Investment implications

Most worries do not provide a basis for overall market action. Trying to time the market using headlines is a road to ruin. Some worries provide opportunities or warnings about specific stocks or sectors. This requires doing your homework to find the right themes. Then you must be contrarian, acting when others are fearful.
Election season will lengthen the list of perceived worries. Candidates thrive on offering solutions to existing problems, and often negative campaigns. Duke’s Fuqua School does a quarterly survey of CFOs. This group’s optimism level is at a three-year low with a majority expecting a recession before the election. .
Just because asset prices rise “does not mean that every risk is about to pop,” writes Joe Weisenthal. Why We Love to Call Everything a Bubble.