Here is just a little advice for everyone. Many investors insist on following the values of their accounts every day. In my view this is not healthy.

One day the market goes up and you are happy, and one day the market goes down and now you are unhappy.

The other deal is that many investors look at whatever the highest value of their account was, and that is how much money they had, and if it goes below that, they are losing money. That is also not healthy and it’s silly.

You never had that money. The value was on paper.

Perhaps you should be comparing it from the end of the previous year. That’s the way I do it, and to me it makes sense.

I never check my personal accounts every day. I may look once a month. Looking at the highest value you had is going to leave you always unhappy. Why always be unhappy?

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I’ve always liked volatility, as you know. But I don’t like this volatility. It is up 500 points one day and 500 points down the next. It’s crazy.

It is also reality. It’s also not good for investor’s mental health because many of them are not going to cease looking at their accounts every day.

It makes it more difficult to be an investor and I don’t like that either. But we had better get used to it because as I see it, volatility could be here to stay for a while. It’s part of being an investor today.

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OK, let’s take a look at what is happening around the world stock markets. As I write this on Aug. 31 most stock markets around the world are not doing well.

If you have foreign investments, it is likely this year it is hurting you. The Global Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 9 percent, the Global Dow Europe is down 15 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average in the United States is about even for the year. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index is down more than 3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite is down almost 3 percent.

Many times the foreign markets as a whole will actually add to our investment performance. Not this year so far.

It is no secret that this year many areas of the world are going through the recovery phase. India’s market is down more than 18 percent, and somewhat surprisingly China is down less than 9 percent.

The rest of the so called Asia-Pacific markets are down double digits. Overall the Asia-Pacific realm is down about 10 percent.

Europe continues to struggle with Italy showing the worst performance at down 25 percent. Sweden and the Netherlands are both down about 20 percent. South of us Brazil is down 20 percent. Canada is down 6 percent, Mexico down about 9 percent and the U.K. is down 10 percent.

Of the 25 or so foreign markets I watch, none are showing positive returns.

The U.S. actually shines in comparison. I’ve said it before, I’m impressed with the overall performance of our markets but I’m not surprised. I like our country and its economic possibilities.

The interesting thing that I note about our markets is that there are actually some stocks going up. I hope you own some.

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Interest rates are boring so let’s look at some commodities. Again these numbers are as of the end of August.

Gold has been on a tear up 28 percent this year, oil is actually down almost 3 percent, and natural gas is down 11 percent.

Overall commodities represented by the DJ-UBS Commodity index are about even for the year, which is good for you and me.

Individual commodities that affect most of us, again this is 2011 performance, cattle is up almost 6 percent in cost, coffee 20 percent up, copper is down 7 percent, corn is up 21 percent, gasoline is up 22 percent, lumber is down 23 percent, soybeans are up 4 and wheat is down 5.5 percent.

I think food prices will continue to rise along with all sorts of energy. That is kind of my long-term view. One interesting observation, eBay is now selling gold and silver to the public. Take that for whatever it’s worth.

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I played golf with the wife the other day. I don’t do that much.

After flailing around for several holes, she looked at me and asked me why I kept looking at my watch?

I told her it wasn’t a watch, it was a compass.

She doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a client portfolio manager in Saxonburg.