MarketWatch rounded up the 10 most important news events of the past week. We focused on market-related issues, but we’ve included other subjects of interest to readers.

Six years into a bull market for stocks in the U.S., it is no surprise to see daily warnings from investment professionals that we’re headed for a major decline.

One sign of a highly valued market is that the S&P 500 Index SPX, -1.67% trades for 17.7 times 2015 earnings estimates, an 11-year high.

Jim Rogers, who cofounded the Quantum Fund along with George Soros, said during an interview with Michael Sincere that when the “huge artificial ocean of liquidity” brought about by central banks around the world comes to an end, “it will be very nasty” for stock investors.

There is no way of knowing just when the stock market will react to a tightening of central bank policy. The Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising the short-term federal funds rate this year. The benchmark rate has been locked in range of zero to 0.25% since late 2008.

Rogers also said that while he is avoiding U.S. stocks, he is “buying China, Japan and Russia.”

2. Carl Icahn

Veteran activist investor Carl Icahn jumped into the bubble-warning fray, saying in Twitter posts that “the market is extremely overheated,” and “if more respected investors had warned about the market in ’07, we might have avoided the crisis in ’08.”

He also said during a CNBC interview on Wednesday that “the public is walking into a trap again as they did in 2007.”

The timing of Icahn’s warnings was fascinating, since Icahn also said he had sold the last of his Netflix shares. He made a $2 billion profit in less than three years from the investment.

For investors who missed out on Netflix Inc. NFLX, +2.62% , Icahn believes Apple Inc. AAPL, +1.61% “represents the same opportunity we stated NFLX offered several years ago.”

3. Health-insurance merger mania

There’s plenty of “urge to merge” being expressed by health insurers, which reflects anxiety over the rapid changes in the U.S. health-care market. But it could be another sign that the broad stock market is near a top.

Cigna Corp. CI, -2.12% said on Sunday that it had rejected a takeout offer from Anthem Inc. ANTM, -2.94% for $184 a share, or roughly $47.5 billion. The offer, made on June 20, represented a premium of 19% over Cigna’s closing price of $155.26 on June 19. Cigna called the offer “inadequate,” and its stock closed at $169.77 on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, -2.99% had approached Aetna Inc. US:AET to discuss a possible takeout offer, which would likely cost more than $40 billion.

Shares of Humana Inc. HUM, -2.06% jumped 7% on Thursday amid rumors the company might be close to coming to an agreement to sell to Aetna. The Wall Street Journal had reported on Aetna’s offer to Humana, which wasn’t announced publicly, on Tuesday.

4. Greece could set up a painful Monday

Greece has a 1.54 euro billion payment to make to the International Monetary Fund on June 30, and its 245 billion euro bailout agreement ends the same day. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been negotiating with eurozone officials all week, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said weekend talks would be “decisive.” Of course, on Monday we’ll still be one day short of the real deadline for the payment, but the fear of default and the consequent exit of the country from the eurozone could led to market upheaval.

There was some apparent good news on Friday, with media reports that a group of creditors were planning to extend Greece’s bailout by five months and provide an additional 15.5 billion euro of financing.

Darrell Delamaide discussed the consequences of Greece’s possible exit from the euro.

5. A big dip in China

Despite all the warnings, the U.S. stock market has been quite calm this year, with a year-to-date gain of 2.1% through Thursday.

The real action is in China. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped SHCOMP, -0.63% 7.4% on Friday, as the effect of recent government stimulus programs appeared to cool off. The index has declined 18% over the past two weeks, but is still up 30% this year.

Craig Stephen discussed how initial offerings are priced in China, and their effect on the overall market.

6. Investment strategy

Most individual investors have long-term goals, but many hurt themselves by being “too quick to trade,” according to Michael Cuggino, the president and portfolio manager of the Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds. Cuggino discussed his investing philosophy of maintaining discipline to ride out market fluctuations. He listed several large-cap stocks he believes represent an excellent value.

Paul Merriman discussed how people’s emotions affect their investing decisions, and offered tools to help you plan rationally.

Victor Reklaitis shared five charts that show how index investing beats stock-picking.

Jeff Reeves highlighted five dividend stocks he sees as “forever” picks.

7. Personal finance

Have you saved money for a rainy day? If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you might not think this is a major problem, but maybe there’s a warning bell constantly ringing way in the back of your mind, causing hypertension.

According to a survey released this week by BankRate, 29% of Americans (about 70 million people) have no savings at all. That is a rather alarming statistic. Catey Hill rounded up some sound financial advice, including “paying yourself first,” by immediately setting aside some savings when you are paid, rather than waiting to see if any money will be left at the end of your pay period.

8. Popular cars

One of the most popular MarketWatch stories this week was Wes Raynal’s roundup of the five cars everybody wants this year. Since we don’t want to project too much optimism for the car industry, you might also want to check out Andrew Stoy’s list of the five cars nobody wants to buy this year.

9. An inspiring entrepreneur

Have you ever provided a good idea to a friend who has a business of his or her own? Maybe the advice was rejected. Maybe it wasn’t, and your friend ran with it and made a lot of money.

Victor Reklaitis shared the story of PureFunds CEO Andrew Chanin, who shared a similar story of how friends of his told him to stop sharing ideas for ETFs and start his own. He did, and it has been a resounding success, as the PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF HACK, -0.45% has grown its assets to over $1 billion in just seven months.

10. Retirement

Robert Powell listed the 10 most tax-friendly states for retirees.

Dan Moisand discussed required minimum distributions, which are required for people with tax-deferred retirement accounts, such as IRAs and 401(k) accounts, when they reach the age of 70 1/2.

Olivia S. Mitchell and Daniel Gottlieb discussed a study they conducted on why people don’t buy long-term care insurance. They also discussed why the insurance is important and what “tweaks” the health-insurance industry might make to help alleviate the concerns of consumers.