Facts That Make A Difference
1. ROUGH START - The S&P 500 lost 8.4% in January 2009, its worst total return performance in the first month of any calendar year ever. The stock index lost 6.0% in January 2008. The S&P 500 has suffered a total return loss in 11 of the last 15 months (source: Standard & Poor’s Research).
2. ON THE SIDELINES - The S&P 500 was worth $7.2 trillion as of the end of January 2009. At the beginning of 2009, an estimated $8.9 trillion of cash was invested in safety-oriented investments (e.g., money market funds) and not in the US stock market (source
enver Post). 
3. VERY HEALTHY - Annual health care expenditures of every American citizen are more than twice the level of the average British citizen. $1 out of every $6 of the US economy is spent on health care (source: Time).
4. COLLEGE - The parents of nearly 2 out of every 3 college students anticipate the need to rely upon loans to pay for their child’s college education (source: Fidelity, USA Today).
5. BROKE - Just over 1 million Americans filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008, 263,000 more than the total from the previous calendar year (source: National Bankruptcy Research Center, Denver Post).
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