The markets responded positively to the news last week of a euro zone deal to try and turn around their two-year financial crisis. Marcus Mabry, editor-at-large of the International Herald Tribune, which is the international edition of The New York Times, tells us how he expects the markets to continue to go this week and to be on the lookout at Italy, which could be the next euro zone country to be in financial trouble. Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for WNYC and The Takeaway, looks at the upcoming G20 Summit in France this week, and if they can come up with a framework to deal with Europe's economic troubles.

Economists are predicting yet another week of drama in the Global financial markets. European leaders continue to disagree on the best way to handle the sovereign debt crisis and bail out Greece and other countries needing financial assistance. Meanwhile in the U.S., President Obama hopes his new jobs act will set the economy on a path to recovery — if Congress passes it. All this uncertainty in the political arena does nothing to help steady the markets, which continue to be extremely erratic. The month of August saw stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lurching hundreds of points within individual days and making huge swings in the course of a week.

Stocks plummeted yesterday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 400 points and Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closing down 53.24 points, at 1,140.65. The day was just the latest in a series of wild swings in financial markets in recent weeks. What's causing the severe fluctuations? We're taking a look at how "robot traders" — computers that are programmed to automatically buy or sell stocks based on a set of criteria — affect the markets. Could market woes be tied not to human worry, but to machine worry?

The markets started off jittery yesterday and throughout the morning they just kept dropping. Later in the afternoon President Obama made an attempt to reassure Americans. During a statement at the White House he said, "Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always be a triple A country."

Stock markets went into a free-fall yesterday, witnessing drops reminiscent of the great economic collapse of 2008 that the world has still yet to recover from. The S&P 500 saw all of its stock fall and the Dow Jones industrials fell 634.76 points, the sixth worst drop in over a century. How informative is the S&P downgrade? What can we take from their assessment of Washington?

The August 2 deadline for Congress to agree on a budget deal and avoid defaulting is looming uncomfortably close. Last night, President Obama and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said tonight that congressional leaders of both parties have agreed on a plan to lift the debt ceiling. They will present the plan to their caucuses this morning, and hope for the measure to pass through votes by both the House and Senate, in order to avoid a U.S. default by August 2.

Commodity prices tanked on Thursday, as oil fell 8.6 percent and silver dropped 8 percent. This comes after disappointing economic reports showing that consumers are spending less due to rising food and energy prices, and business are hiring at a slower pace. We talk with The New York Times Wall Street and finance reporter Louise Story about the volatility of the commodities market.

The stock market has responded to an updated ratings outlook from Standard & Poor. The agency changed the outlook for the United States from "stable" to "negative," although the agency reaffirmed the nation's triple-A ratings. Kelly Evans, the Wall Street Journal's "Ahead of the Tape" columnist, explains what this means for the markets. According to S&P, the revised outlook reflects the U.S.'s "very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness" relative to its triple-A peers. "The path to addressing these is not clear to us," S&P said.

The dot com bubble of the 1990s was marked by a “growth-over-profits” mentality. During that period, Web entrepreneurs made “free-money” selling popular, but hugely over-valued dot coms in initial public offerings to people who either didn’t understand or didn’t care that these businesses were never going to turn an actual profit. Today, websites like Facebook, Twitter and Pandora are each valued in the billions (and tens of billions), and are expected to go public soon. Is history repeating itself; and if so, should we be worried about a second (or is it third?) dot com bubble?

On Christmas Day, the Chinese central bank raised interest rates 0.25 percent, or 25 basis points, to 5.81 percent. It's the second such hike in just over two months, and comes in response to inflation and rising food prices in China. In response, the price of U.S. crude oil dropped slightly, amidst concerns the high Chinese demand for oil will slow; world markets dipped due to fears that increased interest rates could soften demand for other commodities. How should we understand the Chinese government’s decision? Was this a difficult move toward domestic fiscal responsibility, or a sneak attack on international markets?

The price of oil could create a commodities spike and stir up trouble in the economy. Of course, it could also be a sign of improvement. 

Financial markets took a hit yesterday after jobless claims rose to their highest level since last November. The jobless claims were up 12,000 from the prior week, which indicates that the claims are at 500,000. This increase is feeding concern that the economy is starting to slow down again. Louise Story tells us whether this is yet another looming sign of the feared double-dip recession. 

A recent heat wave in Russia coupled with extraordinarily dry conditions has been feeding the most widespread wildfires in the nation’s recent history. The fires stretch from central Russia to near Moscow and are generating a devastating plume of smoke that has killed 52 people and destroyed over 2,000 homes. Those massive fires are having a secondary (and potentially more lasting) effect as they have threatened the Russian wheat crops, which make up about eight percent of the world’s wheat production.  

Former chief economist of the International Monetery Fund, Simon Johnson weighs in on the jittery markets; headlines. (Also, you can see BP's live video feed of cleanup efforts here.)

The sub-prime mortgage crash of two years ago was not about mortgages and it was not about complexity of derivatives and the cross-betting lunacy of credit default swap insurance voodoo. It was about the simplest thing in economics: price. If you can’t find a price, there is no sale, no market, no value, no money. In that instance, everything seizes up and you see what happened yesterday, for a while, on Wall Street.

Newsweek columnist, Dan Gross, tells us how the European Leaders' agreement to give Greece some debt relief may affect the U.S. markets. Among other things, Gross says it might be good news for Americans traveling overseas.

As European nations in the Iberian Peninsula fall deeper into debt, the U.S. markets came tumbling down on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing just above 10,000 points. All this comes hours before new jobless numbers are released.

• Sports Takeout: Ibrahim Abdul-Matin joins us for a look back at Thanksgiving's football games and those coming up over the weekend.
• Business Takeout: The New York Times' finance reporter, Louise Story, explains why the risky derivatives market needs reform, and why banks and bankers seem to want to prevent that reform from happening.

Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the symbolic threshold of 10,000. New York Times finance reporter Louise Story says the news is interesting, but it doesn't say much about the overall health of the economy. Something that might: the banking sector. Also joining the conversation is New York Times economics correponsdent Edmund Andrews with a look at how the U.S. Treasury wants some bailed-out banks to start paying back their loans.

All this week, we are looking back at the events that triggered the financial meltdown, one year ago. Today, we focus on the  housing market, then and now. We talk to economist Robert Shiller, of the Case-Shiller home-price index, who was among the few experts to warn of the coming housing crisis. We also speak to New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack, who has a penchant for halting the bank foreclosures that come before his bench. (Read his profile in the New York Times, "A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style") And we also talk to Pamela Zombeck, who is struggling to hold on to her home in Salem, Massachusetts.

Listen to more housing stories in this series.