Weekend Reading

Good Sunday morning, 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 worst week for the major markets since March 2003. The Dow lost 4.2%, and the S&P 500 index was down 4.4%. The Nasdaq Composite was its usual more volatile self, tumbling 5.8%.

There already is an entire cottage industry of people coming up with explanations for why the markets fell last week, and, in particular, why there was such a dramatic air pocket on Tuesday. But the bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Sure, there were some weak economic figures, Alan Greenspan hinted at a possible recession and the Shanghai market had a bad day at the beginning of the week. But in the end, the markets fell because the markets fell. Anyone who pretends to have a better explanation is selling something. ...