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NEW YORK (AP) — If the stock market holds to a pattern it has followed for most of the past 40 years, 2010 could be a big year for investors. Since 1973, a big advance on the first trading day of January has been a strong sign stocks will post robust gains for the rest of the year. On Monday, upbeat news about manufacturing lifted the Dow Jones indus- trial average 155 points, or 1.5 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 17 points, or 1.6 percent. When the S&P 500 has gained more than 1 percent on the first day of trading, the index has ended the year higher 86 percent of the time, according to Schaef- fer's Investment Research. After a big first day, the average yearly gain in the S&P 500 index has been 14.7 percent. That's impor- tant because the index is the yardstick for the overall market and for many invest- ments such as mutual funds. Still, trying to predict the year based on the first day of trading is dicey. Over the past 20 years, the S&P 500's first-day move regardless of its size correlated with how the index finished the year just 11 times. Six of those years saw the market advance, while five saw it slide. And as investors are well aware, there are plenty of potential obstacles that could pull the market back down, including Friday's December employment report from the Labor Department. Other threats include the struggling real estate market and expecta- tions of rising interest rates. Analysts agree that the huge gains of 2009 — when the S&P 500 index jumped 64.8 percent in nine months to end the year with a gain of 23.5 percent — have almost no chance of being repeated this year. After such a huge run in 2009, some market watch- ers believe lingering ques- tions about the economy could trigger a correction, which is generally consid- ered a drop of at least 10 percent. But for those who believe "as January goes in the stock market, so goes the rest of the year," the first trading day of 2010 is a good omen. China's manufacturing industry posted the fastest growth in 20 months for December, while a trade group of purchasing execu- tives said demand at U.S. factories was increasing. The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity rose to 55.9 from 53.6 in November, a bigger improvement than analysts predicted. BY JESSICA YADEGARAN Contra Costa Times WALNUT CREEK — It was nine years ago that Al Courchesne took a fall trip to Tuscany and fell in love with the region's olive oil, a zesty, pungent nectar so revered that locals knock it back like vodka. Courchesne worked the harvest, plucking purplish olives from trees and celebrating the bounty at Italian festivals. "They have a joy and appreciation for everything having to do with the olive _ the wonderful taste, how healthy it is for you," Courchesne says. "Their civilization was built around olive oil." Courchesne, a Brentwood fruit farmer, was hooked on huile. Upon his return, he planted 400 olive trees on his 130-acre Frog Hollow Farm, on the organic acreage famous for peaches. Today, he makes Tus- can oil based on a centuries-old ratio of Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino, and Mauri- no olives. Courchesne is one of dozens of pro- ducers today who are making Northern California synonymous with zippy, hand- crafted, extra virgin olive oil, which ranges from soft and buttery to grassy and peppery. From Petaluma to Menlo Park, they farm 150 olive varietals to create oils so vibrant, they're almost a different com- modity than the stuff you buy off super- market shelves. Currently, most of the olive oil we con- sume comes from countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece. A lack of government regulation means that despite the label it's possible you're consuming adulterated olive oil, canola oil, or a blend, says Patri- cia Darragh of the Berkeley-based Cali- fornia Olive Oil Council. The COOC filed a petition with the USDA in August 2004 to set standards for the importation of olive oil into the United States. The peti- tion is pending. Furthermore, most imported oils arrive months after production. And, unlike wine, they don't get better with age. They can get rancid, and lose flavor and heart- healthy benefits after about two years, Darragh says. But, olive oil made close to home hails from fruit that was hanging off a tree a few weeks — or even days, in the case of olio nuovo — before you pur- chased that bottle. Much like the grape business, weather and ripeness determine when harvest begins, but it's usually between October and December. The later the harvest, the mellower the oil. Within 24 hours, the just-picked olives are rushed to a mill, where they are cleaned, separated from stems and leaves, and ground into a paste — pit and all. The paste is then mixed or spun to encourage separation between the oil and water or vegetable matter. Since you can't taste or measure when an olive is ripe — black skin isn't neces- sarily an indicator — David Navarrette of Brentwood Spice and Olive Oil has devel- oped his own system. Navarrette, who has been making olive oil for 12 years, walks through the orchard and picks a random sample of olives from his 320 trees, a few of which have been bearing fruit for 60 years. He has six varietals planted on two acres, including Arbequina and Sebiano. "I close my eyes, squeeze the olives, and check the drag against my fingers," Navarrette explains. "Less drag means more oil. That's how I know." To make his infused lemon or blood orange olive oils, Navarrette adds one gallon of pure lemon oil to 20 gallons of olive oil. He presses the olives for flavored oils late in the sea- son, so the oil's acid and overall flavors are low. Once it has been bottled, producers seeking the extra-virgin label submit their oil to a lab for chemical analysis. In Cali- fornia, extra-virgin means that the oil con- tains 0.5 percent or less oleic free fatty acid (the international standard is 0.8 or less). Also, it must be blind-tasted by a trained panel and determined fresh, fruity and free of defects. The olive oil of Shadowbrook Winery was the first in Walnut Creek to be certi- fied extra virgin by the COOC. Olive grower Tim Jochner planted half an acre of Mission and Manzanilla olive trees five years ago on Northgate Road. By the third harvest, he was bottling oil. "With the winery, we're bringing Wal- nut Creek back to its origins as an agricul- tural place," Jochner says. "I thought it'd be fun to do olive oil as a complement. It makes everything taste better." Because olive presses can cost a quarter of a mil- lion dollars, small producers such as Jochner and Courchesne press their olives at larger, established facilities, such as McEvoy Ranch in Petaluma. The Menlo Park-based Owen's Creek Company presses the olives for its Ital- ian blends at Bozzano Olive Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley. However, their 5,250 olive trees grow on a 35-acre orchard at Redington Ranch, close to Cathy's Valley in Mariposa County. The trees were planted in 2005, so this year is their second harvest. Owen's Creek is one to watch: They are one of the only producers in Califor- nia growing Sicilian olive varietals, which impart a tart, grassy and slightly bitter finish. One shot and you'll feel like you're in a southern Italian olive orchard. 4A – Daily News – Tuesday, January 5, 2010 (530) 527-1111 • 605 Main St. Red Bluff Jen Adams (530) 567-5165 Located on the Sacramento River in the lovely Rio Vista Mobile Home Park. Don't let the age of this home fool you. 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