The Big Picture For The Week Of December 11, 2005

We are starting to see more and more 2006 predictions and expectations being reported. My favorite, the year-end issue of BusinessWeek will out soon too.

In a couple of weeks I'll take my crack at trying predict what will happen next year. It makes sense to that various analysts will be right about some things and wrong about others.

My ideas about taking a little piece from here there and everywhere to form your own process really applies to this part of the job. What I think matters for now is that abrupt changes based on an article or two is probably a poor idea.

Personally, I filter through a lot of content to find useful, new ideas. That doesn't mean I can't learn from something or someone that does not have something new to offer. I learn a lot from John Hussman's commentary and read it every week but most of the time it is new information on a familiar theme.

On a different note the Striking Price column in Barron's had a couple of interesting predictions about increased retail option selling in 2006. In the same vane the article quoted an executive from OptionsXpress about the growth that firm has had with clients selling options.

I know a little bit about the firm and using a white hot growing company as an industry benchmark may not paint a very accurate picture. I have no idea how much options selling is or is not growing but I am quite certain that OptionsXpress is adding new accounts faster than just about any other firm. If that is correct then it makes sense to think that every type of account activity is growing exponentially, but again says very little about the industry which is probably is growing by some amount.