I love this stock market. Why? You might ask. Well, not many other people like it. Since I am a closet contrarian I like it when most people are on the other side of the fence.

Now you must understand that this is my opinion and not necessarily that of anyone I work with or any company I may work for.

One thing I like is that there is no euphoria anywhere. That is usually a warning sign. In general, I think clients are scared. The talking heads on TV are really skeptical.

Somebody asked me if I think that the move in gold is for real. Well, gold in the past year had a low of $704.90 and is now $1,008. I guess I do think it is for real. What it does later is another issue.

It is October so let's look at the numbers. They make good cocktail party fodder.

The last quarter was made in heaven. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor's 500 were both up 15 percent. The Nasdaq Composite was up 16 percent.

I am writing this on Oct. 1 so any numbers I use unless otherwise indicated are measured from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30.

For the year, the Dow is up 10.7 percent, the S&P is up 17 percent, and the Nasdaq is up 34.6 percent. I like the Wilshire 5000. which measures most stocks traded, and it is up about 22 percent year to date.

I was looking at the 10 largest stock funds in the United States and the average return year to date is 21.4 percent.

This is a great time of the year for you to take a look at how your investments are doing. Return numbers are readily available so you should have no problem.

The foreign stock markets have been crazy. The Dow Jones Global Index, not including the U.S., is up 32.7 percent. The ISHARES Emerging Market Index Fund is up over 54 percent year-to-date.

Five of the world's major markets are up over 50 percent including Taiwan, Singapore, China, Israel, and Brazil.

Many of the foreign markets were crushed last year, so it would not be unusual to see them running this year. So far, so good.

How about commodities? Recently natural gas is the big story. It had a low of around $2.50 and is now around 4.80. It is still down over 13 percent this year, but the recent rally has made a huge difference. It has been zooming the last month.

Crude oil is up 58 percent this year, Gold is up 14 percent, and the dollar is down about 5 percent against the euro. If you travel in Europe this is not good.

In looking at individual food related commodities trends over the last month, corn has had a small rally; soybeans are steady; cattle is lower but trending upward; coffee rallied but is trending lower; sugar has stayed higher; same thing with copper, and hogs are about 10 percent lower than in June and July.

Now a lot of the pricing in the hogs and cattle is due to reducing herds in the fall. I read somewhere the other day that there is huge slaughtering of cattle herds and at some juncture that could lead to much higher prices next year.

That will be interesting to watch because cattle prices have been headed downward since earlier this year and that is not good for cattle ranchers.

The bond market will put you to sleep. Investors who buy U.S. Treasuries or who have their money in short term money markets are almost receiving a zero return.

Corporates seem to be the leaders in here but money has been pouring into them and that bothers me. At some juncture spreads will tighten, spreads being the difference in yields between various classes of bonds, and they will no longer be a value.

I return to one of my favorite subjects, taxes. I was reading a column written by Karen Hube in the Sept. 28 edition of Barrons.

According to Hube, from 1997 through 2007 more than 1,100 people moved every day from the nine states with the highest income taxes. Some of those include California, New York, New Jersey and Ohio.

She says that from April 2000 to July 2008, 1.3 million people moved out of California. Pennsylvania has the 11th highest tax burden in the nation according to Hube.

I called a friend of mine in Wyoming where she is an attorney. I had forgotten that attorneys actually have friends. Just kidding, Suzanne.

She told me that Wyoming has no state income tax and retirement income is not taxed. Think about that. Some states tax income at as much as 11 percent.

So if you have combined husband and wife retirement income of $100,000, and you live in those states, Hawaii and Oregon, you would have $11,000 less every year.

Suzannne told me not to write about Wyoming, no more movers please, but I am thinking that maybe Laramie looks appealing.

You can e-mail me questions at Howie.Pentony@Uvestfinancial.com or through www.Nextierwealth.comI love sayings from little children in school. A couple I read recently include a teacher asking a little boy, Louie, if he knew why George Washington's father did not punish him when he cut down the cherry tree. Louie said, "Because George still had the ax in his hand."And a teacher asked Harold what you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested. Harold said, "A teacher."

Howie Pentony is a Butler financial adviser with UVEST Financial Services, member FINRA/SIPC.