On Friday, we’ll try to bring you a roundup of financial news during the week that might prove interesting or useful to you.

Why Tom Forester Finished First

The question of the hour isn’t how Tom Forester, an obscure mutual fund manager in Chicago, was able to make a profit for investors during the meltdown of 2008.

It’s why nobody else did…Yet Forester Value was the only one to end 2008 in the black — even if just by 0.4%. “Most mutual funds have the ability to do what I did,” Mr. Forester told me on Monday. “It’s just that nobody does it. Somebody ought to be watching the downside once in a while.”

He’s right. Let it be said that 2008 was the year America’s fund management industry was tested and found lacking. The typical mutual fund, as we know it, is a failure.

Thoughts: One of the oldest arguments for having a highly paid mutual fund manager is that if you want someone at the controls when you hit turbulent weather…for all the “unparalleled talent and resources” of the active mutual fund industry the evidence shows that they were no better (in fact slightly worse) during the current turbulence.

History Repeats Itself (via 37Signals)

The financial crisis in America is really a moral crisis, caused by the series of proofs which the American public has received that the leading financiers who control banks, trust companies and industrial corporations are often imprudent, and not seldom dishonest. They have mismanaged trust funds and used them freely for speculative purposes. Hence the alarm of depositors, and a general collapse of credit.

—The Economist, 1908

2009 Could Be Better than You Think

I have no crystal ball. But a sense of history, some basic economics, common sense and just a dash of congenital optimism leave me convinced that this one won’t be all bad.

Oh, sure, there will be layoffs like we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. And you can expect to see a proliferation of empty storefronts and a heap of broken businesses.

But why focus on the negative? Here are five good reasons why 2009 could, if you make the most of it, be good for your financial health.

Thoughts: I hope this article is right, but it misses the point. PLEASE find a financial planner you can trust,  work out a plan, make changes based on your life, and ignore the noise!

Congress Revises Retirement-Fund Rules

A new tax law will allow retirees to skip required withdrawals from individual retirement accounts and related accounts this year. The change — signed into law by President Bush last month — is intended to give beaten-down nest eggs time to rebound from the brutal bear market.

Thoughts: Good news! if you are 70 or older there’s no required distributions from IRAs in 2009.

Small Investments with Major Returns

So what’s the best you can expect? Wall Street’s best year, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was 1915. The index rocketed 82%. The second best year was 1933. It jumped 66%.

Any tip that comes close to that would have to be remarkable. Here are seven that will do better. Yes, they will produce a greater return on investment than Wall Street’s greatest boom year.

And, unlike your typical investment tip, these returns are pretty much guaranteed. What’s more, you won’t have to call your broker to make any of these moves:

Thoughts: You need to pay attention to more than your portfolio. A WSJ writer focuses on things that we can control. Minor tweaks can make a major difference over time.

Risk Mismanagement

THERE AREN’T MANY widely told anecdotes about the current financial crisis, at least not yet, but there’s one that made the rounds in 2007, back when the big investment banks were first starting to write down billions of dollars in mortgage-backed derivatives and other so-called toxic securities.

How to Repair a Broken Financial World

Mr. Paulson must have had some reason for doing what he did. No doubt he still believes that without all this frantic activity we’d be far worse off than we are now. All we know for sure, however, is that the Treasury’s heroic deal-making has had little effect on what it claims is the problem at hand: the collapse of confidence in the companies atop our financial system.

Thoughts: I really like Lewis, but have loved that Einhorn has the guts to speak his mind.