Weekend Reading

Good Sunday morning, happy holidays, and welcome to Weekend Reading. As always, here are some articles and papers worth reading. First, however, a look back at the week that just finished, and a look forward to the week ahead.

It was the first downbeat week on the major markets in weeks, with the Dow and the S&P 500 losing 0.8% and 1.1%, respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.3%. Click here for the weekly performance.

Bears are somewhat mollified after what has been, for them, a horrific end to the year, with markets in nonstop ascendancy. But now they can enter 2007 somewhat reassured, with negative economic data leading to crummy market performance, at least for last week. ...