Recession End Game

'I said it! I predicted it! I was first. Not you, me!'

Yes, it's the old who predicted the end of the recession first game. Pundits and so-called financial experts are queing for the front of the line to get credit for seeing the recession horizon. Forget that just about everyone missed predicting the meltdown, except for Jimmy Cramer who showed up on the Today show and started one of the largest mass exoduses in modern investment history. Some 7 trillion dollars evaporated by the time markets closed that day October 6, 2008 when earlier Cramer urged anyone who needed money over the next five years to get out of the market. He predicted that stocks would fall by 20%. In typical Cramer-like fashion he was wrong.

Cramer said he thought long and hard before opening his mouth on national television. Obviously he didn't think long or hard enough. Too many people were and are tied to stock investment income for college and retirement; millions of investors were crushed minutes after Cramer finished his warning.

Markets are still substantially off their highs (Can I write substantially one more time just so dear reader gets it?) In my lifetime I probably will never see the NASDAQ get back to where it was in March 2000.

It really doesn't matter much if the recession ends today or next Thursday, or if it really ended in June 2009. Unemployment is not going to snap back in a nanosecond, nor is housing going to immediately get back to where it was before the meltdown. Manufacturing is being artificially stimulated with 'Cash for Clunkers', and banks are still hoarding cash as if auditioning for Scrooge. The good news is now being prefaced with 'not as bad as the previous quarter', or 'we're not losing as much money as we were'. In other words, if this were a normal economy things would really be bad but since this is such a terrible economy the bad news is not as bad as it could be.

If you've been out of the market you may want to start doing some serious thinking about getting some assets back in. If you have extra cash on the sidelines you may want to do some homework and think about buying some stocks that are severely discounted and will make money once the recovery is humming along.

I don't care who takes credit for predicting the end of the recession. I do know it is going to be a long recovery and with special problems all its own.