheStreet: 5 Reasons the Fed's Economic Progress Is Painfully Slow

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It should be clear by now that the Federal Reserve is making slow progress toward its dual goals of keeping prices stable and achieving full employment.

Here are five of the biggest reasons the central bank, whose monetary policy committee is meeting this week, is falling short:

Forbes: How To Be The Worst Boss Possible -- Part 1

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Part one of a continuing series. If you aren’t cut out for management, why be just mediocre when with a little more effort you can be truly awful?

Here are some tips.

TheStreet: Is the Fed Putting the 'Chapel of Love' Out of Business?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The chime of wedding bells is becoming rarer and rarer, and it may be the Federal Reserve's fault.

While many young couples choose to get married solely for love, the cost of acquiring a family home can cool their passion, according to a recent study. The effect is a depressing one. 

"A higher housing-cost burden in a county is associated with a lower marriage rate," according to a paper from the Eastern Economic Journal titled " Bricks, Mortar, and Wedding Bells: Does the Cost of Housing Affect the Marriage Rate in the U.S.?" Read more here.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

TheStreet: Yes, the Dollar Can Buy Love -- And It's About to Buy Even More

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Brace yourselves: The dollar is set to surge once again. 

That's because while there are questions about the strength of the U.S. economy, there's no question that the rest of the world is in an even worse state. 

Read more here.

U.S. News & World Report: How to Buy Stocks When the Dollar is Strong

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The greenback is looking strong, but there's no reason to believe that it can't get even stronger. If it does, then it will have an impact on your investments. Here's why it matters and some key things you need to know.

"It's the kind of thing that Americans don't think about much unless they travel overseas," says Eddy Elfenbein, a Washington, D.C.-based private investor and author of the influential Crossing Wall Street blog. But when the dollar is strong, it does change the way various types of investments perform. "It's like putting a magnet near a compass," he says. Read more here.

Photo by Timis Alexandra on Unsplash

OZY: Can Investors Trust Wall Street's New Ticker Tape?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It wasn’t long ago that IBM Watson emerged as a new kind of Jeopardy! champ in a battle of knowledge against two human quiz whizzes and proved what had long eluded scientists — that computers really could emulate human intelligence. Now one of the brains behind that same technology is playing a part in trying to shape a more democratic Wall Street.

Meet Social Alpha, a New York City-based startup created a couple of years ago by Prem Melville, who not only holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence but is also a veteran of the IBM Watson Research Center. Social Alpha’s programs are designed to scour Twitter in an effort to pinpoint hot investing tips — in real time — “to increase profitable trades and reduce investment risk.” How, exactly? Well, it attempts to pinpoint what analysts and investors are saying about stocks in your portfolio or how people feel about certain new investment opportunities, among other things that get discussed in tweets.

Read more here.

U.S. News & World Report: Why There's No Better Time to Buy Commodities

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Commodities haven't just had a rough year. It's been more like a rough half-decade, in which prices of raw materials and foodstuffs were halved. Once a mainstay ingredient in the investing soup, this asset class is now being shunned, and some people are making ever more bearish price forecasts. 

So is it time to jump back in and gain the well-documented investing benefits of adding metals, grains and energy into your investment pot? Maybe so, and there are good reasons to consider it (plus some pitfalls to avoid).

Read more here.

Forbes: Quit With No Net? Hard Work But Worth It -- Tess Vigeland

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Quitting the job that’s killing your soul!  It’s one of those seemingly ever present fantasies of office workers. But to quit without a net, that’s unnerving to the vast majority of people. Yet it’s what long time radio host Tess Vigeland did. She recently wrote a book about her experience: Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want.

Unlike many confessional books this one won’t tell you how easy it was. Or that the post-quit euphoria just kept on going for months. Or that everyone should do it because, hey, what the hell.  No, the story here is quite different. If you believe Vigeland, it’s hard work and there will be loads of anxiety. It will upend your life in ways you never imagined. Read more here.

Forbes: Ten Money Tasks To Get Done By Thanksgiving

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It might feel as if summer is barely over, but truthfully Thanksgiving is just weeks away followed quickly by holidays. Then it will be 2016. So don't dally, here are the money related tasks that you need to get started on now:

1. Set a budget for holiday gifts and then stick to it. It doesn't matter how small or large an amount you decide to allocate, just don't spend more than you can afford. If you are a little strapped this year, then maybe make something instead, like a painting. The truth is, your true friends really love you for your company not what physical things you give them.

2. Plan how much money you want to give to charity this year. Then send the money. I normally recommend making such payments at the beginning of the year, but we all forget sometimes. If you did, then do it now and then keep a record for tax purposes. It might help reduce what you owe the Internal Revenue Service. Read more here.

Photo by SJ . on Unsplash

Forbes: Nobel Economist Deaton --Trade Not Aid Makes You Rich

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Congratulations to the Nobel prize committee for actually awarding a free trade advocate the prize for economics. That view that trade makes us richer, along with bare knuckle free markets, has been somewhat quiet in the field of late as central planners emerged from their closets during the financial crisis. That’s why it is extra special that the new economics Nobel laureate is canny Scotsman Angus Deaton. Read more here.

Angus Deaton

Photo by Holger Motzkau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: @StockCats Says Fed Bubble Biggest Problem Facing StockMarket

By SIMON CONSTABLE

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — The person who tweets under the twitter handle @StockCats kindly agreed to open up to Forbes readers.  StockCats doesn’t look kindly on what the Fed is doing.

I’ve long been a fan of what StockCats writes, but Twitter’s 140 character limit is somewhat limiting for anyone, even a cat lover. The best line next to the avatar on the twitter feed: “I work hard so my cats can have a better life.” It’s hard to disagree.

Here, presented lightly edited, are the questions and the cat-answers.

Read more here.

U.S. News & World Report: How Global Conflict Can Boost Your Portfolio

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When the world goes to war, should you fortify your portfolio with defense stocks? Technically, we might not be in a world war, but little by little, the globe is becoming a chaotic jumble of military conflicts.

Some conflicts are burning slowly, like that in Ukraine; others, such as those across the Middle East, are raging. Either way, governments around the world are seeing the need to arm up, if only to head off unwanted excursions from neighboring countries.

If spending does pick up, it could bring in some huge profits for those companies manufacturing the latest high-tech weaponry, smart bombs and warplanes. Specifically, it's companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (ticker: LMT), Northrup Grumman Corp. (NOC), Raytheon Co. (RTN), General Dynamics Corp. (GD) and Boeing Co. (BA) that should profit.

Read more here.

OZY: The Sad Truth About Major Energy Finds

By SIMON CONSTABLE

You have just discovered a sizable natural gas field. Actually, not sizable but what could be the world’s largest. It happens to be located ideally enough off the coast of Egypt, a growing energy hub, and it may hold up to 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. Do the math, and at current European prices, it’d be worth roughly $200 billion, or more than two-thirds the size of Egypt’s entire economy.

You can hear that Bangles song — “Walk Like an Egyptian” — can’t you? Or at least, they’d better be dancing in the street there with this kind of news.

But of course, this is the world of energy, an Alice in Wonderland nightmare that can make absolutely no sense. Demand can rise, and still prices can fall. Or countries too dependent on it (read Venezuela or Russia) can find themselves with little to fall back on. Which brings us to what this latest discovery will really mean to Egypt. Will it be its savior? Will it make Egypt rich? Read more here.

Natural Gas Flare

Photo by Tim Evanson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WSJ: What Is the Buyback Window?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What is a buyback window, and does it matter for investors?

It is a period when a company is allowed to buy back its stock. Companies including the largest, Apple Inc., have been buying, which tends to support the price. 

The reason for a period when a company can buy back stock and a period when it can’t is to prevent companies from violating insider-trading rules. A company can’t buy back stock when it has nonpublic information that could affect the share price. Read more here.

WSJ: Unfriendly Tax-Friendly Funds

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Here’s hard news about mutual funds that are designed to minimize tax burdens: The amount they save investors is often less than the extra fees investors pay the funds themselves. 

“The performance of these funds is really quite abysmal,” says David Nanigian, a professor of investments at the Richard D. Irwin Graduate School at the American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and one of the authors of a report titled “Is Your Tax-Managed Fund Manager Hiding in the Closet?” published in the Fall 2015 edition of the Journal of Wealth Management. The other authors are Dale Domian and Philip Gibson, professors at York University in Toronto and Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., respectively. Read more here.

IRS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Barron's: Milk Prices Likely to Rise in 2016

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It could soon be time to lay off the latte and, for that matter, grilled cheese sandwiches, too. Why? Because milk prices are set to rally next year. In case you forgot, cheese is made from milk.

Recently plummeting U.S. milk prices mean it doesn’t pay for farmers to maintain the highest quality milk production of their dairy herds. As a result, herd size is set to drop and production with it. It’s a problem that could take years to work out. Still, there’s a chance for traders to profit.

November-dated futures prices for class III milk have been sliding for much of the year, trading Friday on the CME at $15.61 per hundred pounds, down from more than $17 in early June. Class III milk is primarily used in the manufacture of cheese, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2014, prices were in excess of $20 per hundred pounds for the first 11 months of the year, says the USDA. Read more here.

Photo by Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash

TheStreet: Obamacare Actually Isn't All That Affordable -- Unless You're Broke

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It's time for the Affordable Care Act to join a long list of oxymorons. Why? Because rather like "military intelligence," "cat proof," "government organization," and "simple calculus," the law better known as Obamacare turns out to be an inherent contradiction. For a sizeable part of the population, anyway.

The ACA is just not affordable to a big chunk of those it was most meant to serve: The previously uninsured. In fact, many are worse off than before, according to a new study. That fact could also unravel part of the program's foundation, which could be a problem for healthcare insurers. 

Read more here.

TheStreet: Why You'll Actually Be Richer When the Dollar is Worth Less

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The great thing about pain is that the moment it stops, you feel better. And the agony the strong dollarinflicted on stocks -- and consequently, your portfolio -- may soon be over.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against major world currencies, surged 22% from July 2014 through mid-March, according to data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. It stalled then, however, and has moved in a mostly sideways range since.

Read more here.

TheStreet: 3 Reasons to Be Bullish on the U.S. Economy -- And 3 More Not to Be

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The state of the U.S. economy is almost Dickensian: It's the best of times and the worst of times. There are reasons to be bullish as well as reasons to be bearish.

First, the good news:

Read more here.

OZY: The Fed And The Cost Of Your New Home

By SIMON CONSTABLE

For weeks we held our breath — at least those of us a little on the nerdy side did. And even if we weren’t quite so engrossed with the economy, we knew that the Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to raise interest rates was kind of important. After all, it hadn’t happened since Barry Bonds (remember him?) was still a big star.

Yep, economists, bankers and stockbrokers were in suspense over the Fed’s next step — and last week, we learned it was sitting pat. But if you’re about to click to another story, figuring this is a Wall Street type of thing, affecting only high finance, let us inform you that the news hits you right in the comfort of your own living room — namely, by impacting how much it’ll cost you to borrow money.

Read more here.

WSJ: Financial Adviser or Financial Planner?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What can you expect from a financial adviser? Is it different from what you’ll get from a financial planner?When it comes to financial advice, labels can be deceiving.

Some advisers might offer as much guidance as some planners—and in some cases both might provide less help than those titles imply. The important thing for investors is to look beyond the labels to see exactly what they are being offered. Read more here.

WSJ: Everybody Knows Men Take More Investing Risks Than Women. Is It True?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The conventional wisdom is that when it comes to investing, women take fewer risks than men. Julie Nelson, professor of economics at University of Massachusetts in Boston, says the conventional wisdom is wrong. 

Ms. Nelson recently published peer-reviewed research that concludes not only that the appetite of men and women for financial risk is largely the same, but that much of the earlier data suggesting there were such differences has been misinterpreted. Read more here.

Forbes: How the Fed Lost Its Cred.

By Simon Constable

The Federal Reserve bottled out Thursday when it decided not to raise the short term cost of borrowing money. It’s unfortunate, because the lack of action now removes any semblance of a fig leaf it could hide behind and still claim credibility.

“Clearly, the FED does not even think it knows what it is doing,” writes Woody Dorsey of Market Semiotics. That seems to sum it up in a nutshell. But let me breakdown some of the details of exactly  how the century old institution became a joke.

Read more here.

Forbes: Boy Battles Stigma And Depression With Book

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Years ago when I worked on Wall Street, the employee benefits manager once told me that 30% of the bank’s staff in the United States were prescribed Prozac. It is perhaps the most famous antidepressant medication in the world. But it is just one of a multitude of similar drugs that are used to treat mental illness.

I didn’t ask that manager for details, but my guess is that many more than three in 10 of the employees were medicated with antidepressants. At the time I saw it as sign that the stresses of that workplace were affecting a vast portion of people. It is true that such stress, like that found in the high pressure jobs of investment banking, can trigger such things. But it’s also a fact that depression can arrive without apparent reason or cause. It can even afflict the young, such as 21-year-old comedian Kevin Breel.

His book, Boy Meets Depression: Or Life Sucks and Then You Live, was published Tuesday.

Read more here.

OZY: Our Real Inflation Problem

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Despite these shaky stock markets, some of us are still angling for a shiny new ride — complete with that leather-laden new-car smell. But while you may hear news on the way to the dealership that inflation is still under control, you won’t believe it once a sales rep tells you their full-size American cars will cost you the better part of $40,000.

How can this be, when inflation is supposed to be muted? 

Read more here.

Forbes: Leadership Lessons From The Queen

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Earlier this week Her Majesty the Queen became Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Whether or not you support a monarchy there are things to learn from her, especially if you are in a leadership position.

Since becoming Queen in 1952 at the tender age of 25 she has dedicated her life to serving the people of Britain and the commonwealth. It’s not about her, it’s about what she can do for her people. Read more here.

National Archives and Records Administration , 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: New York $15 Minimum Wage Plan Is Cuomo-omics

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Bad news for everyone who supports free market economics in New York State.

On Thursday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo approved plans for a $15 an hour minimum wage for all the state’s fast food workers. Specifically, it’s for those at large chains, at least for now. But he also says that $15 rate should be the minimum for all workers, state-wide. Unfortunately, he’s wrong.

Here’s why Cuomo-omics makes no sense.

TheStreet: The 1.9 Million Reasons To Eat Out

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Saving a few extra bucks a month might make sense individually, but when everyone penny-pinches together, the consequences can be catastrophic.

How bad?  As many as one in three of the jobs lost in the Great Recession and its aftermath could have been caused by such collective consumer frugality. That's up to 1.85 million more job losses than there would have been otherwise. 

The statistics are examined in a new working paper titled Trading Down and the Business Cycle, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper states that between 22% and 36% of the jobs lost were because of consumers "trading down," or buying lower quality products and services.

Read more here.

OZY: A Worst-Case Scenario for Stocks — It's Ugly

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Oh, how it hurts to see, U.S. stocks slowly (and sometimes not so slowly) sinking in recent weeks like so many Titanics. And yet, it could be worse. A lot worse. The 2008 financial crisis is the kind of thing you want to just shut out from your mind, a time when the only option seemed to be gallows humor. (The best joke: How your 401(k) retirement, now worth half its value, was only a “201(k)” plan.) Nobody, at least nobody who really understood money, wanted to look at their monthly financial statements. Doing so left a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Thank goodness we’re not living through that again! Or could we be? Fair warning, what some smart observers think may not exactly make your day.

Read more here.

TheStreet: Dumping Energy Stocks Might Cost Harvard $100 Million a Year

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Harvard's $32.7 billion endowment would generate significantly lower returns if climate-change activists convince the university to abandon fossil fuel investments, according to a new study.

Such a strategy might cost more than $100 million a year, according to the report, which was commissioned and financed by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. It examines the effects of divestment on five universities with large endowments and indicates cutting out those stocks would have "material impacts" on the ability of the portfolios to meet schools' funding goals. Read more here.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

WSJ: What Is Tail Risk?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Bank research reports frequently refer to “tail risk” for investors, but it isn’t always clear what it means and what to do about it.

Broadly speaking, a tail risk is an event with a small probability of happening, says Bob Conroy, professor of finance at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. “In every event there are tails; there are really, really good things that can happen and really, really bad things.”

The term comes from looking at the bell curve, or so-called normal distribution of results. The tails of the bell curve extend out to plus or minus infinity with ever-decreasing probabilities. Read more here.

WSJ: In Chaos, Small Hedge Funds Do Better

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The moment a crisis breaks out, hedge-fund investors should pray they’re in a large fund, which has the capital and market influence to survive, right? 

Just the opposite, it appears.  Read more here.

Forbes: An Antidote To The Tiger Mom? -- Book

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There is something about the sting of asphalt on the palm of your hand when you fall off your bicycle that makes you never want to let it happen again. Of course it will happen again, but you learn, you get better and so on. That is the way millions of people learned to ride. At least they did. But not so much lately.

A couple of years ago I met a woman who had never fallen from a bicycle or seemingly had any major failure in her life. Unfortunately, she wanted me to write her life story. It was unfortunate because narrative’s with no struggle don’t work so well. Obstacles overcome, after all, make a better tale. The bigger the obstacle the better the story. A story without such tension is just lacking. And now we are learning that it doesn’t really work so well in life either.

That brings me to Jessica Lahey’s recently published book, “The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed,” which addresses the issue of over protective parenting and how sometimes it’s just a better gift to let kids learn through trial and error. Lot’s of emphasis on the error, please! Read more here.

TheStreet: You Need Nerves of Steel to Make Money in the Metal Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet)-- Steel stocks may shine soon, after losing their luster during a brutal summer, but only investors with an appetite for turbulence should consider buying them.

What makes them attractive is the relatively low prices. The Market Vectors Steel  exchange-traded fund, which holds a basket of steel stocks and iron-ore producers, is down 25% over the three months through Thursday, more than three times as much as the Standard & Poor's 500 index. U.S. Steel fared even worse, falling more than 35% over the same period. Read more here.

TheStreet: How to Make Your Big Idea the Next Facebook: Take a Break

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- If you want to create the next disruptive technology, it's going to take much more than a flash of inspiration during your morning shower: One vital ingredient is slack time.

Why? Because then you'll have time to do all the boring administrative work that's necessary for success. Nobody said building the next Facebook, Uber or Apple would be all glamour.

Read more here.

OZY: What Our Unemployment Rate Really Means

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Like lucky lottery numbers, few figures get as closely scrutinized every month as America’s unemployment rate. Now hovering at just 5.3 percent, down from 6.2 percent a year ago and close to half what it was five years ago, things seem to be on the up-and-up in the job market, right?

Well, turn to an elderly loved one, sitting back in a big comfy armchair sipping a mint julep, and they’ll probably tell you things just aren’t what they used to be. And they’d be right. Read more here.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Forbes: Why Apple Should Steer Clear Of The Car Biz

By SIMON CONSTABLE

This is an open letter to the management of Apple.

Dear All,

If you are considering entering the car business, please reconsider. This is not something you should undertake likely. Trust me, I know from experience. I worked for years with General Motors and its subsidiary Delphi. Yes, the tech industry is brutal, but the auto business has other issues. Here are just some of the things you need to know: Read more here.

Photo by Sumudu Mohottige on Unsplash

TheStreet: Federal Reserve Employees Need Finance Refresher as Rate Hike Looms

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK ( TheStreet)-- It turns out that Federal Reserve employees really are smarter than the rest of us about finance, but a majority of them would still benefit from reviewing the textbooks periodically. And that's a lesson for everyone else. 

The findings are from a new report by the National Bureau of Economic Researchtitled, " Employee Financial Literacy and Retirement Plan Behavior: A Case Study." The study, conducted in 2013, used five questions to test the knowledge of 3,357 Fed employees, approximately 16% of the total Federal Reserve System workforce. 

On the first three questions, which were considered relatively basic, the Fed employees easily surpassed the achievement of the general population with a much higher proportion of correct answers for the same questions.  

Read more here.

TheStreet: Twitter Can Help You Cash In on Corporate Earnings

By SIMON CONSTABLE

New York (TheStreet)-- If you want to make more money from trades linked to corporate earnings, then head for the Twitter-sphere. It could give you a better result than Wall Street's best, according to new research. 

The findings come from a recent study by scholars at New York University, Arizona State University and the University of Toronto. The paper, titled  "Can Twitter Help Predict Firm-Level Earnings and Stock Returns?" finds that the wisdom of the Twitter  crowd can be a pathway to trading riches. 

Read more here.

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. 

Read more here.

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."

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.