Hard To Suggest the Recession Is Really Over --- by Guy Baker
Despite the constant stream of news from various sources and Fed announcements, it is hard to suggest the recession is really over. The economic data confirm things are not getting worse, but it is hard to say there is any significant improvement yet. As some of the primary data demonstrated, there are too many conflicting signals to figure the recession is over no matter what Mr. Bernanke says.
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Yale and Harvard Strike Out In A Year of Investment Turmoil
You might go to Harvard or Yale to get a top-notch education in medicine, literature, or physics, but don’t expect to sharpen your investment skills by following their lead.
The Harvard and Yale endowment funds — touted for years as being on the cutting edge of new investment practice — sustained massive losses last year after a decade of beating the stock market.
Regrets May Paralyze Some Investors
It is bad enough that investors lost a lot of money in 2008 during a frightening world financial crisis.
The sudden and swift recovery that began in March may be even worse for panicked investors who had barely a day to catch their breath between swings in the market.
-READ MORE-Stock Market Newsletters Didn’t See Bear Coming
Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has written,
“We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good”.
That pretty much described how newsletters devoted to giving readers tips on the market fared in the fall of 2008.
Thrifty Kids & Jim Cramer’s Skill
Today’s children might be better savers than their parents, shows a survey by life insurer Northwestern Mutual.
Fifty-four percent of those under 29 in the survey said they would save money until they could afford an item they spotted in the mall.
Only 42 percent of those over 29 would save up, while a larger percentage of the older respondents would buy immediately on credit.
Jim Cramer’s record
Mad Money’s Jim Cramer issues buy and sell recommendations to his audience on each show. Just how good are those recommendations?
Retirement Investors Have Their Work Cut Out For Them
It’s clear that American families are going to need to drastically increase their savings, work longer or significantly decrease their spending in retirement if they hope to make ends meet,” says Craig Copeland, of the Employee Benefit Research 
Institute and author of a new study on retirement preparedness.
Copeland used figures on household and employee retirement savings compiled by the Federal Reserve through 2007. He then made estimates of those same amounts as they stood in June, taking into account the effects of the 2008 bear market.
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