(FORTUNE Magazine) – So how volatile has the stock market become? Consider one fact, culled from this issue's special investing report: Two out of every three days this year, the Dow Jones average has moved more than 1% at some point in the course of the trading session. Ouch.

Such severe volatility, of course, can be tough on investors' nerves--especially after the market dropped some 400 points, as it did since hitting the 7,000 barrier in March. But that doesn't mean all is lost for investors. Far from it, as we point out in our package--one that's filled, we think, with the kind of keen financial insights our readers have come to expect from FORTUNE.

In putting together this special report we turned to our newest senior editor, Robert Safian, who joined us just five issues ago and has already put his substantial stamp on our new and improved Personal Fortune section. Though a mere 33 years old, Bob is already a grizzled veteran of the magazine world. He started his career 11 years ago as a summer intern at the American Lawyer, where he learned his reporting chops under that magazine's legendarily tough-minded editor, Steven Brill. When Bob left, he was executive editor. From there he went to Smart Money magazine, where he displayed his flair for personal finance journalism. It is, in fact, a subject he feels passionate about: "I try to think about personal finance from the point of view of the average investor--not the Wall Street professional," he says. "Wall Street is always obsessed with what happened yesterday. But you have to look past the market noise of the moment and focus on the needs of people who are using the market to save for retirement or send kids to college." Not incidentally, with two kids of his own, Bob, like most of his young generation, is already intently focused on these issues.

John W. Huey Jr.

MANAGING EDITOR