Where should you put your money in 2011?

With all of the stimulus coming from the Federal Reserve and the tax-cutting Congress, 2011 should be a banner year for the U.S. economy and your money, right? Unless, of course, a double dip in housing, weak state budgets and persistent lack of hiring dooms everything.

That's the either/or scenario facing investors as they try to decide where to deploy their resources in 2011. At every turn, there are huge opportunities and frightening risks. That leads to the obvious and ubiquitous disclaimer: Stick with your long-term plan and your intended asset allocation.

But beyond that, there are some themes and issues that could shed light on how investment markets will perform in 2011. Here are some thoughts and expert views:

* Calendar patterns suggest a good year for stocks. Since 1945, the stock market has risen 100 percent of the time when a first-term President was in his third year, according to Standard & Poor's. (Since 1900, that figure is 81 percent.) The average increase in those years since 1900 and 17.1 percent since 1945. In addition, a stimulative monetary policy, technical indicators and seasonal factors should all make the beginning of 2011 a happy place to be in stocks.

* On the other hand, there are some bad signs, too. Those presidential-cycle returns "will likely be moderated by the aging of this bull market and the sluggishness of this economic recovery," says Hans Olsen, chief investment officer for J.P. Morgan's Private Wealth Management.

And Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab & Co, though generally bullish on 2011, sees the over-the-top enthusiasm now in evidence in the market as a negative sign. "Every measure of sentiment that I track shows a very elevated level of optimism. You always see a choppy phase after that," she said in a pre-holiday interview.

* Stocks are expected to perform better than bonds. Interest rates across broad swaths of the bond market continue to skirt historic lows, and that means they are far more likely to flatten or rise than fall further. That will hit bond prices, and especially prices of bonds with longer maturities.

"We recommend investors overweight equities, while underweighting fixed income," said S&P's annual outlook statement. The firm is advising investors to keep bond weightings to 20 percent or less of their portfolio, and to focus on shorter-term bonds.

* Bond market precautions are a good idea. "If you reach for yield right now, what you'll pull back is a bloody stump," says Olsen. "Treasuries, in particular, should come with a health warning attached to them."

Olsen suggests keeping your bond portfolio diversified and avoiding the municipal bonds that are issued by one city or local borrowing authority. Focus your municipal bond buying on state general obligation bonds, he suggests.

* Think cyclical. If, as expected, the recovery continues, those businesses that tend to do well in an expansive economy should do well. That means industrials, information technology and materials groups in particular, advises Sam Stovall of S&P. The defensive sectors like health care and utilities? Not so much, he says.

But James Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management, thinks big dividend-paying companies should also help investors over the next year.

* Foreign investments are still part of the picture. The fervor over emerging market shares has been going on for a while, but it's not over yet, advises Bob Smith, manager of the T. Rowe Price International Stock Fund. "We think this is a great 10-year investment opportunity," he said.

Emerging market economies should grow at a 6.4 percent rate, more than double the U.S. growth rate, according to World Bank projections. Europe and Japan still faces risks, but their large cap stocks are below their 10-year averages, so selective investments could pan out there, too.