By Chuck Gibson
As we finish putting the holiday decorations away and finalize the clean up of our champagne filled New Year’s celebration it’s a great time to refocus our attention back to what may lay ahead in 2012. The cyclical bull market recovery which began in early 2009 was powerful in its first year, moderately strong in 2010 and visibly weakened by the end of 2011. Thus we have recovery pattern which is losing steam with each passing year. As such, the start of a New Year heralds some interesting possibilities for the coming 12 months. While no one can predict the future, the following charts from John Lohman are excellent vehicles to help predict what may lay ahead. All of these items below are, as you can clearly see, in a long term continuous trend since the start of the decade. One of the major tenets of successful investing is finding those long term trends and aligning your money accordingly