The October Book Club brings you author and veteran trader Andy Tanner to break down his insights on 401ks in the book 401Kaos. 401ks are all most consumers know when it comes to investing. Are they worth it in the end? The evidence doesn’t paint a very good picture…

The past week brought us major business and political news: AT&T and Time Warner announced their intention to merge while the Clinton campaign had a rough go of it from email releases by Wikileaks & O’Keefe’s latest video. Join Matt and Tim for their take on mergers and the campaign.

It can feel like it's impossible to not find a winning trade in a bull market. Entire sectors see anywhere from steady to meteoric rises, companies report increased earnings quarter over quarter... even normally mediocre stocks can feel the uplift of such a market (as a rising tide raises all ships). Week after week, the markets generally continue to rise. It even feels like it'll last forever sometimes, right? Well, we all know how that goes. A bull (or bear, for that matter) market won't last forever. Resistance will eventually be found, tested, and remain unbroken, causing the market to at the least go sideways for a time. In such an instance, the markets become almost dull as they ping pong between constrained high and low. Specific strategies, such as straddles, work well enough; as can directionally trading within support and resistance. ...but what if support is broken consistently, and in a bigger way? Welcome, friends, to a bear market. Folks newer to trading may feel the opposite about a bear market as compared to a bull market: winning trades are almost impossible to find. Not the case at all. You just need to change up your strategy. First, there are always some risers even in a bear market. They can be tougher to find, but they do indeed exist (which is what scanners are for). Alternately, shorting is always an option. Or, you could choose to cash flow by selling options at a higher premium should volatility see an increase, as well. Long and short of it: there are ALWAYS trades if you know where to look. Not sure how to trade in a bear market yourself? Then give this episode a listen as Tim and Matt discuss bear markets, what can cause them, and what you can do to trade them.

The markets appear stable enough, but are they really? There's systemic risk out there. Currency is pumped into the markets to keep them afloat, the Fed is deferring increasing the interest rate, and more. Should a particular drop occur, it could actually cause a runaway fall in the security.

If that sounds far fetched, look no further than the flash crash of the GBP over the weekend. Due to the volatility surrounding the currency combined with high frequency trading algorithms, once the Pound dropped below a particular level of support, the drop became precipitous. (High frequency trading algorithms are tradebots with trigger orders that act with millisecond speed.)

Volatility and black swan events such as the the GBP flash crash contribute to the systemic risk that's more present in the markets than usual. Want to know more? Listen to the latest episode of Trading Justice!