One of the things I try to keep in mind is the possibility I might be wrong. (Hard to believe, I know, but stranger things have happened.)

Although I remain convinced the economy will continue to grow—and that weather and other transitory factors contributed to the lackluster first quarter—the continuing stream of weak economic reports at least suggests the opposite is also possible.

Today seems like a good time to pull out the wayback machine again, for a look at commodity and oil prices. I’ve focused quite a bit on oil prices here, and what they might mean for the U.S. economy, but other commodities are also important.

In case you missed it, on Friday, April 24, I was on-air with CNBC Closing Bell co-anchors Kelly Evans and Bob Pisani to discuss the markets—in particular, performance of old-school tech names.

It’s been 15 years since the dot-com boom and bust, and the Nasdaq has finally reclaimed its old high. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 have hit a bunch of new highs since then, but the Nasdaq, which flew higher and crashed harder, didn’t make it back to the top of the mountain until yesterday.

I read a transcript this week of a talk given by legendary investor Stan Druckenmiller, which has a tremendous amount of good stuff in it. (You can find it here.)

I was particularly struck by Druckenmiller’s comment, on page 31, that the current economic and market situation feels bad, much as it did for him in 2004. When you hear this kind of statement from someone with his record, it’s worth considering what might happen if he’s right.

Lately, I've been reading that the housing market, having largely recovered from the financial crisis, is now set to stay dormant. Much of this argument seems to be based on the last couple of months, when housing has indeed been hibernating.

But I suspect we haven’t seen the end of the housing boom.

After yesterday’s discussion of the Greek crisis, I thought we should take a look at the other major international risk: China. I haven’t written a lot about China recently, as there hasn’t been much news, but some recent developments warrant an update.

Not that long ago, the U.S. was facing a fiscal cliff, with the government at risk of running out of money and the world expected to end shortly thereafter. It was a big deal at the time—mitigated by the fact that the only real problem was the inability of the U.S. Congress to agree.

Whenever the market drops, I get calls asking me to explain why. There’s no short answer, of course, but today is an interesting time to look at short-term market behavior and try to understand what makes it tick.

Yesterday’s post on jobs made some interesting points about the relative performance of the economy today and in previous decades, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses of the current recovery.

A look at financial figures over the same time periods offers a different but equally interesting set of observations.