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

REITs. Likes retail exposure in favourable categories such as groceries, medical, department stores. Prefers industrial, commerical. Worries about residential, as the rents get capped.

Gold. A great place to leave money in all but the most pressured markets. Gold has lost its lustre in favour of crypto, so that might be an opportunity. Not keen on gold companies, as they're perpetually expensive. To justify the price, you have to be really optimistic on the price of gold. Owning the physical commodity may be a better bet. Stays away from heavily promoted mid-caps. When gold prices move higher, so do costs. Likes the streamers such as FNV and WPM, and you don't have to worry about cost inflation. WPM has a narrower basket and is easier to understand. Not positive on gold in anything but short-term cases.

There are some brain-dead sellers out there, sellers of AMC, etc, stocks too expensive in valuation to the Reddit short-sellers. Who will return to theatres? If you want to see the next James Bond, you new Amazon Prime. These are sellers who don't care about metrics or balance sheets. If you short AMC, you're an idiot. Look at what happened last winter. AMC was up today 19% in the latest short squeeze. As for GameStop, well it could turn itself around (or not).

It's trickier to find US stocks at decent valuations. There will be winners and losers. Momentum stocks have had some success coming off the pandemic, but they're not getting stretched. Meanwhile, commodities, cyclicals, social-driven tech like Facebook, and banks are gaining. The falling US dollar: sometimes currency moves are your friend or foe. The riding CAD is good for Canada, though weakens his U.S. stocks. Then again, his cyclicals which operate in the U.S. are doing fine.

Lumber prices These prices are volatile. He expects lumber prices to fall back to $300-500 from the recent peak of $1,600 after this supply chain disruption. It doesn't take long to have another mill operate at double or triple shifts to process lumber. Lumber is a renewable resource.

Today, where did the sellers go as the markets rallied. What drove today's move was the lack of sellers (supply vs. demand). Breaking down this lack into these factors: the absence of IPOs, he demise of once-hot SPACs, the surge in pandemic savings, more share buybacks, money flowing into index funds, cryptocurrency turmoil pausing and worries over higher capital gains taxes subsiding.

By the fall, the US markets will enjoy a soft landing. No, inflation fears are overblown and foolish. No, this is not the historic Weimar Republic. The state of the consumer is healthy. Workers are making more money and no, this won't create runaway inflation. The extra unemployment insurance will end in September and more folks will return to work, which will benefit unemployment numbers. As for the semi shortage, there are signs from companies like Cisco that production is rising, and this shortage will end sooner than later.

Market outlook. Not a strategy that he follows, but this May it may be a strategy to follow. They have been pressing equities a lot. Still very bullish and markets are getting cheaper since earnings have gotten up. That being said, we are seeing some technical resistance, higher tax propositions and all that together makes market more tough. If you have indices that are near highs, he would peel back from them and look at specific equity allocations.

Reopening. The reopening stories was a question of balance sheet drip. With the vaccines and reopening happens concretely, you have to own them. You just have to buy them at the proper technical levels. These will probably more active positions, but when the tape is weak, he is buying them.

Commodities. The commodities rally probably has more legs. People are misjudging pent-up demand and the impact of stimulus. The key player in commodities is China. Copper has been trading sloppy since the Chinese policy makers pronounced on the issue. You have to buy and sell at the right time. This will change if China decides to dig its heels in.

It would be amazing if we could talk about stocks and not cryptos all the time, but it won't happen. We're seeing a slow-motion crypto collapse. The easy money in crypto has been made as Bitcoin has plunged. However, nothing is stopping anyone from creating a new crypto.

Easy to find growth stocks at a decent price? He has a portfolio full of growth stocks that are still priced well enough to go forward with. A bit of both tech and cyclicals. The large social media type tech stocks are still very reasonably priced with 20% growth going forward. The general economy is opening up, and there are opportunities almost everywhere. Be careful of valuations, as well as short-term concerns over inflation. Once the building boom is over and commodity prices catch up, these concerns should settle down.

Too early for airlines and hotels? No, he owns both. He just chose not to recommend them for today's top picks, as they're not at the core of what he does.