Investment commentary clinic: Post your questions here

As you write your investment commentary, do you have questions?

Do you wonder about grammar, punctuation or other topics that an outsider could help you with?

You can use this Investment Commentary Clinic space to post your questions. I'll try to respond within 48 hours.

Here's a client question:
What's the difference between "effect" and "affect"?

These are "words of totally different meaning, neither of which can ever be substituted for the other," according to Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Effect means "bring about, cause, produce, result in, have as result." That's different from affect's meaning of "have an influence on, produce an effect on."

Here's the Fowler's example of how the two verbs change the meaning of a sentence:

1. This will not affect (change) his purpose
2. This will not effect (secure) his purpose.