Wow. After a significant decline last Thursday and Friday, markets bounced back yesterday in a big way. What’s going on?

Last week’s economic news focused on the Fed and tariffs. This week, there are only two major reports, but each will give us a look at the all-important consumer.

The big news yesterday was the market decline after the announcement of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. As we saw with the previous round of tariffs, markets are pulling back and forth between the very real potential damage a trade war could cause and the likelihood that one won’t happen.

The economic news today should be about the Fed and how its new chairman sounded at the press conference yesterday. Indeed, there has been some commentary on that, and it was largely good. But any Fed news has been overshadowed by the expected (now confirmed) announcement from the White House of a new round of tariffs on China. Markets have taken note by heading down, so that is what we will be discussing today.

I consider housing to be one of the key drivers of the economy. This is true from a fundamental basis—with housing driving construction and mortgage finance, which are significant parts of the economy, plus all sorts of indirect spending such as furniture. But it also holds true from a confidence and wealth-building perspective. Homeownership provides a level of economic security for most families that enables them to save and invest at higher levels, even before considering the substantial economic benefit of home appreciation. Housing matters for a reason.

The regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (better known as the Fed) starts today and ends tomorrow with an official statement followed by a press conference. Markets expect the Fed to announce that interest rates will rise another 25 basis points, with 100-percent probability. Further, they are currently pricing in another couple of increases this year, as you can see in the Bloomberg chart below.

Last week was a busy one for economic news, with five major reports covering all areas. But this week, all eyes will be on the Fed. Let’s take a closer look.

One of the best ways to tell that the economic news is good is that it simply isn’t showing up in the news. The old media saying, “if it bleeds it leads,” means you don’t see a lot of good news on the front pages. Hence, we now have politics taking the lead, along with various disasters. When business stories do appear, they are typically company specific and focus on (what else?) bad news. The Toys R Us bankruptcy is a case in point today.

Today, I would like to pause and remember the life and work of Dr. Stephen Hawking, renowned physicist and a personal hero of mine. His life combined a commitment to science with a complete refusal to give in to a debilitating medical condition. Instead, not only did he continue to learn and grow, but he extended the limits of human knowledge—quite literally to the end of time. Not all heroes wear capes, as the saying goes, and his heroism in continuing to live and work in the face of illness is beyond all admiration. Thank you, Dr. Hawking, not just for your work but for the inspiration and example of a life well lived.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the failure of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, widely considered the opening act of the great financial crisis of 2008. Bear was done in, so the story goes, by a mix of ill-considered bets on mortgage securities and excessive borrowing. After it went down, banks started to look around to see what other companies might fail—and found that they really couldn’t tell. As a consequence, each bank started to pull back individually, and the flow of liquidity that supported Wall Street fell apart. As each bank pulled away, the fears of collapse started to turn into reality, which only worsened the problem. The downward spiral led to what we now know as the great financial crisis, from which we have been recovering for the past 10 years.