In order to help students better find student loan lenders, Cology has joined forces with Overture to create an easy-to-use platform for student loan funding. I recently spoke with Brian Cox, an executive with Cology, about the process.

“The whole process is different,” Cox told me. “Overture’s platform features the lender’s credit criteria built in, so your results include confirmed interest rates and fees. This is different from many other searches, many of which just return the best rate offered, whether or not you qualify for it.”

He also pointed out that the platform would be able to help potential students make more informed decisions about the loans available to them. “It’s kind of like Lending Tree, offering you multiple offers on your student loan options.”

Once students select a student loan option, Cology’s loan processing takes over. “We take care of everything,” Cox explained. “We are compliant with usages and disclosures, and we have relationships with a number of schools, so we know what is needed for a number of possible universities and colleges. So we make sure you get the money through your university.”

Cox said that for now the platform is designed mainly for traditional lenders who want to offer student loans. However, he hopes to expand the platform in the future to include person to person lending and foundation loans at 0% interest. “The next wave will include alternative student loan resources.”

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Looking for Student Loans with Cology

Of course, this positive data does not indicate that a significant number of jobs are being added to the economy — just that the economy is not hemorrhaging them at near the rate we have been seeing throughout the recession. But the news is still encouraging, as it indicates a certain measure of stability in the jobs market, and in the economy. With fewer jobs being lost, there is hope that consumer confidence will return, and with it the important economic driver of consumer spending.

Initially, the stock market rallied heavily on the news. However, other considerations are now taking precedence, and the stock market has pared its gains rather dramatically as mid-day approaches.

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U.S. Unemployment Rate Drops

Dubai isn’t that big a deal

While the reaction on Friday to Dubai’s possible debt problems was huge, over the weekend, investors realized that U.S. direct exposure to Dubai markets isn’t that big. Additionally, the UAE promised to provide funding for Dubai banks, and things appear to be relatively contained for now. That has some investors breathing a sigh of relief.

Cyber Monday might make up for Black Friday

The other issue giving investors pause this morning is the lackluster sales performance on Black Friday. Yes, sales were higher than last year. But only just higher. And individual spending on Black Friday was down. This indication that consumers are still holding back has some investors concerned about economic recovery, since consumer activity is such a large part of economic activity. However, there are hopes that today, Cyber Monday, will make up for it as consumers look for online deals.

In the end, though, it is clear that investors are mostly waiting. They are waiting for indications of how the holiday shopping season will go, and for indications about how bad things are in Dubai.

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Stocks Continue to Struggle On Dubai, Sales

The job market itself is likely to take longer to recover. Even though there are signs of stability, the fact of the matter is that it took three years after the last two recessions for unemployment to return to pre-recession levels. And there are some economists who believe that we may not see a return to pre-recession levels of employment for even longer this time. One of the biggest reasons is to do with the fact that many industries and companies have been making substantial changes to the way the do things. There may be no need for a great deal of hiring.

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Will Raises Make a Comeback in 2010?

This morning, investors work up and sent the Dow plunging more than 200 points. While the losses have moderated so far, with the trading day almost over, there are concerns that Monday could bring another round of losses. After all, today is a short trading day — ending at 1 p.m. Eastern — and many investors are traveling or enjoying time with their families. Time to consider the information may lead to bigger losses on Monday. The news is also taking away from optimism, prompted by Black Friday, about the holiday shopping season.

The investors participating in the markets today, though, are mostly gravitating toward U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. dollar. Stocks are considered riskier, and in times of uncertainty and in times when the markets are in upheaval due to such monumental news, it is little surprise that investors are turning to the relative safety of government bonds and the U.S. dollar, both of which are backed by the most stable taxpayer base in the world.

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Dubai Shakes Things Up for World Markets

Americans send 50,000 text messages per second. Ninety-five percent of those messages are opened and read, most within 15 seconds of sending. The brevity, immediacy, and mobility of the text messaging channel makes it ideally suited for communicating Cybermonday.com’s Deal of the Hour. By simply opting in on CyberMonday.com, consumers can receive Deal of the Hour text messages and benefit from great savings while on the go.

I was also informed that you can get on the special deals text message list by texting Cybermonday to 77053.

If you are a hardcore deal seeker, looking for the best deals on Cyber Monday, this might be just the thing for you. Being able to get alerted immediately to good deals can save you money — provided you were planning on spending it anyway.

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Cyber Monday Deals via Text

As one might imagine, investors latched onto this news and took it as a cue to sell the dollar. After seeing gains for the dollar last week, Bullard’s remarks prompted a round of profit taking. Additionally, the comments also helped stocks. Confident that the Fed is willing to continue propping up Wall Street, investors are in a buying mood, sending the stock market higher an hour and a half after opening. The gains do appear to be slowing, though, as day traders swoop in to take their profits from earlier.

However, this week is expected to be a good one for stocks. Investors are hoping that the holiday shopping season, which kicks off with Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving, will help provide some fuel for the fire. With a short trading week, and the news so far good, it looks as though this week, at least, will be a good one for the stock market. We’ll see if it holds if Black Friday turns out to be a disappointment.

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James Bullard Helps Stocks, Destroys Dollar

1. Economic forecasting is difficult.
2. Financial market forecasting is more troublesome than economic forecasting.
3. The financial sector in this country has lied a great deal.
4. The government cannot predict the economy or financial markets.

These are, of course, very good lessons to learn. It is important to realize that neither the government, nor the financial “experts”, have all the answers. No one can predict what any market is going to do, nor can anyone see all of the economic consequences of policy measures. So it is important to consider your own financial situation, and make the best decisions you can.

One way to do that is to look at things for the long term, and change your financial habits so that they reflect prudent behaviors that help you prepare to weather the down cycles. Because they will always come.

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4 Lessons Ben Stein Got From the Recession

Recently, an acquaintance of mine was laid off — along with dozens of others — from a local company. Imagine our surprise when the Classifieds showed job openings in that company two weeks later! The reason? In the interest of cost-cutting, the company laid off around 50 of higher-earners and then posted job openings for about 20 jobs with entry-level pay.

This sort of practice is relatively common. The magazine SmartMoney points out the following: “Companies cutting jobs are often hiring in some areas, even as they shrink in others.” Instead of writing off companies that have announced lay offs, it is a good idea to check into where the lay offs are taking place, and then see which divisions of the company might be hiring.

Because so many people overlook businesses that recently laid off workers, it might be that you have less competition for new job openings. Of course, the company may be on the verge of collapse and there may not be any job openings. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.

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Job Hunt: Openings at Firms with Lay Offs

Wall Street firms prepare to pay $30 billion in bonuses

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley all received taxpayer help, and made the news due to bonus programs last year — which were enabled in part by the taxpayer help. Now it appears that Wall Street is ready for more. The bonuses are expected to surpass the last high, reached in 2007, before the financial market collapse, of $26.8 billion. And it really doesn’t matter what anyone says. Bloomberg reports on what seems to be the prevailing attitude on Wall Street:

“Wall Street is beginning to resemble Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in the film ‘Gone With the Wind’: ‘Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,’” Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate on compensation at the Portland, Maine-based Corporate Library, said in an e-mail. “It doesn’t seem as if even political threat, disastrous PR, envy, rising unemployment rates and home repossessions is enough to get any of these people to refuse the bonuses they have ‘earned.’”

Clearly, Wall Street has policy makers nicely sewn up, and populist outrage doesn’t affect Wall Street because it clearly does little to prompt lawmakers to take action. So, while thousands stand in unemployment lines this holiday season, it will be little comfort to know that their Wall Street counterparts are enjoying record bonuses.

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Wall Street Set to Give Out Record Bonuses