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

Market. Feels that there is a political will in the US and Europe to keep things rolling and to put a floor under the market. He is looking for slow steady growth. There will be areas in special situations where you can take advantage and make some money. Expects the cycle should come back in 6-12 months.

Canadian banks? These are relatively attractive right now because of where they are trading at compared to the rest of the sector such as utilities, pipelines, etc which are trading at historically high multiples. He prefers and owns Toronto Dominion (TD-T), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS-T), Canadian Imperial. Bank (CM-T) and Canadian Western Bank (CWB-T).

REITs. Still likes this area. Doesn’t have as much upside potential as it would have had a year or so ago. You have to look at these in terms of where 10 year Canada government bonds yields are. Looking at the valuations relative to bond yields, they are not expensive. You are looking at 10% upside potential, which he is very comfortable with. His favourite would be Boardwalk (BEI.UN-T) on the apartment side and Calloway REIT (CWT.UN-T) on the retail side.

Markets. Thinks that the next 6 months are going to be good. Historically, this is been the best time to be in the market for the next 6 months. There are some risks. There is a slow down and earnings are coming out and are not great. From a 10 year perspective, there is a 90% confidence of being successful.

Natural gas. Seasonally this is a good time to be in natural gas up until December 21. A lot of the southern states, because of tax regulations, want to dump the gas on the market because they are taxed on holdings and inventories.

Market. The fiscal cliff is a concern for anybody, anywhere and that includes gold. Right now people get scared and sell anything and everything. In the last month or so, people have become more increasingly fearful that Mitt Romney would win and will put in many more measures to reduce the deficit and cut spending. He doesn’t think that whoever gets in power will be the guy who wants to put the country back into recession and he thinks they will again stimulate through quantitative easing, etc. More positive for gold right now. When you look at base metals, the most important thing you should look at is what is going on in China.

Silver. Very positive on this going forward. Investment of the decade. About 67% of silver consumption is industrial, which is a positive.

Markets. There had been a really nice rally in the summertime and now you have a pull back. Traditionally, now is when things start to rally into Christmas. Who wins the US election is not as relevant because what really matters is that this issue is out of the way. Thinks the market goes slightly higher from here given that we have had a nice pullback.

Markets. The US budget office has come out and said if the government implements everything it will cause a 1 to 1-1/2% recession next year. If the US does not make some tough decisions soon, there is a big hurricane going to hit the US bond market as the US gets downgraded again. The US will still remain the reserve currency, though.

Election. If Romney wins and were to fire Bernanke, it would be quite a shock to the world. Only in that case is there a risk to gold.

Education Segment. Support Levels. e.g. Look at previous highs and lows, trend-lines, moving averages. Retracements. You can look at a lot of things, but it has to be relevant to the time frame you are trading in. No one's system is a sure thing.

Markets. Performance of REITs has been great. Mid 20's and higher returns. He has about 8% cash. He never sees any upside – it just happens. He doesn't know how you produce growth from here. Some REITs will have to raise yield to avoid paying taxes.

Markets. You have 2 sides of the market at play. There is a lot of uncertainty including 1) US election, 2) fiscal cliff (which he doesn’t think is going to be that big an issue), 3) the euro zone (which he thinks could go on for some time), 4) Fed underneath the market providing a lot of liquidity which could change depending on the election, 5) US tax issues depending on who is elected, 6) Mr. Romney would like to simplify the tax code and capping some of the benefits. However, looking at the Options market, which tends to measure risk, there seems to be a great deal of complacency. Expects all of this will result in a “trading range” environment. It will likely be a widening one as we go further down over the next 4-6 months but he doesn’t see any big breakout either up or down. In this scenario, the options strategies work really well. You are getting cash flow and can frame your trading range.

People use Puts to protect the downside. What is the difference between this and using a Stop Loss? Excellent question. A Put Option is insurance. The difference between this and a Stop Loss is that if you go through a Stop Loss, your stock is sold and likely very close to the price of your Stop. If you are not necessarily thinking that you want to sell your stock, but you don’t like the short-term prospects, the Put may be a better way to do it.

Cdn ETFs versus US ETFs? US do not hedge their positions because they own the reserve currency of the world and they don’t really look at any other currencies as being an issue for them. If you are comfortable with the currency fluctuations and we do get a significant downturn in the market, the US$ will do quite well because people will move into this in a panic.