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

He sticks to a diversified portfolio, so if he had to lean, it would be a little more defensive. He has a few of the Magnificent 7 stocks, but the key is diversity. To manage the volatility be exposed to all sectors, some defensive and some growth.

You'll have great up days and then down days. Over time in the markets, the up days are better, but you have to position for those down days. A portion of his portfolios is in cash, which he looks to deploy to his advantage on down days.

He'd agree 100% that investors should not be looking to buy and sell within a year. If you need the money within a year, keep it out of the stock market. The longer time horizon lets you weather the volatility better. Companies themselves don't look just a year ahead, their timeframe is much longer. The longer you can go, the better off you'll be.

The dividend growth metrics are high for all of these companies. If rates stay the same, high dividends are better than what the market's providing, but it might not be substantially higher to justify the additional risk. So you want to keep your eye on it. What you're looking for is if they can grow the dividend as well as assets and volumes going through those assets.

What does negative working capital mean?

Negative working capital means a company’s short-term assets are less than its short-term liabilities. What this financial metric indicates is that the company collects cash from customers in advance before it needs to deliver any of its goods or services or pay suppliers. Of course, negative working capital could be a sign of financial difficulty if the company’s fundamentals are deteriorating. For example, if sales and earnings decline year after year, the company struggles to generate cash flow, and the company also has a high leverage profile, then negative working capital could signal near-term trouble for the company.

However, there is a small group of businesses that have a superior business model or strong competitive position in the value chain, which helps them negotiate better payment terms.
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He expects oil prices to keep climbing. Much of the reason is psychological, driven by a subtle backlash in EVs. Unlimited demand for EVs is over. Maybe that's due to a lack of charging stations, higher prices for EVs, or maybe the novelty has worn out. Also, hydrogen fuels are too early for mass adoption. Better to invest in pipeline stocks (and their rich dividends) than charging stations.

He sees short-term gains in the market. Inflation data is encouraging a continuing rally. Maybe the worst is over. One of the Fed chairs made encouraging comments today. The chart of US inflation shows inflation falling back to the traditional top end of inflation. Energy and transportation costs have declined, though food and mortgage costs remain robust. The signs are encouraging, but we're not there yet. The US 10-year yield chart is starting to break out now (above 4%). The bond market is telling us something, and rising yield are the fly in the ointment. The S&P has seen an uptrend since last September; he sees more strength.

Any government or regulator influence cans turn an investment into a wild card -- that is the biggest factor. You need to find clarity from governments around the world about Bitcoin. He owns no Bitcoin.

The bears who get airtime are wrong. They were calling for Schwab to go under during the regional bank crisis. Did Schwab go under?? During pullbacks like this, buy, but don't worry if you missed it today. There will be more opportunities to buy because the bears will keep speaking doom and gloom.

One problem of only looking at share price:

Most beginner investors tend to avoid stocks that have a share price above $100, and they often lean towards stocks priced below $100. This is because intrinsically, without having any further information, we would be led to believe that a $10 stock is “cheaper” than a $1,000 stock. Investing in such a way is misleading though, as what is most important for the relative “expensiveness” of a stock is its market capitalization. Market capitalization, or often referred to as market cap, is the total value of a company, and it is calculated as price per share times the number of shares. Naturally, we might think of the $6 Sirius XM stock as being “cheaper” than Markel, however, its market cap of $25.9 billion is larger than that of Markel’s at $18.2 billion. The reason for this is that Sirius XM has 4 billion shares outstanding, whereas, Markel has only 13.8 million shares outstanding. Sirius XM is also more expensive on a valuation basis than Markel, with a P/E of 21.5X against 18.3X, respectively. This leads us to the conclusion that looking at share price independent of any other factor is misleading, and it should not really be factored into our investing decisions.
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Possible 1 - 2 more interest rate hikes, but majority of rate hikes have occurred. 
Inflation trending lower - good for US Fed.
Good year for stock market & corporate earnings despite global political issues.
Seeing value in financial & healthcare stocks.
Most of investor money flowing into tech creating opportunities in other sectors. 

Not worth waste time on predicting interest rates. 
Building a conservative bond portfolio a safe bet.
Advice: own some bonds for steady rate of income & safety in capital.

Would not recommend long position bonds at the moment.
1-5 years good time horizon to invest in bonds.
Short term (6 months/1 year) rates also very strong. 

Canadian average mortgage rate is above 5%.
Low interest rates since 2008 not sustainable.
Rates are normalizing - not high by normal standards. 

Corporations will pay up for stocks if investors don’t.

Corporations—at least the good ones—are long-term thinkers. They know business ebbs and flows, and stock valuations do not always reflect long term prospects. Case in point: Apollo buying Great Canadian Gaming (GC), one of the stocks we covered at 5i Research. Apollo bought GC in the middle of the pandemic, when essentially the company had no businesses operating. But Apollo knew the Covid would end one day, and casinos would open again. It tried to ‘steal’ the company, and shareholders managed to squeeze out a higher bid from them. But Apollo was still able to get GC at a cheap price 

The lesson is to think long term, and remember that while valuations on the stock market may fluctuate, underlying business fundamentals reflect future business prospects.   
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It'll take time to break the sour mood. Dominant thing now is central bank policy. So far, Q2 earnings have been quite strong. But the Fitch downgrade yesterday was a pretty big shockwave and markets responded instantly by selling off. 

The impact of a credit rating downgrade is that the cost of capital goes up. Looking at the US and the national debt, there's a higher cash cost for borrowing and that's significant.