Markets are frequently ahead of, and often out of sync with, the economy.

The consumption and production of energy is a major component of the global economy.

When markets are rallying, cash in the portfolio is a drag on performance, returning about zero.

Getting more and more of our news from the social network is having significant repercussions for markets - and your money.

Based on a lifetime of observations and a few decades in the markets, I understand that societies, beliefs and fashions all move in long arcs of time. We call these arcs several things: cycles, periods, eras.

Secular cycles are the long periods - as long as decades - that come to define each market era. These cycles alternate between long-term bull and bear markets.