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Reader question: Please explain this headline: Market Turbulence Just a Lot of ‘Sound and Fury”. My comments: First of all, market turbulence refers to all the frantic buying and selling that result in steep rising and falling of share prices. Turbulence, as turbulence in the air, means the air is gusty and unstable. When prices rise or fall sharply, people hence begin to wonder if the economy as a whole is going wrong, whether the next market crash is round the corner, etc. In other words, market turbulences often lead to panic. When such turbulences are described as just a lot of “sound and fury”, however, there’s no need to panic. Fear not. Nothing’s going wrong. That is because “sound and fury” as an idiom means mere noise, without meaning or significance. Literally, sound means talk while fury means furious noise, as in the noise we make when we are furious, i.e. very angry. Again, literally, “sound and fury” means loud voices in quarrels and arguments. They are not, however, as persuasive as good reasoning and gentle persuasion. A drunkard, for example, however noisy he is, does not sound convincing to anyone. All his “sound and fury” means nothing. Yes, practically, “sound and fury” means nothing because William Shakespeare, who coined the phrase, said so in the first place. Originally, “sound and fury” appears in the Macbeth, as follows: | 
