Under Armor just signed a $280 million deal for 15 years with UCLA supplying basketball and other sports attire. Problem is as a stock analysts are skeptical that the company can continue to grow at its current pace. The stock does seem to be sluggish following April earnings. Currently in terms of analyst opinions the opinions are as follows: 9- strong buy, 11- buy, 15- hold, 1- underperform, and 0- sell. Facebook on the other hand is likely to continue growing and making money. Safe to say its revenues and expansion will continue for the next decade at least. Do you agree?

Frankly find the whole world of volatility ETFs somewhat confusing. In layman's terms how do these compare to regular stocks or Index funds? Do you have a link to send me that provides an broad overview of these types of investments? Thanks

Thanks for this important article. I think its never to early to learn about fiscal responsibility. Too many people grow up thinking that money is an abundant spring all you need is a plastic card and your worries are over.I believe children should be taught from a young age how to spend according to a budget and how to save money even if its a few dollars a month. Debt is not a four letter word but needs to be talked about too. Just as sex education became part of the required curriculum in most schools, I believe financial education needs to be too.

Looking towards Europe from the outside especially through American "glasses", it is always tempting to group the European economy into one basket. Reality is it is made up of multiple separate countries, currencies, and fiscal challenges. Yes Greece is in trouble as is Portugal as are some others, but Germany, the UK (even with Brexit) and many others are in great shape with low unemployment, rising GDPs and increasing wages (UK), I think it is more valuable to evaluate individual countries' economies rather than group as a whole. Most Brits by the way don't even consider themselves Europeans but that's a topic for another time.

Lorimer, thanks for that article. Always fascinates me how cross currency fluctuations happen. No-one really knows for sure what China is doing behind closed doors but we do know that they have been dumping a seriously large amount of US currency reserves over the past few months. Could this by itself be one of the main causes of the dollar's decline? Doubtful. According to Douglas Borthwick, head of currency trading at Chapdelaine & Co, China's central bank has sold dollars and dollar-denominated assets like U.S. Treasurys in favor of government debt from eurozone countries and Japan to try to reduce its over $3 trillion of US reserves. Other than China, there is also the issue of the declining price of oil and the effect that has on the dollar. As oil has recovered over the past month or so, we have not seen an improvement in the dollar as far I can see. At least with a weaker dollar, American exports cost less, but imports cost more as the buying power of a weaker dollar becomes diminished, not good news for the trade deficit.

Maybe you are right about the poor management as being the reason for the layoffs. I think there is a lot more to the cause of the layoffs. I think Intel has been lagging behind the demands of the shifting tech consumer market. for years now. It has relied for way too long on the PC and lap top market as its bread and butter but this has been diminishing for years now that smarts phones and ipads have started to cut into the laptop market. Sad that this drastic measure will hurt so many people in the company.

Congress is opposed to a Puerto Rico bailout for a very good reason. It sends the wrong message to inefficient local governments and sets a bad precedence to other in debt States that they too can rely on the Government when they run out of money. Maybe instead of bailouts we should look at unprofitable States like unsuccessful businesses. The Government would "buy out" the indebted state, restructure and revitalize it. In this way, there is far more control over the fiscal decisions and mistakes the State can make. Or does this sound like some form or Communism? Any thoughts?

Correct me if I am wrong but the only real way to know the state of the market fully is by looking backwards at historical performance. All the graphs and charts can't predict where the market will go whether up or down so effectively we are looking at a historical perspective rather than a current state of the market. That might be very simplified way to look at things but that's how I see it. if we are in fact already in a bear market perhaps now is the time to be a contra investor and buy while the perception of the market us negative, but I think there is a still considerable way to go yet before the inevitable final end to the longest bull market yet.. Perhaps China will be the epicenter of the meltdown again? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for your reply. And if you were a betting man, would you wager that the Fed will hike interest rates in the next 6 months? I think they will continue to hike but very gradually.

Said it before and will keep saying it; Apple cannot afford to rely solely on its Iphone and Ipad successes. As you mentioned Apple Pay and Apple TV are 2 critical products that will help keep the company diversified into the payment/finance sector, and to services/entertainment (Apple TV). I am still a believer in the stock and the company. You just don't grow this big and become so globally owned if you aren't doing something right. For an alternative safe stock, buy insurance stocks like Progressive, Travellers, or Chubb, or Buffett favorite; Coca Cola (KO), or a utilities ETF like (VPU) up 15% year to date. And above all important not to put all your "apples" in one basket..