So, one year is set aside for the history books while a new year begins. Like lemmings to the sea, Wall Street firms are once again publishing, distributing and rushing towards every cable TV camera that will have them to prognosticate where financial markets are heading.

These have been difficult days. That was a bad quarter, and it’s been a bad year. This is what these things look like, or more importantly, this is what these things feel like.

Growing up, I played some hockey. Most kids in our neighborhood played pond hockey (probably the best kind of hockey), with those wearing galoshes relegated to playing goalie. Some of us went on the play house league and eventually high school hockey. My brothers were all very good, and I was… well, I made the team and saw a few game minutes, but most of my ice time was during practice.

A long time ago, when I was a broker trainee at Securities Corporation of Iowa, I would end my week by taking a ten-mile run on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail with a portfolio management intern. We were the two youngest members of the firm: I, a recent graduate of the University of Iowa and he, a soon-to-be senior at Northwestern. We were fit and broke, so while we couldn’t afford to end our week drinking in a bar with the other young professionals, we could run. So, much like Forest Gump… we just ran.