After speaking recently at the Economic Club of Marquette County, Michigan, I sat down with Don Ryan, host of The Ryan Report, for an in-depth interview on the markets and expectations for 2016.

One of the most interesting (and surprising) pieces of news on the economics front has been the Bank of Japan’s decision to take rates to negative levels—in other words, to charge depositors to keep their money in the bank. This is not an unprecedented move, as negative rates have been in place for a while in some European countries, but it’s still somewhat unusual.

Overall, last week’s data reflects an ongoing split in the U.S. economy, with consumers and the service sector doing well while manufacturing and industry continue to struggle. 

As expected, this morning’s GDP report wasn't cause for celebration. The initial estimate of economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year came in at 0.69 percent on an annualized basis—well below the previous quarter’s figure of 1.98 percent and even further below the fourth quarter of 2014, which posted growth of 2.07 percent.

Following up on yesterday’s post, let’s take a look at what the oil price crash might mean for states in general. The problems in the Middle East and Africa are the most glaring, so we'll start there.

Overall, the effects of low oil prices here in the U.S. have been positive—very positive, in fact. In the rest of the world, this is even more true. China and Europe, for example, import much more energy as a proportion of their economies than we do, and the positive effects have been proportionately greater. Whatever troubles China and Europe are having, they would be much, much worse with higher oil prices.

There are, however, real costs of cheap oil.

This past week had a light data calendar, with prices and housing coming into focus. Let’s take a closer look.

One of the assumptions I’ve made in my recent analyses of the markets is that we are not in—or close to—a recession. Although I stand by this view, it’s common sense that, at some point, the U.S. will see another recession. When that happens, stocks are very likely to pull back, and we might enter the bear market everyone fears.

Yesterday was a wild ride. The market dropped steeply at the open, plunged even more at midday, and then came back strong, leaving us down just a little.

I was getting on a plane as it was dropping the most, and I have to admit it was an anxious flight. The market was the first thing I checked when we landed, and I was relieved to see the recovery.

Oil prices continue to fall and are bringing markets down with them. We talked about why oil prices are dropping last week, so today, let’s take a look at why markets are getting hammered—and whether that is likely to last.