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

Canadian Financial ETFs? He is Holding and writing covered calls against them to generate income and to operate as a hedge. He prefers Equal Weight Bank ETF (ZEB-T) as he is not interested in the insurance companies.

Maximum time for optioning to maximize premiums? He normally uses 6 to 7 months, which is not as profitable as 3 months but gives him better downside protection.

Is waiting for a pull back or correction before buying more mining stocks right now.

US economy is getting better. The only thing we are not seeing is more jobs. Jobs always lag the economy. Job openings in October were the highest they ever have been. By the end of 2011 he predicts it will get back to 8%. For people with College degrees, the outlook is not too bad. Corporate profits are at record levels. Commodity prices are going to stay high and possibly go higher because there isn’t enough to supply China. He is mostly staying away from commodities. Until interest rates go up, he will not buy bonds for clients.

Tonight's program is a repeat of December 1st so there will be no comments. Presumably they lost a guest so I get tonight off! See you Monday. Bill

Please note. A Top Pick of Mike Newton's yesterday, Magna International (MGA-N) had an incorrect symbol MGA-T so e-mails sent out in last night's mail were incorrect. My apologies to Mike. Also my thanks to Infojoe for drawing this to my attention. Bill

Natural Gas. 2 types, wet and dry. Dry is without associated liquids and wet will include propane, butane or ethane, which are priced off of oil and help offset natural gas prices.

Stop Losses. These are always very controversial. He doesn’t place Stop/Losses into the market but holds them out to the side. If you have a line in the sand on which you want to get out, have your own reminder. You can always get back in.

Uranium has finally has some pretty sharp movement. Ontario’s new statement on energy policy going forward has to bode well on uranium in the long term. There is such a long lead time on having facilities built it could be 10 years before there is a plant up and running.

Cdn Bank Preferred Shares? Looking very attractive. You can find a lot of bank preferreds with yields between 5.5% and 6% and relatively safe. Would be cautious on some of the more recent issues such as Step-Ups.

5 year GIC Versus 5 year Canada Bond? GIC should yield more. If you are a Buy and Hold investor and investing less than $100,000, GIC is a slam-dunk. More active investors should look at the Canada’s that are more easily traded.

Yield Curve. Looking at this today, 5-year area is a little bit expensive and 2-year and 10-year probably offer more value. That is the government curve. In corporates you get more value and the curve gets very steep in the 5 to 10 year area, which is what he would recommend.

5-year laddered or 5-year laddered government/provincial bond ETF? A little more yield on GICs but you give that up on liquidity. He would recommend you use both and build your own ladder.

[Today’s show also includes technical analysis.] This is a very significant bull market. All the things that push a bull market forward are in place. The current debt problems are a sovereign problem. The private sector has corrected its problems, but the public sector has not. He would not own government bonds right now. That’s where the bubble is.