Stocks down sharply today, screams a Fox article. Hmm. The major indexes are down about 1%. If you look back 3 months (as I tried to do here), you'll see that 1% fluxations are fairly normal. Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average only looks at 20 or so huge companies, it's not exactly the barometer of the economy. The S&P 500 is a much better indicator of how things are really going. In fact, one of the best investments you can make is buying a mutual fund that is a mirror of the S&P 500. Over several decades, no mutual fund has really done better than the S&P, at least to not any appreciaple extent.