do you think our economy is improving?

Yes, our economy is improving but not by leaps and bounds. Much of the rest of the world is a mess so we do not have a large margin of error.

Here's an important but difficult to implement lesson regarding investing. Buy stocks (or other securities) when you feel the worst about the market because they are on sale then. After a 500+ decline since August, on Black Monday (10/19/87), the DJIA dropped another 508 pts. Fire sale! Eight years ago, the DJIA dropped from 14,000+ to about 6,800. Fire sale! Your emotions say get out, stay out! Force your head to say get in!

The economy and stock market, especially specific stocks, do not inherently rise and fall together. Mutual funds are going to be a little more correlated though.

As for investing, if you are asking here, you are way behind the professionals...

Which country?

in a word, no,but some stocks are at a good buy.