The markets are basically not treating this as an 'if' scenario but more as a 'done deal' scenario.

The first of the boomers turn 60 this year. They are about to retire, and they have been spending as if they were 30, for the last 30 years.

The earnings season continues to be a decent one, with Nokia beating ... expectations, though Ericsson missed.

The economy was already clearly losing momentum heading into Katrina.

Although an inverted yield curve does not always imply an economic recession, it has predicted a profit recession 100 per cent of the time.

The equity market is climbing a wall of worry right now.

The employment cost index report adds to the growing list of evidence that there is very little in the way of cost pressures in the inflation pipeline.

The housing market has become so stretched that the affordability ratio for first-time buyers, the folks who drive the incremental demand in the real estate sector, has deteriorated to levels last seen in the third quarter of 1989.

This has nothing to do with whether the yield is too high or too low or whether it's over or undervalued. And it certainly has nothing to with foreign central bank activity. It's about the business cycle.

These increases were in a sense artificially produced by shifting incentives as auto companies try to back away from incentives and instead lower sticker prices.