Welcome to "twenty-ten", "two thousand and ten," or as the Golf Channel calls it, "2K-10." Investors -- at least those that held the course last year -- should be pretty darned happy with the way their portfolios held up. Despite the debacle in the first quarter of 2009, the major averages were able to post solid, if not dramatic, returns. The Dow Jones industrials were up 19 percent, the S&P 500 gained 23 percent, and the Nasdaq composite rose a strong 44 percent. New Year's Eve saw a fair amount of profittaking with the Dow dropping 120 points. However, in early trading today, the blue chip index is up more than 130 points.
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Commodity prices are also opening the year higher with oil up more than $2 a barrel at $81, and gold is up nearly $26 an ounce to $1,121.
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A measure of investor confidence ended 2009 on the rise. The State Street Investor Confidence Index rose in December based on a formula that measures the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors. "For the year as a whole, investor confidence staged a meaningful recovery from the historic lows of 12 months ago, leading the way ahead of other measures such as equity prices, consumer confidence and surveys of investor expectations," said Harvard Professor Ken Froot, who puts together the index for State Street.
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Fed head Ben Bernanke had a rare weekend speech on Sunday at a meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta. He said that low mortgage rates did not contribute to the residential real estate bubble in the past few years. Rather, he suggested that the lack of lending regulation was the root of the problem. Bernanke also dropped some hints that an interest rate hike by the Fed could be in the offing. Like his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, Bernanke is an inflation fighter and will be quick to act when he sees any evidence that inflation could be rearing its ugly head.
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The much expected announcement from Apple regarding its new tablet should come before the end of this month. New reports suggest that the product -- which is a cross between an iPhone and a Mac computer -- will be priced below $1,000. And, early estimates are that Apple could sell as many as 10 million units of the tablet in 2010 alone.
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Speaking of modern technology, pop entertainer John Mayer, an admitted Twitter and other social media user, is calling on people to take a break from online communications with a "one-week digital cleanse." He made the announcement, of course, through a Twitter message. By the way, another report suggests that more and more services like Twitter are expected to start charging for access to the social networks in 2010.
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It is wonderful to have my old friend, Ken Cramer, back on the air with his "About San Diego" TV show. It is now airing on KPBS-TV on Sundays at 6 p.m. His insights on the history of San Diego County are entertaining and informative. I learned on yesterday's show that the town where I lived for 26 years, San Marcos, was once a global leader for silk worm products. Silk worms evidently like to munch on mulberry leaves, which explains why one of the cross streets I used to drive by every day was Mulberry Road.
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