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Gold futures slid to a six-month low as some investors lost confidence in gold's prospects after billionaire George Soros reduced his bullion holdings by half.

How is your portfolio doing since the 2008 financial crisis? If you’re like most Americans, it’s probably healed some. After all, stocks are up about 13 percent since October 2008. Bonds are up about 30 percent. “Winnie-the-Pooh” is doing a bit better. A 1926 first-edition copy of the fabled children’s classic can fetch nearly four times what it did in 2008 — a return of almost 300 percent.

Those who don’t invest in the stock market would like to pretend stock market crashes don’t concern them, but the truth is that they do. It’s not only those who actively trade who lose money. The average person loses money and opportunities as well. To show how, 24/7 Wall St. put together a list of eight ways market collapses affect people’s lives.

Certificates of deposit (CDs) are one of the safest investments for security and a consistent yield.

At a Forbes editorial meeting earlier this year, I was pitching a story about a little-known industry responsible for keeping hedge funds’ books and records in check. After my schpiel about the false comfort these hedge fund administrators were offering investors, Lewis DVorkin flatly asked me, “Can you easily explain what a hedge fund is?” I couldn’t. Not easily.

Remember the trend -- it's not always a friend of this approach.

It's all about how much you might lose.

Venture capital investment plunged 50% from a year ago, signaling what could be a fundamental shift in the industry's size and direction.

Barrett Wissman is the first investment executive to be implicated in an investigation of corruption at the New York state pension fund.

It was only a year ago that commodity investments were all the rage. Oil prices were on their way up to $145 a barrel, from as little as $50 in 2007. With red-hot numbers like that, the financial services industry cranked up the marketing machine. Advisers touted commodities as an essential new asset class, right up there with stocks and bonds. New exchange-traded products let you track the price of oil and other commodities.