I was looking through the Investor's Daily Edge archives page the other day. I came across one of my articles from the first quarter of '08 and realized how dead on of a prediction it had been. So keeping with the spirit of every newspaper in the country, I decided to do a "best of" list.

The article that caught my attention was from President's Day. I borrowed a line from the movie Wall Street as my title: The Other Malfunctioning Corporation Called the USA. Here is the last paragraph of that article:

Like I said, I hate to publish this article on a holiday that celebrates the great men who helped make this country great. However, the current state of the economy forces me to provide my analysis on the corporation that is the United States. My conclusion is that USA Corp. should be rated as a sell right now.

This conclusion proved to be dead on in what was in store for the rest of 2008.

The next article was from March 24. This was at a time when many people were calling for government intervention in the oil markets, but I said "Let The Market Fix It". Here are the last two paragraphs from that article:

The advent of mini oil futures and ETFs such as the U.S. Oil Fund (USO) has allowed the little guy to speculate in the oil markets just like the seasoned pros. But these amateur speculators may not realize when the market has shifted into a bear market. The pros certainly will, because most of them have seen it before.

So my suggestion is to just let the market take its own course and it will eliminate most of the speculators. Just give it time. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next month, but it will come eventually. It always does.

I was a little early in calling for a top in oil, but as you all know, oil has dropped like a rock since mid-summer and is now under $40 a barrel.

One of my favorites of the year was my Hey Cramer, Look At This article from May 5. Here is the opening paragraph from that article:

CNBC commentator and entertainer Jim Cramer declared an end to the bear market back in March, but I can't see calling an end to the bear just yet.

And I concluded the article with this:

All things considered, it looks to me like the market is getting ready for another down leg.