Weekend Reading: Strength After Storm

Good Sunday morning. Here are some articles and papers worth reading. First, however, a look back at the week that just finished, and a look forward at the week ahead.

The major markets slid last week. Higher oil and the arrival of Hurricane Rita conspired to make investors feel like, all else being equal, they would rather have their money elsewhere. The result: the Dow and the S&P 500 lost 2.1% and 1.8%, respectively, while the Nasdaq dropped 2%. Click here for the weekly performance.

This week will almost certainly see a reversal. While there is legitimate concern about the resilience of the U.S. economy in 2006, third-quarter earnings numbers should be relatively solid. More short term, with Hurricane Rita out of the way, the markets will feel newly overly pessimistic. However, that will almost certainly get fixed by stocks trending in the opposite direction of their recent downward slide. ...