Markets to Rise Another 22%! is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Proof: He showed up to the White House to attend the President’s dinner yesterday. And in the picture, he looks fine to me, although you cannot see his face.

Here is a blog post with the picture along with a story about Steve bulldozing his house on Monday to build a new one. If he thought he only had a few months or weeks to live, would be waste time tearing down an old house? Probably not.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/18/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_photographed_at_dinner_with_president_obama.html

Steve Jobs Looks Fine To Me is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Just wanted to wish you the best and happiest holiday season.

I hope that you had a great 2010 and I pray that 2011 brings you closer to all that you desire.

2010 was a crazy year for the stock market. Nonstop ups and downs – kinda like a roller coaster at Six Flags.

The S&P is up over 6% in just December alone – and we aren’t even done yet!

But what will 2011 bring?

I would be lying if I told you I knew. No one knows. The TV, radio, and magazines are filled with “pundits” giving their predictions on how high the markets will go next year. But they have no clue. They couldn’t predict with any accuracy what the market will close at on Jan 1, much less Dec 31.

But I like guessing games so I will make some guesses too – based on what I see.

#1 I agree with the 60 minutes report that the next big crisis will be the state and local governments going broke. They are going to need money from somewhere and it will probably be the FED buying municipal bonds. Otherwise we will be paying a lot more in taxes to our local governments and be getting a lot more speeding tickets.

#2 The markets will close higher next year. Why? Because the recovery is already here. All the business owners I am taking to – except those in real estate – are saying that sales and traffic is picking up. A perfume retailer told me this year will be his best year ever in 20 years. A woman who runs a Bridal convention says she sold out of all her booths way in advance of the show. A software developer friend has enough work to back him up for months and he cannot find people qualified to hire fast enough. Sure these are isolated stories and there are parts of the country still hurting, but things do seem to be getting better.

#3 Inflation is here and will be more evident in 2011. And this is another reason the markets will be going higher. Oil, gasoline, food, clothes and more will all cost more in 2011. Three reasons – once is the monetary policy. Two is an increase in demand. And three is a reduction in discounts. Don’t look for the sales of this year next year. There will be fewer sales and the discounts will be much lower. So you might want to stock up now.

#4 But the markets themselves will be much calmer. I believe it will be a great year for option sellers. There is less uncertainty in the markets and it look like things will go back to normal.

Am I right or wrong? It will take a year to find out. But let me know your thoughts below:

What will 2011 bring? is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

As part of the firm’s forecast of a “new normal” in the slow-growth economy, Gross, co-CIO at the largest bond management firm in the world, said returns probably will be half of the normal 8 percent or so annualized profits to which investors have become accustomed.

“We should expect less as opposed to more—new normal as opposed to old normal,” he said in an interview. “We should expect that the private economy is delevering on a global basis. That means consumption and household income growth will be less than it has in prior years.

 “And that means ultimately in terms of risk assets, whether it’s stocks or high-yield bonds or even bonds themselves that those types of returns will reflect a slower rate of growth. In other words, instead of 8 to 10 percent in terms of return for risk assets, you should expect 4 to 6 percent. Reduce your expectations.”

With the 10-year Treasury note yielding just shy of 4 percent, Gross said that number would work as a realistic expectation for growth.

“A company like Pimco hopefully can produce something beyond that because that’s our historical track record and that’s something investors look for us to do.”

But he cautioned that investors “looking to send their children to college or retire on those types of returns, that’s going to be a stretch. You just have to reduce your expectations.”

Jack Bogle, founder of the Vanguard funds group, was less pessimistic about market returns, though he’s troubled by the inability of Congress to come up with reforms to the financial system.

“We ought to be able to get from these earnings levels maybe earnings growth of 6 percent and total returns from stocks a little bit over 8 percent, and I think that’s a reasonable forecast,” he said. “The fundamentals of stock returns ought to be about 8 percent and 4 percent in the bond market. When you compound those numbers of 10 years, that’s almost 100 percent for stocks and 50 percent for bonds. That’s a big difference.”

Experts say: Stock & Bond Returns Will Be Below Normal for Years is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

I usually respond the same way every time.

“I don’t know.”

If I could predict the market I wouldn’t be here blogging, I would be out enjoying my billions.

Believe me, I have tried to learn how to predict the markets. That’s what technical and fundamental analysis is – an attempt to understand and predict market direction.  In the end, I gave up.

I cannot predict market direction. The pundits on TV and radio can’t do it, all the blogs and gurus online with their fancy explanations, charts, candles, lines, and waves can’t do it with any regularity and neither can the folks on Wall Street.

So why bother?

Why not trade in a way where it doesn’t matter which way the market moves?

Makes sense to me. And that is why I love option selling.  It does not matter what is going on in the market, what news comes out or doesn’t, the premium I sell loses value everyday, and I profit.

Let me give you an example. This month I have a McDonald’s (MCD) trade on. I want MCD to stay within a range. A couple days after I put the trade on, MCD moved higher and almost out of the range. So I adjusted the trade and made the range bigger.

That day a member emailed me with news that there is a rumor going around the MCD is going to raise its dividend. That might be why it went higher. And if the news about the dividend is correct, it might go higher still.

This member wanted me to know that this trade was not a good idea. He was warning me to what could happen. Thanks to this member, who had my best interests at heart, I began to worry about this position.

What if he was right and MCD shot up higher?

But after a while I calmed myself down and realized that it was not in my hands. If MCD went higher I would evaluate the position, adjust if possible or in the worst case scenario take a small loss. But the odds were on my side.

As it turned out, MCD has behaved fine since and the trade is right in the middle of the profit zone. Let’s hope it stays that way.

But my point is that it does not matter if the dollar is stronger or weaker. It does not matter what oil or gold do. The markets still move in ranges and if you play the ranges, 8 times out of 10 you will win. And those wins allow you to make much higher returns that you will in a savings account, a CD, a money market fund, or a mutual fund.

Market Commentary is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com