The crash of October

October has a bad reputation in the markets. The biggest crashes in history – 1929, 1987, and 2008 – all took place in October. This pattern does not appear to be a coincidence but rather the result of structural factors that make this month particularly volatile.

The profit paradox

For decades, it was an iron law for investors: in the long run, the stock market follows economic growth. A thriving economy translated into rising corporate profits and thus higher share prices. But anyone who has watched the past thirty years closely senses a growing friction with this old wisdom.

Greed is a stronger emotion than fear

The Federal Reserve last week cut interest rates from 4.25–4.50 percent to 4.00–4.25 percent and will lower rates further at the remaining meetings of the FOMC, the Fed’s policy body. This comes even as financial conditions have already improved and there is still an extraordinary amount of liquidity on the sidelines.

Fresh start

What could hardly be considered a surprise anymore still turned into one. The annual revision of US job growth came in even bigger than expected. As anticipated, it triggered a flood of reactions—though often the wrong ones.