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

The Alberta economy is slowing down. Their electricity use is lower, because they have less manufacturing companies. Less people are moving out there, the moving companies aren't as busy as they were.

People are more optimistic than pessimistic which from a sentiment perspective makes markets go up. Adding to a short position and betting against the long term views of the market is a very risky strategy, but can make you rich.

With bonds, there’s a good chance interest rates may go lower, because there’s such a demand for yield. The reason the sub-prime market did what it did. 2 real simple bond ETF indexes that trade on the TSX: XBB (broad composite of all bonds in the Scotia Bank universal bonds) and XSB (short term bond index)

When comparing bonds, the one metric that brings all factors together in the bond world is: yield to maturity. From the options perspective: implied volatility, is equivalent.

Using “Puts”. Insurance is always expensive. If you’re concerned about the market the insurance will be more expensive. Use index options if your going to do it, cheaper then “puts” on individual stocks.

Suggests that climate change is an investment opportunity. If you go long on stocks, one of the fields you should be doing well is, the agricultural sector in Canada. Also solar, power (ats automation). If it's contrarion and out of favour they like to look at it.

Technical Analyst Perspective- Believes we are in a bear market. A lot of the sectors are faultering. Small caps are weak. It will be "tough sledding". Believes that crude oil is a bit overpriced and natural gas has been improving. If you are looking for opportunities there are bargoons in the producers and income trust side of natural gas.

Large global tech stocks-Global economy is strong. Corporate profits are still good in the US. There is growth in cell phones, consumer electronics, flat panel screen and PC's. Recommends having 12-15% of a typical portfolio in global tech stocks.(min. 5%, max. 20%)

Gold - He sees a growth in buying from India and China and on the supply side, he sees more problems because of lower grades, lower productions. He feels gold will go higher.

Sprott Small Cap Hedge Fund – Only 10 days old. Manager has proved to be one of the best small-cap managers over the last 15 years. Just moved from managing $1.5 billion to $30 million fund where he can be more flexible. He is up around 20% on the year.

Dynamic Power Hedge - 5 years old and has gone up 10X since inception. Averages about 60% a year. Good management. The small size allows him to concentrate his positions. Will be volatile.

C. I. Trident Global Opportunities-Manager has one of the brightest hedge fund minds in the world. Has been treading water for the last couple of years because he has expected a credit crunch to happen, and when it finally happened he was there. This fund would be for the bears.

Hedge Funds - There are about 20 different hedge fund strategies, but 3 basic types. Relative Value-More arbitrage based, which may exploit the inefficiencies of markets. Event Driven- Basically when companies are merging, taken over, coming out of bankruptcy, distressed securities. Directional-This could be a global macro fund.

Hedge Funds versus Mutual Funds- Hedge funds are generally more flexible. He describes these as a car with breaks. A hedge manager can put on the brakes, but with a mutual fund, that is not necessarily the case. In bull markets, sometimes mutual funds will do better.

Vertex One - Based in Vancouver and manage about $1 billion in capital. Has about a 10-year track record, which is quite long for a hedge fund. Use a multi-strategy approach. A lot of what they did at the beginning was “merger arbitrage”. Experts in this trade. Have also done well in the resource space in the last few years. Have a limit and can only short 15% in the portfolio. Well managed.