A classic strategy called dollar-cost averaging can help reduce risks surrounding an asset falling in price. The concept is straightforward — you invest a fixed amount of money in an asset once every fixed time period. If the asset's price drops, you will be getting more shares of the asset for the same amount of money, and so if and when the price recovers, you will have spent less per share, on average, than if you had bought the shares at their peak pre-fall price. Dollar-cost averaging isn't about losing money as the stock market falls. It's about buying increasing amounts of shares at cheaper prices, which means bigger returns during the rally.

Dollar cost averaging January 2016 - Business Insider

To see this in action, we came up with a simplified thought experiment. We considered what would have happened to an investor jumping into the stock market at the last peak: October 2007. This was arguably the worst time to buy. Our hypothetical investor puts $50 into an S&P 500 index fund at the start of every month, starting in October 2007 — the last stock market peak before the beginning of the great recession.

Dollar cost averaging January 2016 - Business Insider

Last year, just 62 individuals held wealth equivalent to the amount owned by 3.6 billion people, about half the world’s population. That’s according to a new report by Oxfam published Monday, ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which aims to show just how deep the gulf of inequality has become.

Just 62 people own as much wealth as half the world’s population: Oxfam - MarketWatch

For the first time, the infant meerkats step out of their parents' burrows and into the sunlight

BBC - Earth - Watch what happens the first time baby meerkats go outside

Yet to many Americans, it doesn’t feel like progress. Labour participation remains substantially down on pre-crisis levels, and almost everyone beyond the highly skilled is struggling to achieve any appreciable increase in measured disposable income. Average real wages in the US have been flat or even falling for decades. Far from empowering the lives of ordinary Americans, technology and globalisation seem only to have undermined them, degrading or even destroying many traditional blue collar and middle class sources of employment.

Whatever happened to the American dream? Unfortunately, it got Trumped - Telegraph

Although in our view the Chancellor could very well weather yet another test of her leadership and go on to win a fourth term, we regard a Merkel-exit ahead of German elections (due in 2017) as one of the most destabilizing political risks for the EU, and one with the potential to impact markets

Europe's next big risk is the 'Merkel-exit' - Business Insider

Dilger's theory is that as Apple owns the richest, most lucrative users, the company now wants to give them as much ad-free privacy as possible. "Poor neighborhoods are emblazoned with billboards and ads. Rich neighborhoods are not," he writes. "Advertising is increasingly restricted in neighborhoods as land values climb. There's a general revolt against invasive advertising the higher you climb in sophistication and wealth." In this scenario, it is as if Apple is trying to teach the marketplace that ads are for the poor losers on Android, and people (with money) who want a superior, hassle-free experience should come to Apple. In this context, it is interesting that Apple probably provides 13.5% of Google's entire revenue. And that Apple can cut much of that off if it tweaks iOS to block more ads or removes Google as the default from its software.

Apple cut iAd 'to starve Google's core business': column - Business Insider

September's emissions scandal rocked Volkswagen - but it's not the only issue the German car giant has. Alongside other German manufacturers, it faces a major challenge from the digital revolution sweeping through the world of manufacturing, writes Sean Williams.

Can Germany's manufacturers do digital? - BBC News

It's no secret that robots are replacing humans in factories, and both the retail and service industries are set to take a hit, too. Just how bad will things get? Well, the World Economic Forum says its research indicates that over 5 million jobs will be lost to automation by 2020. The WEF claims white-collar workers -- administrative and office jobs -- are at the highest risk of being replaced.

Robots could replace 5 million jobs by 2020, report claims

75 million subscribers. That's the number Netflix probably needs to report on Tuesday to keep investors happy. Netflix will release its fourth quarter results after the closing bell on Tuesday. But let's cut all the pretense. Nobody is really going to care about Netflix's revenues or profits. This is a stock that lives and dies by its global streaming subscriber count.

Will Netflix top 75 million subscribers? It better - Jan. 18, 2016

Having a business degree doesn’t seem to help much when landing a job, but a relevant internship does. That’s according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, and published in January in the journal Labour Economics.

More Helpful Than a Business Degree: A Summer Internship - Real Time Economics - WSJ

I'm standing on the corner of 15th Street and Third Avenue in New York City, and I'm freezing. But my iPhone is on fire. After connecting to one of LinkNYC's gigabit wireless hotspots, the futuristic payphone replacements that went live for beta testing this morning, I'm seeing download speeds of 280 Mbps and upload speeds of 317 Mbps (based on Speedtest's benchmark). To put it in perspective, that's around ten times the speed of the average American home internet connection (which now sits at 31 Mbps). And to top it all off, LinkNYC doesn't cost you a thing.

LinkNYC's free gigabit Wi-Fi is here, and it is glorious

Lately, there have been articles all over the Internet talking about the newest electronics cleaning trend: slime. This gooey cleaning tool has been advertised as a great way to get dust and lint out of keyboards, modems and more. Of course, the craftier people on the Internet quickly started posting recipes on how you can make your own. Alarmingly, some of these recipes can ruin your electronics. Through trial and error, I've found a recipe that actually works and doesn't leave your keyboard covered in dripping goo.

Whip up a batch of all-purpose cleaning slime in minutes - CNET

He identified a pattern. "You'd have one player would win a set and then they would go a break of serve up and then almost as soon as that happened there would just be a flood of money for the other player who would then miraculously win eight games in a row," he says.

The Tennis Files: Have top players been paid to lose? - BBC News

The study, titled “A Darker Side of Hypermobility,” says that society glamorizes travel but ignores the physical and psychological drawbacks. The negative aspects include the risk of deep-vein thrombosis, jet lag, exposure to radiation on commercial jets, anxiety about getting robbed or being the victim of terrorism and the stress on spouses left behind. “In more extreme cases, mobility can engender psychological disorders and mental illness,” according to the study by the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey.

The "darker side" of travel gets overlooked, study says - LA Times

Tennis didn't have its own integrity unit at that stage - that would come later - so it hired a team of experienced investigators from the British Horseracing Authority. They then spent almost a year digging into suspicious betting in tennis. The findings from their confidential report have never been made public but whistleblowers passed it to the BBC and BuzzFeed News.

The Tennis Files: Have top players been paid to lose? - BBC News

Every day seems to bring another round of tumbling global stock markets, but at least one country's shares are jumping. Iran's stock market is having a big week, up 5 percent — despite plunging oil prices — after international economic sanctions against the country were lifted over the weekend.

Iran's stock market roars as sanctions go away

The worst time to learn your way around the Recovery Drive is when you're facing a disaster. This rundown of its tools and options will help you be prepared.

Get familiar with the Windows 10 Recovery Drive... before you need it - TechRepublic

Take the China explanation.  A collapse of growth in China would indeed be a world changing event.   But there is just no evidence of such a collapse.  At most there is suggestive evidence of a mild slowdown, and even that is far from certain.  The mechanical effects of such a mild decrease on the US economy should, by all accounts, and all the models we have, be limited.   Trade channels are limited (US exports to China represent less than 2 percent of GDP), and so are financial linkages.  The main effect of a slowdown in China would be through lower commodity prices, which should help rather than hurt the United States. Take the oil price explanation.  It is even more puzzling.  Traditionally, it was taken for granted that a decrease in the price of oil was good news for oil importing countries such as the United States.  Consumers, with more money to spend, would increase consumption, and increase output.   Energy using firms, with lower cost of production, would increase investment.  We learned in the last year that, in the short run, the adverse effect on investment on energy producing firms could come quickly and temporarily slow down the effect, but this surely does not undo the general conclusion.  Yet the headlines are now about low oil prices leading to low stock prices.   I can think of two potential explanations, neither of them convincing.

RealTime Economic Issues Watch | The Price of Oil, China, and Stock market Herding

This freedom is something Morricone has often been afforded by the directors he has worked with – he once remarked that part of the reason Sergio Leone’s westerns were so slow was that certain scenes were extended in order to accommodate his soundtrack, a luxury that seems almost unthinkable in today’s film industry.

Ennio Morricone: back in the saddle | Music | The Guardian

If you look at developed economies around the world, Jackson says, their fertility rates tend to be near 2.0 (like France or the United States) or down below 1.5 (like Italy, South Korea, or Japan). It has a lot to do with work and family balance.  "The countries that have been most successful at adjusting for a dual role for women, both as mothers and as professionals or at least workers, interestingly end up with more of both," Jackson says," They end up with higher fertility rates and more working women."

How Japan can solve its sex problem - Tech Insider

We all want to lose ourselves in cinema, but sharing a movie theatre with others can be pretty distracting. There’s a new way to immerse yourself in a movie, and it’s called the Cardboard Home Cinema. Not a far cry from the Google Cardboard VR headset, the ‘Goggle Box’ is a ludicrous head enclosure that aims to block out the world so you can really enjoy a film. So how does it work? First off, put your phone or tablet on the top – voila, a cinema screen. Next, lie on the floor (seriously), and slide your head into the noggin-shaped groove on the side. If all goes to plan, you’ll feel utterly immersed in whatever video you choose to stick on your device.

Netflix and Chill alone with this ridiculous cinema head enclosure

Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Holdings, the fund's publicly traded vehicle, has fallen 14.5% in 2016, according to a performance update. That performance is through January 19.  Pershing Square had its worst year in its history last year, falling 20.5%.

Pershing Square falls 14 percent - Business Insider

Global financial markets seem to be overreacting to falling oil prices and the risk of a sharp downturn in China's economy, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. Speaking after the IMF cut its global growth forecasts for the third time in less than a year, Maurice Obstfeld also said it was critical that China is clear about its overall economic strategy, including its currency.

IMF chief economist sees overreaction in markets to oil, China - Yahoo Finance

“We have a public health emergency in many countries from pollution. It’s dramatic, one of the biggest problems we are facing globally, with horrible future costs to society,” said Maria Neira, head of public health at the WHO, which is a specialist agency of the United Nations. “Air pollution leads to chronic diseases which require hospital space. Before, we knew that pollution was responsible for diseases like pneumonia and asthma. Now we know that it leads to bloodstream, heart and cardiovascular diseases, too – even dementia. We are storing up problems. These are chronic diseases that require hospital beds. The cost will be enormous,” said Neira.

Shock figures to reveal deadly toll of global air pollution | Environment | The Guardian

Modern life has factored exercise out of our lives. I recently took a historical tour of my hometown of Simsbury, Conn. According to the guide, in the 1700s, the average Simsbury resident burned between 4,000 and 6,000 calories a day, chopping wood, hauling water, farming, and the like. Today, most of us burn under 2,000 calories a day.

Are you exercising too much? - Business Insider

"Although equity selloffs do coincide with most recessions, large selloffs do not necessarily presage recessions," they note, citing four key reasons that stocks may move differently to U.S. growth.1. Industry composition in the S&P 500 vs. the U.S. economy

Goldman Sachs: 4 Reasons Pullback in Stocks Doesn't Signal Recession

While no one can say whether a 20 percent correction will occur in the interim, Goldman does not see that happening. "We don't think you can get those kinds of negative numbers unless you're expecting a recession, and our view is that the U.S. economy is actually on a solid footing," she told "Squawk Box." "All these worries about secular stagnation or shocks from China are not warranted."

Why this sell-off may not be 'the big one': Trennert

Software that detects when Twitter users are being sarcastic could help computers gain a sense of humor.

Computers Learn to Detect Sarcasm on Twitter | MIT Technology Review

Anne Richards, chief investment officer of global investment management group Aberdeen Asset Management, has given up entirely on her laptop and instead uses two iPads. “I find the phone a bit small.  Apps are also better on iPad. I haven’t used a laptop in years.” Like many attending Davos, she is constantly on the road and can go upwards of a week without using any other means of working. But why two iPads?  “I can be working on a document or keeping a market screen open on one, for example, and keeping track of emails on another without having to switch.”

BBC - Capital - How two iPads and a smartphone became the new normal

Since the stock market began falling at the beginning of this year, there seems to have been a palpable change in the stories we have been hearing. Suddenly there is more willingness to entertain the possibility of a major stock market correction, or of an economic recession. It is no surprise that this kind of talk appears after a market drop: The stock market is perhaps the most famous leading indicator of a recession, though hardly a perfect one. That status has been well known at least since the 1920s. Narrative psychology, as in the work of the New York University psychologist Jerome Bruner, for example, suggests that popular narratives, particularly human interest stories, are fundamental drivers of motivation. Several such narratives are worth looking at more closely.

How Stories Drive the Stock Market - The New York Times

Financial markets seem to be bracing for a global recession. One example of this in action is the bond market, which has "recessionary" fund flows as investors shift their money out of high-yield funds and into government bonds.  The economic fundamentals, however, do not signal a recession with such certainty, as my colleague Myles Udland has pointed out.

There's really only one question on Wall Street right now - Business Insider

According to JPMorgan strategist Jan Loeys, US stocks fall on average 30% from their cycle peak in a recession, putting the recession-level S&P500 at 1,500. If there is no recession, stocks should hit 2,200, he said.

There's really only one question on Wall Street right now - Business Insider

Communal spiders work together to build, maintain, and clean their webs. They cooperate in capturing prey, and dine together when they snare a large feast. The females feed their offspring by vomiting up food for them, just like mother birds. They even regurgitate food for juveniles other than their own. In other words, they work together to care for the youngest in the colony. It is a sort of spider day-care.

BBC - Earth - Meet the spiders that have formed armies 50,000 strong

Just two months ago, researchers in China identified a gene that can make bacteria resistant to a last-resort antibiotic called colistin. It was a bombshell discovery for people who follow superbugs. Now that gene has been detected in at least 19 countries, and scientists are alarmed. Colistin is what doctors give you in the U.S. when nothing else works. Because it’s toxic, it can have some harmful side effects, but colistin can help defeat infections that shrug off every other antibiotic in their arsenal. If bacteria resist everything, including colistin, you're out of luck.

A Scary New Superbug Gene Has Reached at Least 19 Countries - Bloomberg Business