WELCOME TO 2010 !

Well i'm back again!

Before I begin posting new stuff for 2010, let's just take a quick look back at investment returns of the last decade!

Here's a chart from Jesse's Café Américain. Even as Gold and Silver have been star outperformers, its just amazing how little coverage they get on CNBC!

Chart of the day covers a multi decade DJIA return chart.

Clearly the 1980's and 1990'S were years of blockbuster returns in US equities.

Expert stock pickers like Warren Buffett generated market beating returns over this period.

Looking at returns over the 1960's and 1970's is almost frightening! Can the current ipod-blackberry-google search generation cope with it!

It's happened before, but can we cope with marginal returns while servicing a massive debt overhang this time round?

The Indian equity markets had a fantastic last decade.

Just a few years prior to 2000, India's manufacturing sector was in bad shape. Over the last decade, these same manufacturers have bounced back - cutting costs, improving efficiency and product quality.

Companies in the IT services space have also survived the 2000 IT/ dotcom meltdown, and have become globally recognised franchises.

The current decade will need record investments in infrastructure development if India is to emerge as a ''superpower'' by 2025!!

Reducing income disparity and improving the standard of living of people in rural India are also crucial to India's future development.

Lastly, I'd like to draw your attention to the CBOE VIX volatility Index.

Jesse's Café Américain has a good chart on the VIX.

We are not out of the woods yet! The world economy is getting ''addicted'' financial stimulus packages and ever expanding government debt and deficits.

Those looking for jobs and those trying to hang onto jobs they ''despise'' are clearly not as optimistic as equity market analysts are.

I will be putting up a post on ''what to look forward to'' and ''what to look out for'' in 2010. I'm working on it now, but it should be up in a couple of days.