In general, great companies prefer to grow organically, as Wall Street likes to say. That is, from the inside out, by finding new markets or by taking market share from their competitors.

For chat-room tyros who expect to make their first million day-trading by age 27, paging through the Sunday newspaper with a pair of scissors just to save a couple of cents on Cheetos seems so, well, old economy.

Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.

Volatility may be rising simply because investors must digest more information every day.

Even so, sometimes I wish I did have a little bit more flair in my language.

If only the human body could handle trauma as well as biotechnology stocks do.

The notion that employees and companies have a social contract with each other that goes beyond a paycheck has largely vanished in United States business.