According to The Motley Fool (fool.com) now is historically the best time to invest in the stock market. In their article “Now Is the Best Time of the Year to Invest” they bring up some historical data about the average return of the market during the year.

Average return, November to April: 6.52%.
Average return, May to October: 0.98%.

Yowza.

Surprised?
That’s one of the lesser-reported stock market stats I’ve ever seen.

Of course, you’ve probably heard the old Wall Street adage to “sell in May and go away.” So, there’s some conventional wisdom that the summer has historically poor returns. Many are also aware that October (mother of a pair of Black Mondays, and more than a few other Black Days of the Week) is a scary month.

November, on the other hand, has clearly been a very good month for market returns, perhaps juiced by the weak three months that typically precede it. For 11 of the past 12 Novembers, the market has had positive returns.

There is of course a tendency for many of the articles at the Fool to end in promoting one of their investment advisory groups, and this article is no different. It’s a good read, just skip the last paragraph.

Experts are saying that the dollar is only going to get weaker.

My husband, a German, threatened to move back to Germany when Bush was elected. Maybe we should have! Anyone else been watching the euro grow against the dollar? We were in Germany exactly one year ago when the exchange was $1.20 per euro. Now it’s $1.45.

Just think if we had all decided to work in Europe then transferred our dollars to the United States. Minus taxes, think of the effortless gain you’d create.

Maybe we should have moved to Germany. Maybe it’s not too late. Check out what these experts are saying on currencytrading.net

It turns out your people-pleasing work ethic may not get you ahead. You’re not taking any risks to make the company’and you’any better. Kate White, author of Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do is already teaching me a few useful strategies… and I just started the book.

This subsection really stood out in my mind:

Never Appear at the Mercy of Your Time

Because it’s important to a good girl to be perceived as a hard worker, she never minds (in fact she likes it) if someone catches her looking a little frantic: riffling through papers, dashing down the hall with her hair flying, lugging home a huge pile of work on Friday afternoon. Begin in overdrive, she believes, shows everyone that she not only has lots to do but is getting it done.

Though it’s import to be perceived as energetic, acting frazzled or short on time actually creates the impression that you aren’t under control, and that calamity is waiting just around the corner to ambush you. It makes bosses reluctant to turn more responsibility over to you and it makes co-workers and subordinates as anxious as passengers on a bumpy 747.

Anyone else seen him/herself doing this same thing in the past?

Prepare to be bombarded with Christmas sales, decorations, endless stress, and other holiday cheer. Even though Halloween is still fresh on the mind, you need to think about the coming holidays. Of course if you run a retail shop of any kind, then you probably already have.

What kind of sales are you going to have? What products are you going to promote? How will people who don’t already know about you find out? Will you have enough of the hot products in stock?

Christmas is coming quickly, and you will need to take care of any preparations right away, because once the holiday spirit comes and everyone begins thinking about the Holidays, it might be too late!

It’s easy to anticipate the holidays equating to more traffic, more customers, and of course more sales. If you haven’t already begun your holiday campaign, you have a bit of catch up, because you can bet your competitors already have!

If you are in a business where you need to ship, get the materials to ship. If you are in the service industry, get any extra help you might need. If holidays even remotely matter to your business, then get ready.