Blog Posts by Aaron Task

In his previous best-sellers such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Food Rules, Michael Pollan examined America’s diet and summed up a very complicated issue in seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

In his latest work, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Pollan turns the focus from what we’re eating to how it’s prepared and concludes that cooking at home may be the most important part of our diet...and potentially a solution to America’s obesity epidemic.

“The most important thing about your diet is not any particular nutrient but that activity,” he says of cooking.

And, yes, this is very much an economic story when you consider rising health care costs are the number one driver of America’s long-term deficit -- and rising obesity rates are the biggest contributor to the overall increase in health care spending.

Since the Great Recession of 2008, Pollan notes that more Americans are cooking at home, bulk food sales are up and obesity rates have

After rising early on, stocks were mixed Monday midday, with the Dow down slightly and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq mildly higher. Coming on the heels of last week’s selloff – the worst since November – a lot of folks are worried if the bull is running on its last legs.

Skeptics like John Hussman are pointing to a very bullish cover story in Barron’s – where the semi-annual Big Money poll showed record levels of bullishness -- as a contrarian indicator and another sign the rally is getting very long in the tooth.

“When the cover of a major financial magazine features a cartoon of a bull leaping through the air on a pogo stick, it’s probably about time to cash in the chips,” writes fund manager John Hussman, one of the Street’s most vocal bears.

But most investors would be smart to ignore Hussman and other institutional scolds, according to Howard Lindzon, CEO of StockTwits.

“When someone turns from bearish to grumpy it’s a sign they really should find another business,” Lindzon says. “You

As the Samsung Galaxy S4 release draws nearer, consumers are ramping up their research on the phone, according to Yahoo! Web search data.

Gold rose $25 an ounce Tuesday but only managed to recoup a small portion of a wicked two-day slide that wiped out 14% of its value. The speed and depth of gold’s decline drew comparisons to the 1987 stock market crash and prompted veteran trader Dennis Gartman to declare: “We've never… ever… ever… seen anything like what we've witnessed in the past two trading sessions.”

Nomura analyst Tyler Broda echoed those sentiments in a note to clients: "We are running out of superlatives to attach to the gold price move since last Friday."

Gold was down slightly in recent trading Wednesday, suggesting Tuesday’s rally may indeed have been a “dead cat bounce” vs. a sign the selling squall was over.

Related: As Gold Prices Collapse, Investors Seek Answers

As the dust continues to settle after the gold rout, market participants and scribes are still trying to come up with a rationale for the drama. Some of the commonly cited reasons include:

• India’s recent decision to increase its gold import tax

Gold settled at its lowest level since February 2011 and the major indices were off more than 1% on Monday in a lack of confidence after the Dow and S&P 500 hit their highest levels ever last week, evidence that enthusiasm for stocks on Main Street remains muted at best.

Oh sure, there are plenty of stories about retail investors “rushing” back into the market but such analysis fails to put the recent trend into perspective.

In the first quarter, inflows into equity mutual funds totaled $62.5 billion, according to Lipper. If this pace keeps up, 2013 inflows would be the highest since 2000, according to CNN Money.

By comparison, approximately $445 billion came out of equity mutual funds from 2007 to 2012. And after a very strong start in January, inflows dried up in February suggesting investors will be quick to head for the exits at the first sign of trouble.

Indeed, Monday’s stock selloff and rout in gold are almost certain to test any recent excitement for investing.

Many reasons

The Japanese yen fell overnight to its lowest level against the dollar since April 2009 as investors continued to respond to policymakers’ aggressive efforts to stimulate the Asian nation's moribund economy.

The yen has been weakening since late 2012 as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe campaigned on a platform to boost economic growth via massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. The trend continued after his election victory and accelerated in recent weeks after newly appointed Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced plans to double the BOJ’s monetary base by the end of 2014.

Last week, Kuroda announced an aggressive program of bond buying and set an inflation target of 2% for Japan, which has been struggling with deflation and lackluster economic growth since the early 1990s.

“The new government under Abe and Kuroda is trying to print money and really go for the fences,” says Washington Post columnist Neil Irwin, author of The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire.

To commemorate Financial Literacy month, Yahoo! Finance is proud to bring you a Q&A about financial education for kids with famed investor Warren Buffett.

One of the world's richest men, Buffett is also the voice of a new animated series entitled "Secret Millionaires Club," which offers kids tips on investing and basic business concepts. "The more you learn, the more you’ll earn,” Buffett says in the series, which also features the voices of Jay-Z and Shaquille O’Neal. The first DVD of the series was recently released and is available for purchase on Amazon.com. More information can be found at www.smckids.com.

In addition to the Q&A below, we invite you to check out our newly refreshed Financial Education hub: Money 101.

Every day Yahoo! Finance helps you make financial decisions with confidence and we also want to be your one-stop shop for financial education.

As always, your feedback is welcomed: Let us know what you think.

— Aaron Task, Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo! Finance


Yahoo!

The stock market is having a bad day Friday but the recent trend has been strength in equities while commodities have broadly slumped.

The Dow (DJI) had its best first quarter since 1998, rising over 11%, while the Dow Jones Commodities Index fell 1.1%, its worst first quarter since 2010. And while the Dow continued to flirt with all-time highs earlier this week, silver fell into bear market territory while gold’s spot price fell below the price of the S&P 500’s (GSPC) for the first time since 2010.

One explanation for the disconnect between commodities and stocks is that the global economy isn't nearly as strong as the stock market would otherwise indicate. Friday’s dismal U.S. jobs report certainly supports this view.

Related: March Jobs Disaster: It’s a Bad Report But Don’t Panic, Brusca Says

Sarat Sethi, portfolio manager at Douglas C. Lane & Associates, has another view and a different explanation for the recent weakness in commodities: A lot of “hot money” is getting out of what