Uncertainty

Dan Barry: SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. — In another charming suburban house, with another old Subaru Outback in the driveway and another pair of squirrel-nibbled pumpkins on the steps, another of us reaches for his laptop computer to check. If a piece of machinery can feel pain, then this laptop winces as it opens.

With less than an hour before the stock market closes at 4 on Friday afternoon, Tyler Pappas is once again searching the dull glow of his computer's monitor for something, anything, that can reassure him about this country's troubled financial state, which includes his own. A crumb of hope. Is that too much to ask?