Today's preliminary release of 2nd quarter GDP numbers was better than expecting, with a contraction of 1%, but revisions in the prior quarters show that the recession was worse than thought, giving some more reasons for the depth of the stock market bear market last year.

The revisions have a 1.9% contraction in the 4th quarter of 2008 instead of the 0.8% drop first recorded.

The National Bureau of Economics Research says that the recession started in December, 2007. That makes this the longest recession in the United States since World War II.

Stock trading though has looked up recently, since the stock market has rebounded since March. There is hope that the economy will pick up into the end of the year. This is is probably a good time to start looking through the 100 highest dividend yielding stocks for investments.

One has to be careful in the market though, because bad news is still hitting stocks and companies of low quality and there is little earnings visibility going forward.