Following up on last week’s post about real risks and the opportunities that could arise from them, let’s take a look at the energy industry. With oil prices dropping to multiyear lows, companies and countries struggling to stay in business and pay their bills, and new suppliers like Iran reentering the market, the industry has been in better shape.

But could this slump also present opportunities?

Last week’s economic news was mixed, with signs of slowing in housing even as industry appeared to stabilize.

My post the other day about negative interest rates in Japan sparked some questions from readers, so let’s dig a bit deeper. (We’ll return to our analysis of global risks and opportunities next week.)

As the U.S. recovery continues and the economy normalizes, the problems—and opportunities—elsewhere in the world are becoming more important to American citizens and investors.

There are two big questions we need to ask ourselves:

• First, what are the risks we should be paying attention to?
• And second, where are the opportunities?

Today's post is from Anuradha Gaggar of Commonwealth’s Investment Research team.

The recent market turmoil has prompted much soul-searching among emerging markets investors: can they continue to justify an allocation to the asset class?

Overall, the data last week was encouraging on the consumer side, and we’ll find out this week whether that translates to the business side as well.

Yesterday was another bad one for the markets. Worries continue to build around the energy sector, the European banking system, emerging markets . . . the list goes on and on.

Clearly, stock markets worldwide are betting on a serious downturn. Strangely, though, economists in general (myself included) think the global economy is much more likely to continue growing than move into recession.

When I woke up this morning, I checked the markets as I usually do, and my first thought was—paraphrased—what the heck? What happened last night to drive Asian and particularly European markets down that hard?

On Wednesday, I joined CNBC Power Lunch hosts Tyler Mathisen, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, and Melissa Lee to discuss recent market volatility and how politics could affect investing, particularly the health care sector.

Today’s post comes from guest contributor Peter Essele, a portfolio manager on Commonwealth’s Preferred Portfolio Services^® Select platform.

Like many of us, the equity markets have started 2016 with a New Year’s resolution: get in shape.