A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert (A Commentary)

Markets. Earnings picture of many major companies indicates a slowing global growth profile. US and Canadian equities are pretty good places to be relative to a lot of the other alternatives. Europe has many more issues than we have in North America. Looking at equities relative to bonds, he thinks the value pendulum has very much swung in favour of equities. On most metrics, people would classify equities as cheap as they ever have been relative to bonds, at least over the last 4 or 5 decades. As long as the US economy doesn’t dive into a deep recession and companies have a lot of cash on their balance sheets he thinks things are going to be okay.

Markets. Doesn’t focus on the day-to-day but focuses on long-term. Equities are still the best house in a bad neighbourhood and there are no other alternatives. Still focused on dividend paying stocks and companies that have a history of raising dividends over time. Took advantage in the last couple of weeks to put more money into the US as the Cdn$ was going up. Have pulled the reins back a bit on commodity stocks as he feels that China is really slowing down.

Markets. The race is tightening up according to the US election polls. Big political decisions could change the outlook for the markets. Republicans are perceived to be better for the stock market. Thinks US will be downgraded next year by S&P. Sales are dropping for the first time since the recession. IMF saying GDP will be just over 3%. If the fiscal cliff in the US is implemented, that will be a 1 or 1-1/2% recession in the US. Looking at IBM, you have the potential for a major top. Maybe there is one more leg up in the US market.

Bonds. If you are not worried about a 10% pullback in the stock market and need the dividends, then stay with it, otherwise a bond may be correct.

Educational Segment. Inflation. They have changed the way they calculated it. Once in the 80s and again in the 90s. Tires today last longer than they did decades ago so the fact that they went up in price does not indicate an actual inflation rate. Inflation is 5.5% using the pre-1990 method but is 2% using today's method. US GDP would have gone way down using the old way of calculating inflation but using today's method it has gone up.

Markets. We could see stocks go a little lower yet. We had a nice run up in the third quarter of the year and we are seeing a little bit of an adjustment here. Short term there are events in Europe and the US election but long term people could look around for buys. He is probably holding a little more cash than he normally would so if he sees some setback in the market then he is prepared to go in and take advantage of it.

Indexes. Index is loaded up with the big, liquid, economically sensitive companies. In Canada this would be lots of resource companies and banks. Thinks commodity prices have had their run and are now cooling-off. Even oil is starting to cool off. Banks have their headwinds too. Consumers are retrenching and bank balance sheets are all about real estate so he doesn’t see a lot of upside for banks.

Markets. Stocks have been pretty fully priced, particularly in the US and he feels this contributed to the sell off after the quarterly earnings announcements. It will be interesting to see if this continues or not. Rather than viewing this as a buying opportunity, he would rather step back. He has been calling for 12,500 on the TSX to be a resistance zone. It has taken 3 shots at it and have failed for the 3^rd time. If we breakout, we’ll probably run another 500 points. If we don’t he expects we’ll be back down to 12,000. Don’t rush into this market.

Markets: Likes farmland. We are into a period of rising government bond yields. The risk trade is on and the safe haven is on. Prefers corporate bonds. He is a seller of higher yield instruments he recommended in the past. He would be buying corporate bonds for now but not for long.

Brascan 5.95 June 14'35s. Don't go for 10 year corporate bonds. Yields are likely to rise in that time. If he really likes a company he may change his view.

Premium bond, real return bond of something else for grandson: Real return only yield about .3 or .4 above CPI. But these are the way to go. Buy for a grandson but not for yourself.

When to sell before maturity. He wrote on it in the third edition of his book. Buy convertibles when they are just about in the money and premium to maturity is less than it would take to pay the premium back. The time to sell them is right now. The premiums are as much as 53% and it would take 17 years to pay it back.

GICs are an attractive place to invest. Favours a laddered approach. GIC world stops at 5 years and to go further you have to use bonds.

407 International 3.87% 11/24/2017. They can raise tolls whenever they feel like it. They are a utility. Giant long term contract. Triple 'B' rating. Probably would carry to maturity. Maybe the only infrastructure bond in his portfolio.

Treasuries. When you look at what has happened since QE 3, all 3 of the previous stimulus, the equity market was significantly higher a month later in this is the 1^st time that it is significantly lower and we didn’t get the big uptick in yields that was expected. Thinks the Fed wants to reflate things. Doesn’t know if they can deal with structural problems with monetary policies.