Here at Commonwealth, I’m considered the resident gold bug. In investing, that’s someone who looks to gold as a safe investment, a guarantee against systemic failures, and who is typically bullish about the price of gold.

I don’t actually fit that description, as I’m neither bullish on gold at the moment, nor do I think gold is a safe investment, nor am I a disaster buff looking to use gold as a hedge. I am, however, one of relatively few people in the firm who are even willing to consider using gold in a portfolio in a significant way.

Last week brought a slew of disappointing economic data releases that, together, suggest the U.S. recovery may be slowing. On the bright side, international concerns died down somewhat.

For some reason, when things are good—and they are—I start thinking about the next set of problems. Call it the Eeyore mindset, or just a deep need to try and see around the corner. This gets me into trouble sometimes, as I usually identify five out of every three problems that show up. But to the extent that it lets me think through issues before they become urgent, it’s usually a helpful tendency.

For all the media coverage of China lately, Western knowledge of these markets—and the ability of U.S. citizens to invest in them—is actually quite limited. As the recent crash has shown, we need to learn more about the Chinese stock market, particularly given that Western firms are increasingly looking to include Chinese companies in their indices.

Based on the retail sales data that came out yesterday, it’s time to take a serious look at the prospect that U.S. economic growth is slowing down.

I’m not suggesting that we’re moving back into a recession—just that growth is quite possibly slowing below expectations, and an acceleration may not be coming any time soon. We need to consider why that might be.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, to say the least.

In the words of Lenin, someone I don’t normally quote, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” These past few weeks have seen a great deal of change around the world.

The headlines this morning are all about the Greek debt deal that European leaders hammered out over the weekend. Good news, I suppose, but as usual, the devil is in the details.

Last week was relatively quiet in U.S. economic news, but the news we did get was generally encouraging. Once again, the top stories came from abroad, as China’s market stabilized and Greece moved closer to exiting the eurozone before reaching a deal over the weekend.

Every year or so, I do a postmortem of my analyses and predictions in order to figure out where I was wrong, and how to avoid making those mistakes in the future—a useful, albeit uncomfortable, exercise. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in the past decade has been to underestimate the power of governments to influence markets.

Yesterday was a rough one for financial markets across the board. China’s markets dropped again, U.S. markets fell in sympathy, and the New York Stock Exchange shut down with technology problems. It’s the end of the world as we know it!

Or maybe not. Although there are reasons for concern, U.S. investors shouldn’t be too worried—as long as they’ve planned ahead for an eventual downturn.