Happy New Year to all our dear readers!

2010 is going to produce decent profits for all investors. Second half of this year may be challenging, but first half will produce decent returns.

Commodities are one of the few attractive investments. Barclays Capital has estimated that inflows into commodity investments during 2009 will be a record $60 billion, topping $51 billion from 2006, said analyst Amrita Sen. The figure includes retail and institutional flows into commodity indexes, exchange-traded products and structured notes. Weaker dollar will contribute more profits to commodities investments. If Fed tightens interest rates or if the dollar rate falls, the returns in commodities investments will fall too.

Fed will increase the interest rates sometime this year. If the economy stabilizes, Fed must increase the interest rate to prevent any inflation. But, interest rate increase will induce a fear in traders that the party is over. Many traders are afraid that interest rate increase will slow down the economy especially U.S. real estate market even worse. On the other hand, Fed can’t afford to keep the interest rates low for long time without causing damage to inflation.

“We’re probably still only in the early stages of a potentially big economic recovery but I think it’s probably not until well into next year that investors begin to broadly recognize it,” says Thomas Lee, U.S. equity strategist at J.P. Morgan Chase.

Investing in Technology and energy stocks may possibly yield attractive returns. Selective Financial stocks may also yield attractive profits if the economy turns around by end of 2010.