If you’ve been following my recommendations for a year or more, you’ll know all too well that the “experts” on Wall Street were warning everyone about the troubled retail sector and proclaimed the American consumer was dead. But I chose to ignore their ramblings — and made outstanding profits on the very sector they lambasted.

Just take a look at the year-to-date returns of these retail- and consumer-based companies:

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) +25%

AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) +20%

Limited Brands (NYSE:LTD) +32%

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) +31%

O’Reilly Automotive (NASDAQ:ORLY) +33%

These are just a few of the retail investments I have in my blue-chip portfolio. In 2012, it would behoove you to secure these in your portfolio as well, because although these 12-month gains came in the face of extreme market pessimism, we’re now seeing the biggest surge in consumer confidence in eight years. This includes strong consumer spending (including robust holiday sales) and, as I previously discussed in my New Year’s Prediction #2, steadily improving job growth.

So, in the coming months, I’m going to continue looking for opportunities to capitalize on this powerful trend. In fact, I recommend buying stock in VF Corp. (NYSE:VFC), the apparel and footwear powerhouse behind a number of blowout brands such as The North Face, Wrangler, Reef and Nautica, to name a few. I’ve enjoyed some remarkable returns in select consumer-based companies, and I believe the best is yet to come in 2012.

Prediction #5: Where the Indexes and Our Stocks Are Headed