- I am hopeful though that we will see some seasonal trends resume this year and that we don’t remain in the sideways-type markets we’ve been experiencing in the past months. If new trends develop, I anticipate shifting money back into the stock market from the current cash and/or bond positions.
- Globally, though, there is more and more evidence that the economy is slowing. China has been the driver of growth for the last decade but that growth recently has begun to slow. Inflation in China and India is increasing and the governments will have to slow the economies in order to combat it. Since China and India are huge importers of natural resources, any slowdown in their economies is going to have an impact in the price of commodities.
- There has been a lot of talk by those selling financial newsletters about the decline of the dollar, but last year the value of the USD actually increased by around 7%. I believe that it is possible that we will continue to see the USD go up because of the continued turmoil in Europe.
Speaking of Europe, 2012 may be the year that they are no longer able to kick the can further down the road. Not only are most European governments struggling, but so are the large banks that fund their economies.
As a result of all of this, I believe that the stock market will continue to be highly volatile. That said, we can still make money in it with the help of some of the retirement wealth strategies outlined in my articles, which are designed to profit when the market is trending. I have been testing and anticipate introducing additional strategies that might allow us to profit even in a sideways stock market.
I equally anticipate maintaining the large allocation to bond and bond-oriented investments. These investments did well in 2011 with one returning over 6%, another around 3.8% and yet another with a slightly over 4% return. The inflation-protection investment in gold and silver however had a return of only 2%. So in 2011, it was the conservative investments that did much better than the aggressive ones. I believe that may be the case in 2012.


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