SOON IT WILL BE A NEW YEAR

 

We've said it before and we'll say it again, we like energy stocks for 2015. And if you note some decent dividends, we like them even more.

But we like these energy puppies even more than that for 2016-2017.  We expect coming off these over-sold conditions a rally in 2015. Going out further we think they'll deliver some serious profits plus some nice payouts along the way.

No doubt plenty might warn of a value trap with further declining oil prices, maybe dropping from the current level to $30 or so. And that's always a real possibility, but that scenario includes the assumption everything goes as planned with no serious surprises.

The one thing you can count on there will be some surprises in 2015, just no one knows for sure where and what.

Now let's take a quick look at what the pundits are predicting investors buy for the new year. Right off the top is the U.S. Dollar as it's expected to continue its upward move owing to the divergence meme.

Cheaper oil prices they say means more for non-staple spending, so this falls into the consumer discretionary category like autos and satellite media and certain retailers, eschewing essentially staples like food, utilities and energy.

Another mene soon to makes the rounds if it hasn't already is the good-news-becomes-bad news, forcing the Fed off the dime when it comes to interest rates. And sort of a sidebar to that theme is the sooner rather than later debate.

Our own view is to look where others either are not looking or shying away from like emerging markets. Though it may turn out not to be, it should be clear that Abenomics and the ECB are going to pump some air into those paper assets. But the surprise that the air gets pumped but the impact takes a holiday is a possibility few are expecting.

And not many are expecting all that liquidity sloshing around to generated the unexpected, whatever that might turn out to be. Like the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who some time back noted he couldn't define pornography but "I know it when I see it." Like central bankers everywhere, you'll most likely know it when you see it, too, in the past tense, however.

Even if the Fed acts in 2015 there's some historical data suggesting that the market continues to climb during the earlier stages of rising interest rates.

There are of course other risk factors more subtle floating out there like certain proposed international trade deals that have little to do with trade and much with further obliterating national sovereignty. One of the more ironic is the Fed's bead on reeling in the risk TBTF banks can carry on their dockets.

Here you have what at best is a quasi bank, most likely the most dangerous of the entire banking species, riding herd on banks while no one--and we mean no one--hold the reins to reeling in them and the risks they continue to take.

What much of this adds up to, so say the experts, is lots of volatility. Volatility is like a lot of things in life, however, it's your friend so long as you're on the correct side of it.

So stay alert. Soon it will be a new year with new surprises.