Last week's economic news fell below expectations across the board. Although housing markets continued to grow, there are potential signs of slowing, and business spending continues to be weak. Of course, the big news of the week—Britain’s decision to leave the EU—will probably exacerbate that weakness, even if it is unlikely to drive the U.S. into a recession.

I woke up early this morning to check the results of the British referendum on leaving the European Union. Against expectations, the Leave vote won a convincing victory, defying the polls and the prediction markets.

There’s no doubt the world has changed, significantly. There is considerable doubt about what that actually means and—more immediately—what to do about it.

As an analyst and economist, I spend most of my professional life being wrong, as does everyone else in my field. No one actually expects economic projections to come true consistently; no one has the ability to predict what the market will do.

As we watch how the British referendum plays out tomorrow, we need to keep something in mind: It’s almost never the bus you are watching that hits you.

With the British referendum on leaving the European Union—the “Brexit” vote—just two days away, worries are starting to rise again. As I wrote recently, I suspect that the Remain side will win. And even if the Leave camp prevails, the actual impact may be much less severe than many are now predicting. 

Spanning the whole economy, last week’s reports were positive overall but mostly more of the same. Manufacturing continues to slog along with no indications of recovery, despite the first signs of stabilization in the oil-drilling sector. Retail sales, on the other hand, show the consumer driving even faster economic growth.

The rise of automated financial advice—essentially, computer programs that rebalance your accounts—has been a hot topic in the investment industry. Blockchain technology, which could automate many functions now handled by securities exchanges, is another one. Just this morning, a colleague sent me an article about a start-up that looks to make transferring money essentially free, undercutting PayPal, which is already undercutting banks.

Yesterday, we talked about what the stock market is really saying. Briefly, despite all of the bad news out there, the stock market has not collapsed and the world is not coming to an end, at least in the short term. This, of course, is good news—but an absence of catastrophe doesn’t mean things will be good, either.

After a couple of posts on risky business (the Brexit vote and negative rates), let’s take a step back and look at the big picture. It’s easy to get caught up in individual stories, but we need to understand how they fit together—and what the market is saying about it all.

The big news today in the financial world is that, for the first time on record, the yield on the German 10-year government bond dropped below zero. This is just the latest step in the ongoing decline in interest rates. In fact, the Japanese 15-year government bond recently went negative as well.