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

Markets. S&P 500 is below its support level of 1,350 and TSX is below its support level of 11,700. His company is a mid and intermediate term investor meaning, but depending on your timeframe; you might have a shorter or longer term. As a longer-term investor, he gives a trend line 2%-3% room to drift. He tightens it up when things are a little more volatile.

Gold bullion. You would think that with the market today, the flight to safety would be to gold but that hasn't happened. Some of his investments are based on a model and this one is of a sentiment model. When people are really, really bearish, that is when he wants to get in. He has a tight Stop in at around $1520.

Markets. The market this year doesn't seem to be as much of a liquidity concern. It is more lack of buying than people panic selling. Volumes have been a lot lower this year than last year. If we continue to trend down, mainly from an absence of good news, rather than more bad news, as an investor you can nibble away all summer long. By the end of the year, the focus will come back to the North American economic numbers, which seem to be getting better month by month.

Banks. He is dramatically underweight banks. They grew at a rate considerably above GDP for about 20 years. They are going to have a tough time maintaining GDP growth. There will be slower loan growth. He is concerned about what new lines of business they will get into.

When you get into this part of the presidential cycle equity markets move lower. It should clear up by end of June and then markets should go higher. Also, the markets usually pull back at this time of year. It was the warmest winter in 60 years. Normally in warm winters. Economies improve in the first quarter and stock markets move higher. Markets then usually move lower from end of March to June. After June then markets start to move higher. In cold winters the economies move up in the second quarter instead.

Oil: Oil has moved down but gas has not. Crude oil normally goes higher this time of year (Feb-Jul strength) but this year not so much. You want to be in a sector that is out performing the market. But it just broke a key support level and is now under performing the S&P500. We are in a downward trend so you don’t want to be involved. Wait to see what happens in China, if oil demand increases there.

90-Day Treasury Bill, US or CDN. Equities will be under downward pressure until reporting of second quarter results. Companies are giving negative guidance about their second quarter. Once you get past second quarter results it is not so bad.

30-Day Treasury Bill, US or CDN. Equities will be under downward pressure until reporting of second quarter results. Companies are giving negative guidance about their second quarter. Once you get past second quarter results, it is not so bad.

Commodity stocks. They had been under a lot of pressure lately and a lot of people believe that the commodity trade is done with China's slow down and US$ rising. The liquidity trade has been really responsible for a lot of the move in commodities but he is a real believer that the long-term is still going to be strong there. Stocks have more than discounted a lot of that. There has been a lot of selling from non-Canadian accounts on the institutional accounts as well.

Canadian Banks. They continue to be in good shape. They are not big discounts to the overall market or the overall banking sector globally. There will be some headwinds for at least the next couple of quarters. Doesn't expect there will be huge gains for them.

Gold Stocks. Companies keep having problems with these giant mines that they keep trying to open. This has been the real issue on the devaluation of the stocks were you have taken the premium out. People have been playing the ETF's directly for that reason. Why take all that risk so why wouldn't you play them directly. However looking at the valuation of the stocks compared to bullion, you can buy some of them at 8X earnings and 4 to 5 times operating cash flow. He'd rather by the company.

Natural Gas. You are still getting excess production but, although he is not saying he is bullish on it, he doesn't believe the people that say it is going down to $1-$1.50 MCF. It is more likely we have seen the bottom for now. FV is probably around $3 MCF.

Resources. The last 12 months has been an incredible difficult mid-cap, small-cap market where there has been an incredible wave of speculation and things running up and then dying. It gets really complicated and each commodity has to be separated out. He always looks for very high quality project, high quality management team, low-cost producer and reasonable amount of debt. Mining is a bad business. It destroys capital over time. You have a depleting asset base and the incredibly expensive to put new mines into production.

Gold bullion and mining stocks? Gold almost reached $2000 and is pulling back gradually in a consolidation phase but didn't collapse. Valuations have really gotten cheap at the same time that political risks have gone up and costs of building new mines has become punitive. Companies themselves have become compelling and he is just trying to find one in the sweet spot.

Silver? It will probably consolidate in the low $20 with support at $25. If you are playing silver itself, you are speculating on the pure commodity in which case the price has to move and you're not getting any additional benefit by owning a company. Silver stocks are really expensive.