I’m entering my 42nd year on this big blue marble tomorrow, so I think it’s time for a midlife crisis — I can’t decide, should I talk my wife into buying me a shiny red convertible, or a portfolio full of speculative mining and biotech stocks so I can live on the edge and feel some adrenaline? (As if the regular old S&P 500 isn’t providing enough of a shock to the system lately) For what it’s worth, my barber played “guess my age” with me earlier in the week and pegged me at 54, so perhaps I shouldn’t dither any longer — the markets might be threatening crisis mode again, but closer to home the crisis of middle age is well underway. Unless, that is, I’m able to make this body live for another 100 years, which seems unlikely given the treatment it receives.

But that’s my personal psychological state — and I don’t expect you to care. What, then, should we focus on for the Friday File this week? I personally have been watching the markets over the last day or so and just wishing that I had a bucket of cash sitting on the sidelines — something that I always suggest people do, but almost never have the discipline to do myself, I tend to be very close to fully invested at all times. Something about money that’s just sitting their not doing anything just feels wrong to me, despite the wisdom of that course.

So I have not been snapping up lower priced stocks this week as I’d like to have done, particularly yesterday, though I did buy Teva a short while ago and just had that position filled out as the low bid limit order I had entered before earnings triggered — we can thank a weak result for one of their new compounds in the clinic for that, as well, of course, as the collapse in the markets overall. Regardless of why the price fell, I’m happy to own a full position at this point and at this price — analysts have been pretty good at estimating Teva’s earnings, and if they continue to be correct in the future that means the shares are trading at a forward PE of 7 or 8, not bad for the biggest generic drugmaker in the world and one of the companies most poised to ...