On March 9, 2009, it felt like the world was ending.

The Dow Jones industrial average had tumbled to a 12-year low of 6,547, and looked to keep plunging. A day later, Citigroup Inc. stopped the market’s drop with news that it was turning a profit. That began the stock market’s answer to the Great Recession: the Great Rebound . . . read more

Jeremy Lesniak owns a small Web design firm in Randolph, Vt. He has 10 employees and hundreds of clients. Sick isn’t an option.

“I have two cell phones and a pager” he said. “I have taken partial sick days or just worked from home, but I haven’t had a real one in over six years.”

The swine flu epidemic had employers desperately trying to keep sick workers at bay, calling into question companies that didn’t. But the economic meltdown has stepped up pressure on worker bees and bosses alike to produce from home rather than heal in bed, said Dave Couper, a career coach and corporate human resources consultant in Los Angeles . . . read more

While much of the business world struggled with cutbacks and layoffs during 2009, many people saw opportunity. Undaunted by the recession, they started their own companies.

Entrepreneurs are by and large an optimistic lot, with faith in their ideas and their ability to execute them. So it’s understandable that they would find reasons why it made sense to start a business in a sickly economy. Among them: It’s easier to rent commercial space at a discount when landlords are hungry for tenants.

Still, many had some scary moments as customers stayed away or money ran low. A look at how four new business owners fared last year . . . read more

The notion that consumers will help lead the economic rebound received a stark rebuttal Friday: American families are being squeezed.

Workers saw their inflation-adjusted weekly wages fall 1.6 percent last year — the sharpest drop since 1990 — even as consumer prices rose only modestly.

Families’ spending power sank as a result. Slack pay and scarce job growth are slowing consumer spending, along with tight credit and a rising savings rate. That’s hindering the economy’s ability to mount a strong recovery . . . read more

Utah business owners anticipate recovery from the effects of the recession will be slow, according to Zions Bank’s latest Utah Quarterly Economic Forecast. The second quarter 2009 study reveals 52 percent of Utah executives say it will take their companies at least one year to bounce back. Another 31 percent of Utah business leaders predict it will take six-to-12 months to recover, and just eight percent believe it can be done in less than six months.

The latest U.S. employment report had more elements of good news than perhaps any report in nearly a year, although all is obviously not well with employment. Still, it is nice to talk about more signs of an American economy now very likely transitioning out of the longest and most painful recession in our lifetimes.

Many families have discovered that the assets they intended to use for important purposes — paying for the children’s college educations, funding retirement, buying a long-awaited vacation home — have been swallowed up by the financial crisis. They’re now having to make last-minute and often drastic adjustments to their plans.

Investors living on bond income are getting squeezed badly.

Yields today on government bonds are so low that these investors, many of them retirees, simply cannot maintain their standard of living by relying on their current portfolios, especially when stock dividends are also falling. The temptation, with no improvement in sight for at least the next year or two, is to seek higher-yielding investments. However, this is often a big mistake, exposing retirees to unreasonable amounts of risk — with potentially catastrophic consequences.

In part three, we discuss investment strategies during today’s economic downturn.

Imagine you’re in a large building with numerous elevators, says David Magee, president of Contango Capital Advisors, Inc. “One opens and you step in with the expectation that it will take you up. Though you may start in the desired direction, imagine that the elevator suddenly reverses course and takes you to the basement instead. For most people, this is exactly what has happened to them and their investments over the course of 2008.

The extended American recession, now into its 18th month, will be the longest and deepest of any since the Great Depression. A return to positive (if modest) U.S. economic growth during the July to September quarter is the consensus view of forecasting economists. Modest growth should be followed by more robust performance during 2009’s final quarter and more solid growth throughout 2010.

A return to U.S. economic growth clearly does not suggest that problems with housing, commercial real estate, sick investment portfolios, and wobbly financial markets are behind us.