After taking a look at the bright side yesterday, more data has come across my desk that confirms just how reasonable (but not, of course, certain) that perspective is. One data point in particular puts some direct context around the reasons for optimism.

Yesterday, I wrote about the stock market risks that the AT&T/Time Warner merger might be signaling. Each month, I review market risks as suggested by several other key metrics. And over the last year or so, I’ve been giving a presentation to investors on the causal factors behind a sustained bear market.

Overall, my commentary on the markets has been decidedly risk-centric.

There have been a lot of headlines in the past couple of days about the proposed mega-merger between AT&T and Time Warner. In fact, I was on CNBC yesterday discussing it. At $85 billion, this would be the sixth-largest merger of all time, so it is indeed a big deal. Does it have any larger meaning, though?

Do big deals signal a market peak? Yesterday afternoon, I was on CNBC’s Power Lunch offering thoughts on the market amid the recent AT&T and Time Warner merger. 

Last week’s reports covered a wide range of the economy.

The headlines this week are all about Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his potential defeat in the U.S. presidential race. He has reserved the right to contest the results of the election, doubling down on his claims that the process is rigged. Although this is the first time the issue has arisen in the presidential forum, claims of data rigging have been quite common in recent years.

It’s been a while since I wrote about inflation, the general increase in prices that makes everything cost more. Inflation has been so low recently that it hasn’t really been a priority. Indeed, there’s been more concern about inflation running too low than too high.

Amazingly enough, after the concern about another Black Monday, the 1987 drop's anniversary today hasn’t generated much media attention. It’s almost like it never happened.

One of the investment industry’s most famous magazine covers is the August 1979 Businessweek that proclaimed “The Death of Equities”—right before one of the longest and largest bull markets of all time began. It was a perfect example of the investment truism known as the magazine cover effect: when something is widely enough known to be on a magazine cover, it’s already fully priced into the market (and likely about to reverse).

Last week’s reports remained modestly positive, although consumer demand showed signs of a slowdown.