I suspect that many of us are worried about the stock market. I certainly am, but what else is new? That’s why they call me Eeyore. But worrying by itself doesn’t do any good. What is important is to figure out how to worry effectively. That is, by identifying the real signs of trouble, you can focus on those and not worry until there really is something to worry about. I think we could all use a refresher on how to do this.

Wow. After a significant decline last Thursday and Friday, markets bounced back yesterday in a big way. What’s going on?

The big news yesterday was the market decline after the announcement of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. As we saw with the previous round of tariffs, markets are pulling back and forth between the very real potential damage a trade war could cause and the likelihood that one won’t happen.

The economic news today should be about the Fed and how its new chairman sounded at the press conference yesterday. Indeed, there has been some commentary on that, and it was largely good. But any Fed news has been overshadowed by the expected (now confirmed) announcement from the White House of a new round of tariffs on China. Markets have taken note by heading down, so that is what we will be discussing today.

I consider housing to be one of the key drivers of the economy. This is true from a fundamental basis—with housing driving construction and mortgage finance, which are significant parts of the economy, plus all sorts of indirect spending such as furniture. But it also holds true from a confidence and wealth-building perspective. Homeownership provides a level of economic security for most families that enables them to save and invest at higher levels, even before considering the substantial economic benefit of home appreciation. Housing matters for a reason.

One of the best ways to tell that the economic news is good is that it simply isn’t showing up in the news. The old media saying, “if it bleeds it leads,” means you don’t see a lot of good news on the front pages. Hence, we now have politics taking the lead, along with various disasters. When business stories do appear, they are typically company specific and focus on (what else?) bad news. The Toys R Us bankruptcy is a case in point today.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the failure of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, widely considered the opening act of the great financial crisis of 2008. Bear was done in, so the story goes, by a mix of ill-considered bets on mortgage securities and excessive borrowing. After it went down, banks started to look around to see what other companies might fail—and found that they really couldn’t tell. As a consequence, each bank started to pull back individually, and the flow of liquidity that supported Wall Street fell apart. As each bank pulled away, the fears of collapse started to turn into reality, which only worsened the problem. The downward spiral led to what we now know as the great financial crisis, from which we have been recovering for the past 10 years.

I woke up this morning to a surprise. It had snowed, which was expected. After all the fear-mongering coverage, in fact, I expected the house to be covered, but it wasn’t so bad. The real surprise was the fact that a combination of wind and heavy snow had taken down several trees—including an 18-footer right across most of my driveway. All of a sudden, I was cut off.

Yesterday, I wrote that the markets were likely to continue to trend upward, on the idea that the U.S. tariffs were not really going to happen. But then the news that Gary Cohn had resigned as head of the National Economic Council was announced—and this has changed that perception entirely.

Well, that was quick. After a sharp but short pullback in late January/early February, the market started to rally again. But it was derailed by the announcement—by the U.S. president—of an impending trade war. Then, after an even shorter and less sharp pullback, it seems to have started to rally again (although it is slightly down as I write this). What’s going on?