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

(A Top Pick May 8/09. Up 55.7%.) Trinidad Energy Services 7.75% maturing July 31/12 yielding close to 9.5% to maturity.

Agriculture. Monsoon season never hit in Asia, which means food production is down 15% and there will be problems with rice crops. In North America, wheat and corn prices have gone up all of a sudden because of the weather patterns. Early winter is setting in.

Natural gas. Over the next 6 to 12 months he is looking for a good move out of these stocks with gas prices being moderately higher. Looking for lower inventories and the spring partly because of seasonality but also because of stronger demand.

Everyone seems to be beating earnings, but most if them are coming from cost cutting. We need to see revenues and earnings revised upward. They are very heavy in cash with new money. Some people have been stopped out in the last couple of weeks. Financials have been moving sideways for a little too long. US$ is in a long downward trend. Gold and Gas will go a little higher from here. Could hold gold instead of cash.

We are probably in a bear market where multiples are contracting

If you buy an ETF near the end of the year, some of them distribute capital gains.

Even if you think the market is expensive there are laggards. The market wants to go up. There is a load of money with no return. Reduced cash as it became evident that this rally had legs. Things are still not great south of the border.

Two types of options: ‘Call’, which grant you the right to buy and ‘Put’ options that give you the right to sell a stock. You can loose all the money you paid for the options, but the most you can loose is what you paid for the call option. Everyone should own a collection of stocks. With ETFs that is very easy today.

Do you buy inter-listeds in the US? He we would buy Canadian companies in Canada. You buy them where the stock is principally traded.

When you buy a long-term call option, you pay a higher price for the longer term. He thinks it is a good strategy if you are bullish on the underlying security. Leaps: A call option that has a term longer than 12 months.

Had been predicting M&A in the oil patch. The price for the Harvest deal was the biggest surprise. He is pleased. Other targets are assets of ECA, TLM. Gas prices have been relatively low. He is over weight financials, more so banks than insurance and SNC, BBD, CNR in the industrials. A little overweight in the energy side but a lot of stocks are pushing on the targets for the oils side. They are underweight materials.

Has no idea whether to be a bull or a bear. Right now he can see why people are bullish because there is so much money in the system, but at the same time the problems in the system have not changed (debt). He has quite a bit of money in the market but quite a bit on the sidelines. He’s at about 50/50. He won’t be buying anything until mid-November. He is going to do the regular buying in December when there is tax loss selling plus the year-end bump. Likes the funeral sector. Some of those companies have come back but there have been further consolidations.

Currency: It’s difficult to play the Chinese Yuan, but it is a currency that is going to increase in value.

He uses a GARP style. Opportunities are a bit everywhere. Resource sector will continue to do well as long as growth in Asia continues, especially in the midcap area. In the financial services as people near the retirement age. In tech you have to may attention to RIM- the smart phone market is growing so fast that everyone can be successful.