This Week’s Stock Market Drop was Machine-Made. The Freakout That Followed Was Man-Made.

“Dow plunges 391 points as fear grips markets.” A headline from two days ago? Try two years ago. Jan. 15, 2016, to be precise. The last time stocks exhibited the sharp sell-off — followed by an equally sharp run-up — that characterized the past few days. Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average was down about 1,600 points, the largest intraday point-drop ever,

Read more

How Uber's 'Invisible' Workforce Could Affect Your Taxes

The “gig economy” is hardly new, but there’s still a yawning gap between the attention it receives and our understanding of how it is—or isn’t—altering the nature of work in America. It may be a Bay Area joke that everyone is either working in the valley or for Task Rabbit, and Uber may be the world’s most valuable startup,

Read more

It's Time to Reinvent the Federal Reserve

In the endless swirl of noise and controversy emanating from Washington these days, it is easy to overlook a more mundane but significant challenge facing the US government: its institutions are getting old. With the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, most substantial agencies are at least decades old and many date back much longer.

Read more

Take Advantage of Shift From Bonds to Stocks

For several years, investors have anticipated a “great rotation” from bonds into equities, and for several years, they were dead wrong. In fact, even as equities were quietly rising for the past years, both domestic and international money has continued to surge into bonds. At long last, that is beginning to reverse, which demands a reconsideration of strategies that seemingly have worked so well and so easily for so long. As long as bond prices were rising, pouring money into assets that had a certain return looked like a slam dunk. No longer.

Read more

Making the Most of a ‘Placid’ Market

At long last, the presidential election of 2016 is entering its final stages. In one form or another, this election has occupied an outsized place in American life since the middle of 2015, by far the longest and most extensive political campaign we’ve ever experienced. Much of this campaign season’s noise will have little impact on markets, the economy, interest rates, economic growth, or the fate of companies. In many respects, there is an inverse relationship between the furor of this election and its clear impacts—particularly if Hillary Clinton and the Democrats win.

Read more