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

Not a fan of the infrastructure space, but at least SNC Lavalin today has put this fraud scandal behind them (by pleading guilty....He's not bullish emerging markets, particularly India which may be entering a real estate crisis; Chinese growth keeps slower; and Latin America is not in great shape...The rest of 2019 will be calm--no interest rate hikes, no hawkish statements from banks, unless Trump says something about the China-US trade deal. We'll end 2019 on a positive note.

China He doesn't own Chinese stocks, because few are world-class and there's no investor protection. China's economy is starting to struggle and is seeing slower growth. He doesn't invest in EM because of corruption and lack of transparency.

Outlook for Japan The Japanese small-cap market has been rallying a lot. A new law has forced Japanese to raise dividends and share buybacks, and Japanese companies now pay a higher yield than the S&P for the first time ever. Private equity.

Orphan stocks that aren't part of the big index are forgotten and mispriced--which is a buying opportunity. A lot of people are buying ETFs and other passive investing; active managers underperform (historically). Fundamental investing is here to stay and will enjoy a comeback....M&A will continue, given a lot of capital in the private equity space.

Tech sector It's been the best performing sector in recent years in Canada and America. When interest rates are low, tech stocks make a lot of sense. You can discount them for 10-20 years when the recurring revenue is here to stay. It's difficult to call the outlooks of giants Google and Amazon, though they've done a tremendous job to grow, though he doesn't see real profitability. He'd rather focus on small/midcap tech companies that are massively underpriced and have tremendous valuation upside--they could be taken out--and easier to predict.

The US has been the best house on the street for 10 years, but with this rally the US is underperforming. Several tailwinds right after the recession (cheap currency, aggressive liquidity) have made the American markets and dollar expensive. Since the recession, we still carry that trauma, so there's a lot of skittishness out there. So, when the market panics, bond yields fall, but the prevents investor euphoria--and that's why he feels we are not in a bubble. US investors have done well since the recession, but not in Europe as well as Asia, Latin America and elsewhere. Trade wars have fulled full-on reflation.

2020 should be good for world markets now that the China-US trade war has calmed and Brexit looks settled. What geographies to invest in and how much? Yes, a lot of political angst has been cleared, but he'd rather look at fundamentals. For 2020, he'd be underweight US, market weight Canada, overweight Europe and maximum overweight in emerging markets.

An ETF paying income for a senior Hard to identify one ETF. The biggest challenge for him is generating for clients yield in a low-interest rate time. The solution is moving into dividend-paying stocks, but these are not bond proxies.

Breaking news: Boeing is halting production of the 737 Max: Not a huge surprise. They alluded to it before. It will have financial impact. Their supply chain is backing up, so this may slow it down. This stoppage has never happened before that he knows of. To get people confident to fly a plane that has crashed will take a lot to get that back. Airlines will be hit and will want some sort of compensation from Boeing. During this year, Boeing stock remains positive, because there's a duopoly, but he still wouldn't buy Boeing. If there was more competition, Boeing would be crushed. They show some arrogance, too....Cineworld bought Cineplex today: it's a good deal for both companies. He sold Cineplex today. Cineplex's balance sheet was getting levered up and their strategy didn't work by paying a high dividend buy investing in various businesses. Now, under Cineworld, their position is stronger; the deal with be accretive, given them more of a global presence. He doesn't think Cineworld will pay a dividend.

Market. Central bankers have gotten used to just throwing money at the problem and we forget how unusual this is. It used to be in the US that the economy was used to improve financial assets and now it is financial assets that are being used to improve the economy. Share prices are now rising faster than earnings and revenues. You are seeing valuation inflation. The US FED is planning on buying half a billion dollars in bonds by mid-January to put them into record territory.

[Today's show was pre-empted by breaking news]

Market Outlook There is some kind of agreement on the US-China trade issues, but there is nothing in writing yet. She thinks the market had already factored this in and is now selling on news. Even an easing of tariffs would be positive for China and business confidence globally would pick up. She would like to see companies increase spending to expand capacity. Her top picks are avoiding deep cyclical names. She expects to see US economic growth to slow modestly, but a recession will be avoided. Even in Canada there is a shortage of skilled workers, causing he to be weary of wage inflation.

Hitting the major factors which include Brexit, USMCA and the trade war. In one day, we get details but the market was flat.

Tariffs being delayed between the US and China is seen positively. It's in the best interest for both parties.