State 7-on-7 Explained: What It Is, How It Works and Why It Matters

A confession: I am a grown man — a husband and a father, a person with a career and a college degree — that does not know how the stock market works.

I know what it is, and I know it involves numbers and companies (somehow?), but I couldn't tell you what makes the number go up or the number go down, and I also couldn't tell you why it matters. But I know it's important, I guess. So when I flip on the television to CNBC or I read on Twitter that such-and-such stock is down 5 percent or the NASDAQ is up 3 percent, I know it means something and I probably should care. I just don't understand the specifics.