All about just trying to answer, "What is going on here?"

"A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not just deciding what to do, but the more fundamental problem of comprehending the situation.", according to Richard Rumelt, author of Good Strategy/ Bad Strategy.

We are seeing forecast and opinions about what will happen next come fast furious when what investors first need to step back and ask the simple, yet critical question, "What is going on?" 

"What is going on?" is not an issue of just stating more facts. Facts are not analysis. Analysis is the weaving of facts to tell a story. The answer to what is going on is not more data but more thinking about what are the causes for the situation. 

An economy is a complex system so when the system is perturbed there will be unintended consequences, secondary shocks and market adjustments. When there is a new shock not previously experienced and large policy responses, the feedback will cause further distortions. The focus requires analysts and step-back and assess deeply before making predictions. This is not easy in real time, but a framework of what is broken, what can be fixed and what is working is necessary.