I’m just back from the Commonwealth Chairman’s Retreat conference, trying to digest all I learned there. I usually come away with at least one idea that has the potential to change my life for the better, and this year it was the concept of purpose.

I don’t normally write about politics. Although it’s an essential part of market and economic analysis, the connections are indirect and take time to show up, making daily or even monthly commentary not very relevant.

Politics is also fairly loose, in that what politicians say has little relation to what they actually intend to do, and what they intend to do has little relation to what actually gets done.

In yesterday’s post, we discussed how the common perception of the oil price decline is significantly out of line with reality. It is just this kind of mismatch that has, historically, created opportunities. Another mismatch situation—with the dollar—offers similar potential.

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?

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?

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?

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.