Daily Archives: February 11, 2010

A TIMELY FALL IN JOBLESS CLAIMS

This morning’s update on initial jobless claims is a timely bit of good news. In fact, the markets probably couldn’t wait another week for this. For starters, the decline of 43,000 in new filings for jobless benefits last week is the biggest weekly drop since last summer. Even better, this fall comes at time of heightened anxiety for this data series and so the latest turn for the better is welcome for all the usual reasons, and more.

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THE STRANGE WORLD OF INVESTMENT ADVICE

Jason Zweig’s latest investing column in The Wall Street Journal is disturbing, but not necessarily for the reasons he outlines.
Consider this passage: “…many investors who followed the best advice were punished the worst. Someone who held a total-stock-market index fund lost more than 58% from October 2007 through March 2009 and remains 31% behind even after last year’s recovery. ” Zweig goes on to note that “these people can’t blame themselves; they did as they had been told.”

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