Jack Kahn produced the Markets at Midyear special. Read his thoughts about the first half of '08, and post your comments.

Why Investors Need to Keep Things

in Perspective

On the surface, there's not a lot for investors to be happy about this July 4. To quote correspondent Suzanne Pratt, it was a "horrible" first half of the year for stocks -- with the DJIA, S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite indices all down by double-digits. June offered few signs of hope, with the Dow dropping more than in any month since 1930. Unless you were invested in oil, commodities or the Brazilian market, chances are you lost money.

I won't go into the reasons here (if you're interested, tune into our July 4 holiday special), but clearly, people are getting scared about putting money into stocks. You can see that in the slowing of inflows to mutual funds and from reports that workers are starting to reduce their...+ More

The spot to access goodies, like behind-the-scenes photos and extended interviews, from NBR's specials.

Indexes in the First Half of '08

Funds in the 2nd Quarter

For the most part, pessimism ruled Wall Street in the first half of '08. Financials suffered big losses. The Fed slashed interest rates. Oil prices swelled, and so did unemployment. What did it all mean for stocks? And when will optimism return to Wall Street? Paul Kangas, Susie Gharib, and the entire NBR team get the answers to those questions in the "Markets at Midyear 2008" special.