Many will remember the awful feeling in the last recession, in the early 1990s - or the 1987 stock market crash, or the British property bubble - where you know nothing fundamental has changed - but people who spent freely before, took chances before, stop doing all those things, and everything slows down, share prices fall - confidence ebbs away.

BBC: Oil: New rules of the trading game

Bloxham: Understand the ebbs and flows of the holiday season, from the lead-up before Thanksgiving to shopping on their own or shopping with the kids.

FORBES: How Retailers Can Benefit From Consumer 'Showrooming'

Arbor Networks is able to determine the ebbs and flows of Web traffic by aggregating data provided by 250 Internet-service providers around the world.

WSJ: Cyberattack on Spam Fighter Said to Be Over