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

Canadian Banks: Have been one of the best global financial sectors. Everyone is on to that story now. Hard to see them being the leadership going forward. With positive economic changes, investors could be switching out of banks and into the more cyclical sectors.

Gold: Over the next year you will see gold break through $1000 and could go a few hundred higher than that.

Oil. Continues to look for oil to continue to improve to something in the $80-$90 US range by the end of the year and looking for an average of $72.

Markets: Expecting a bit of a reprieve during the summer but really worries about the end of Q2 and Q3. Great possibility that March/09 lows could be tested and we need to prepare portfolios for that. Need to consider Shorting as well as insuring portfolios with Options strategies. Also, there is nothing wrong with Cash and July-Aug would be a good time to raise some.

Put Options. Thinks of these as insurance contracts. If you own a stock at $33 and want to defend against the stock dropping down to $25 you can Buy a Put Option; say at $30, which allows you to Sell at $30. The other side of the transaction is Selling a Put so that if the stock goes down to $30 you are forced to Buy the stock at $30.

Natural gas service industry. There is plenty of production capacity out there. Thinks the economic activity will remain muted for the next year and natural gas is a big input to this. You might prefer playing the pipelines that transport it. (See Top Picks.)

Potash: Large potash deposits found in Brazil. Getting financing for mining it so you are looking at 5 to 6 years to get it to market.

Expecting emerging markets to outpace the developed economies. Currency fluctuations can create problems but generally the 5 to 10 year period should level things out.

ETF to hedge against a falling US$? ETFs are becoming more popular but you have to be very careful as to whether they include a degree of leverage, how often it is rebalanced etc. Be cognizant of the costs of hedging and how holding the US$ could impact the diversification of your portfolio. Would question why an individual investor would want to do this.

US$: - Doesn't think the US$ is going off the cliff. To assume this would mean that there are other currencies that it would depreciate against. Doesn't think there are many global economies that could stand significantly higher currencies without damaging themselves.

Picton Mahoney Lon- Short Equity. Big believer in being contrarian. When markets go up really, really fast they go down and when they go down fast, they go up. Good managers on the Long and Short side. They try to give you half the risk of the market and have come markedly close to that for the past few years.

Arrow JC Clark Opportunities. Tends to be run with a fairly low exposure, in other words about 35% net Long so if you take the Long positions minus the Short positions he gives you a net number. Tends to be really low risk.

Sprott Hedge LP II. A lot of people are starting to say that Sprott’s performance has been lousy in the last year and hasn't done well in the last few months. When he hears this, he knows it is time to go back into this kind of fund. If you are contrarian, you will do well.

Sprott Opportunities Hedge Fund. Manager has done a fantastic job but has recently retired. This company has the greatest depth of management of any firm and 2 other managers are taking over and will probably do a good job.

Setting up a diversified hedge fund portfolio. Use a 2-pronged approach. 1) Look at strategies that have been out of favour for a while. 2) With hedge funds are something called a correlation. Have a portfolio consisting of something that has not been well with something that has done well and are complementary to each other.