Other than my ususal predictions for 2008 (see 2007 and 2006 , here as well ), I am taking some time off to think. Thinking helps. Time away helps.

Here were my theme predictions for 2007. No wonder I had my best year ever. I listened to myself.

1. Commodities – For 2007 my focus will be more on water.

2. Mergers – a continuation of this trend. Bigger and Bolder and more egotistical than ever!

3. More IPO’s – I think entrepreneurs will show more balls this year and stop building to sell and start building to BE SOMEBODY! Update – Here is a recap of 2005 and 2006 IPO numbers.

4. Handheld Wars – NOT Music – Apple won that!

5. Internet – I will defer to Fred Wilson’s posts on 2007 themes. You should too.

6. Healthcare – This area of the stock market is sure to have some major winners. Sleep, Biotech, Infectious Disease. It would be great to see some major breakthroughs in 2007.

7. Inflation or Deflation – While that ridiculous debate continues that no one wins, I will focus on how can I make money off the areas of inflation and the areas of deflation in the global systems.

8. The Tapped Consumer – I am tapped. The average consumer is way past tapped. I am not shorting stocks, but I am tempted in stocks that are a play on the tapped consumer.

9. Porn – No explanation needed .

10. Broadband Internet Video. Yes – Fred is the internet guru in my eyes, but I feel I have some expertise here and there is likely to be some major busts and new winners in this space in 2007 and beyond.

I may post occassionally but I am done with the market talk for a few weeks. If you are looking to ‘burglar’ my house, we just installed an alarm and a vicious fake barking service. It’s all family time in Toronto.

You know where I stand on stocks. I recently blogged that the best reason for the market to go up was that it had not gone down.

Today we got that.

The breakouts were thick in my portfolio:

AAPL, CPHD, DSCP, IBKR, AUXL, NDAQ, CME, GAIA (huge day, blogged it yesterday), ESRX, INFA, PANL, LIFC, RICK, SLW, ORA to name a few.

That is a lot of all-time highs that you have never heard of in a simple portfolio. Next year is going to be even better for all of us on this blog.

I still think IPO’s are coming. How great is it that the best IPO’s are now dutch auctions (screw you Merrill and Goldman). Trust me, it’s good. Google, Interactive Brokers and now Netsuite (N) have had hugely successful Dutch Auctions. The strong, have some pull.

Stephen Roach and the bears will tell you tthat a recession is upon us, but they are looking at the same stuff the bulls are looking at. They just suck at reading the tea leaves. We don’t.

Here are the problems according to the bears…The XLE hit an all-time high, E-Trade is bust and Countrywide is bust. The market won’t break on that news. We absorbed it. It is going to take something new. Something even the bears don’t see because they are staring at their screens.

Don’t get stuck focused on the averages. There is some great strength showing depite the massive energy tax. It’s a huge tax no doubt. China is likely a bubble, likely the biggest ever, but there is no timing it.

Be optimistic. Keep the comments and conversation coming. It keeps me motivated.

Be well everybody. Kiss your kids.