The release of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting minutes was a case of no news is good news.

Even after the weak first quarter, the Fed believes the economy is continuing to recover, and that the risks are now pretty much equally balanced between faster and slower growth. The discussion seems to have shifted from whether the recovery is valid to how quickly it’s moving—and the burden of proof is slowly shifting from those who want the Fed to back off to those who want it to keep stimulating.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve written a couple of times about the U.S. oil industry—specifically, how it’s becoming increasingly supportive of continued economic growth.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I want to take a more detailed look at the U.S. oil renaissance, and what it might mean for the country going forward.

I hope everyone had as much fun over the recent holiday weekend as my family did. Between picnics on the beach, a hike up a (small) mountain, lots of playing in the pool, and going to see How to Train Your Dragon 2, a great time was had by all.

Part of the whole Fourth of July ambience, of course, is reminding your kids that they live in the greatest country in the world. That’s very true in some ways; in others, not so much. But the holiday inspired me to revisit just how well positioned the U.S. is compared with other countries, and why we’re lucky to be living here.

The string of 200,000-plus employment reports just got a little longer.

The number at the end of last week—288,000 new jobs—far surpassed the expected level of 215,000. It’s also well above the figures for the preceding months, which were themselves strong. The consistency of the gains provides further support for their durability.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all stock indices are not created equal.

Although capitalization-weighted indices are the most common, they’re not the only type of index out there. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, products based on nontraditional indices can offer investors broad exposure and low costs, along with the potential to outperform the usual indices.

Alpha—the excess return a money manager can generate, above and beyond the return due to general market effects—is an elusive beast.

It’s defined in opposition to beta, which reflects an investment’s tendency to respond to swings in the market. If your stock has a beta of 1, for example, it tends to move much as the market does. If the market rises 10 percent, and the stock goes up 10 percent (just as expected), how much credit should a manager get?

With all of the data out there—and all of the different takes on where the economy and financial markets are going—is there a warning sign that can tell us if the stock market is getting overextended?

I track several signals that are good economic indicators, but the stock market is tougher. There aren't any really good signals out there. Even the one I use most, the 200-day moving average, isn’t all that great.

One sign of a pending top, though, has become more apparent in recent weeks: investors are increasingly invoking 1999 to explain why the market is now reasonably priced.

I have mixed feelings about the Aereo decision. 

If you haven’t heard, the Supreme Court ruled this week that Aereo—a company that uses multiple small antennas to capture TV broadcasts, which it then streams to subscribers over the web—violated copyright law.

For decades now, the U.S. has essentially had to accept the oil prices set by world markets. Starting in 1973 with the OPEC-driven oil shock, the major producers have been foreign countries. If the U.S. wanted the oil, we had to pay the price.

But are things starting to change?

Also known as the “fear index,” the VIX tends to stay low when investors are feeling confident and to spike when investors get scared. Technically, it reflects the volatility of the stock market—how much things bounce around—but on a practical level, it tends to mirror recent market performance.