What is the maximum return on investment (%) you expect in the next five years?

year1 year2 year3 year4 year5

5%, 5.5%, 6%, 6.5% and 7%

11, 20, 30, 30,11%

What are you investing in? Uncovered options? Money markets? It depends on how agressive you are. You could lose your house and family. Make $1.5 Billion or lock in a 2.99%. Vegas, or the treasury money market; it's up to you.

It depends on the risk of the investment. Expected return is dependent on the risk.

I only invest if I am sure I can double my money, don't want to wait 5 years either.

10% a year annualized in S&P 500

Probably zero or negative, UNLESS you are in the right sectors. I say this because...

We are in a "bear market" and could be for a long-time. The Fed is going to continue to drop interest rates just like Japan did in the 1990s. If the US market is anything like the Nikkei, the US market is the WORST place to be a buy-and-hold investor. Let's say you started working in Japan in 1989 and added $5000 to your 401K every year... you would still be underwater 18 years later!! That is a taste of what is to come for the U.S. The US market and brokerage firms have "conditioned" the American investor to be buy-and-holders ever since witnessing the best bull market in US history (1980s-current). That is now changing!!

The places you want to be is gold, silver, agriculture, alternative energy, oil, commodities, etc. If you can short the market using an inverse fund (Rydex or Profund), you can probably do very well there too.

--------------------

The following two problems is what is driving commodity prices through the roof:

NAFTA is Problem #1. When US companies create and move jobs overseas, they create a larger middle class globally. Now that there is a larger middle class globally, we are all competing for the same commodities.

BioFuels is Problem #2. Our farmers are now putting less food on our tables so that we can be more energy independent. This is causing SOARING food prices.

Because of the FED and the WAR, that has exacerbated #1 and #2. When the Fed lowers interest rates, the dollar drops and all those middle class people that we've created overseas can buy our commodities much cheaper. The war has increased our deficits so much that other countries no longer want US dollars.