It is that time of year when market strategists stick their neck out and predict the future. No never mind that most, if not all, of their predictions will turn out to be wrong. Investors clamor for yearly forecasts regardless of accuracy, so here’s mine.

On Wednesday, global markets rallied more than at any time since March 2009. The news was positive and enough to trigger a stampede by short sellers to cover their positions. The moral of this tale is don’t bet against the world’s central bankers.

From May through September of this year, retail investors yanked over $90 billion from stocks funds. If you include the money investors have taken out of mutual funds since January, 2007, the total is almost $250 billion. The question is whether or not the little guy will ever want to come back to the market?

If you have been thinking of trading up to a new car, this may be the time to do it. Used auto prices are selling at 16-year highs but your window of opportunity is closing fast.

A common perception on Wall Street is that October is the worst month of the year for the market. It is true that the month has historically failed to provide stellar returns, but it is actually September that deserves the title of the worst market month of all.

As disappointed global stock markets plummet in response to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s latest stimulus initiative, few investors are paying attention to what may be the Fed’s real intention behind this new plan—mortgage refinancing.

            The safe bet would be to write about something else because by the time you read this Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke will have already given his speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming scheduled for Friday morning. I’m betting that whatever he says won’t be enough to save the stock market from further decline.

  It’s been one heck of a two weeks. One would think the world was coming to an end, given the way global markets have behaved. You may not be able to make much sense of why markets sold off so quickly, but out of the carnage we may be able to predict what comes next. [...]

It has been over a year since investors experienced the kind of sell-off that has beset the global stock markets this week. As of Thursday, most indexes have lost 10% or more. The jury is split on whether we are at the bottom or have more to go.

While the investing world is distracted by the U.S. debt ceiling crisis and the on-going drama of Italy and Greece, I’ve noticed that a small but increasing stream of money is finding its way back into some emerging markets.