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

Oil: The decline back to $35 was the speculative bubble unwinding. He can see oil at $85 by the end of the year.

Market: Doesn’t think it is a bear market rally but there could very well be a correction of between 5% and 15%. Fairly unlikely that we are going to retest lows.

REITs: Assuming a weak economy, increasing inflation and higher long-term interest rates, large cap liquid names with pristine balance sheets will do extremely well. Will have access to capital with the opportunity to pick and choose assets from weaker performers. Smaller ones will suffer.

Base Metal Markets: Our economy is still very sick. We are no longer declining but we are not anywhere near growth. The bulk of the reflex rally is over and spills over to the base metals but not as aggressive as on the equity market. You need to be over weighted in gold versus base metals.

3-month treasury bills. Stick them under your mattress until late this fall for a seasonal play at that time.

Market: TSX Composite and S&P 500 have gone up 42% since March 9 in anticipation of very strong earnings gains. Environment between now and late this year is not that great. There is a war in currencies. Chinese are fighting the US$ and the US is trying to protect. 2 huge elephants are causing a lot of pain. If you owned the S&P 500 or the Dow in the last month, you lost 6% because of currency.

Market: S&P 500 has a potential reverse head and shoulders pattern. Right shoulder has not developed properly as yet and still require some time before it evolves.

Gold: 2 periods of seasonal strength. 1) July until September and 2) end of October to end of February. Latter one has worked 8 out of the last 10 periods for an average gain of 13.9% per period. The first one is now getting lined up very nicely. The key is to look at gold in terms of currency. In terms of US$ has had a pretty good move and technically looks overbought but Cdn$, British pounds or Euros is actually down 15% in the last 2 months. You have to watch for a breakout in the trend and when it does, you should do very well.

Provincial strip bonds in a TFSA? With the strip bond, you are actually buying at a very big discount to par. For a fixed income alternative, this is fine.

Twenty-year provincial bonds. Thinks the credit is fine on these. There is going to have to be supply which could affect performance short-term but maturity risk would be close to zero.

Aeroplan Bonds 9% maturing April 23/12. Not a huge fan of their business model. It's a short-term bond and low on the investment grade scale, which concerns him a little bit. There is a high probability that it will mature but he wouldn't be comfortable holding it.

(A Top Pick Oct 9/08. Up 9.71%.) RBC CAPITAL TRUST BONDS Dec 31’13

(A Top Pick Oct 9/08. Up 6.85 %.) GE CAPITAL CANADA FINANCE June 7, 2010.

US bond market versus Cdn bond market. The US bond market is deeper by a wide margin and there's definitely more ameliority as far as corporate bonds are concerned. His concern would be that if you buy them you are exposed to the US$.

Natural Gas: A lot of supply and very weak demand. Expect it will weaken in the summer and will strengthen into Q4-Q1 but not into the lofty levels that they where in the past.