Labor Day weekend begins tomorrow afternoon in the U.S. It’s the traditional end-of-summer holiday, and most folks will get Monday off as a paid holiday. My own vacation is going to be a bit different: I’m going to take tomorrow off instead. This will be the last post until Sunday evening.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. 401(k) profit sharing
2. Online job application tips
3. Illness and challenges
4. College freshman advice
5. Mortgage decisions
6. Annuities for retirement?
7. Refinancing questions

Over the past several years, we have tracked and evaluated qualitatively the commentary of John P. Hussman, Ph.D., president of Hussman Investment Trust, with respect to timing the U.S. stock market in the context of Guru Grades.

Do documented streaks of market outperformance occur more often than would be expected by chance, thereby supporting belief in investing skill? In their August 2010 paper entitled “Differentiating Skill and Luck in Financial Markets With Streaks”, Andrew Mauboussin and Samuel Arbesman compare actual streaks of mutual fund outperformance relative to the S&P 500 Index to results of 10,000 “no-skill” simulation trials to measure whether skill exists.

Africa has had many false dawns. So there are good reasons to be skeptical of yet another rising sun, full of promise. But this dawn has been a long time in the making and has different foundations than before. Already, we’re seeing some amazing changes.