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

US Long Bonds. He is just starting to increase exposure to US long bonds. ZTL-T is a Canadian equivalent. US treasuries.

Educational Segment. The Global Base Metals Sector. XME-T is the ETF that has been around the longest to play a global basket of mining stocks. There is Iron/Steel, Mining and Coal parts of this ETF. He is not sure this is where to invest but it is a place to trade for weeks or months. It is driven by global growth and what is going on in emerging markets. The sector is out of favour when emerging markets are flat. There are short term positives on emerging markets. He does not think coal is coming back.

Market. NMC-T is saying the ABX-T offer is just not good enough. It wants to stick with the plan with G-T to put together a joint venture for the Nevada assets which is really what ABX-T was after. There is key resistance at $1175 in gold. Over the last 6 months we were bottoming in August and have gathered steam ever since. Shorts scrambled to cover their positions. To go above neutral into bullish we have to get above $1375 and are due for a pullback.

Dividend Gold companies to consider. Dividends on a resource company are hard to maintain through a commodity cycle. He would look at a royalty company.

The S&P ranged 50 volatile points today alone till it settled at 2,792. Not surprising that the market came off like this, but it is surprising that it bounced back. The S&P has run from 2,350 to 2,800 in the past few months. Last fall, 2,800 was a support level on the way down, so now it's a major level of resistance--and it appears to have hit resistance today. Volatility is here to stay in the latter stages of this secular bull market. Given volatility, he's sold some stocks to buy ETFs for their diversification and flexibility. He holds 51% cash, but still holds the BOTZ and KWEB ETFs.... Huawei is suing the Canadian and US governments: Huawei is the battle, but the trade treaty is the war. He expects a US-China deal, but that will only be the beginning. After that treaty, both sides will be monitoring each other to enforce the agreement. Trade tensions will continue, and then the US has to agree on a trade pact with Europe.

Have gone through a wonderful rally. But this rally doesn't seem to have the legs. Earnings are slowing down. Markets are discounting the future. The future does not look clear. Recession is not on radar screen but one of the wildcards could be a domestic slowdown. US Bond yields are telling us of a slow down. He is cautious in the markets and holding about 20% cash. Still seeing earning disappointments and that offers buying opportunities.

How do you time entries and exits in the market? Depends whether you are trading or investing. He looks at it from the investing side. Know what a company is worth. Control your downside. Write down why you purchased a particular stock. In volatile times, hold cash for when stocks go on sale

[Today the show was preempted by live coverage of a press conference with the finance minister. Entries on this site commenced after the approximately 15 minutes of preemption].

Market outlook - Very eventful time for investors. We are now into 9 weeks in consecutive rallies. We are now at 5% from all time highs. At this point we are probably a little overextended. The US economy is still very strong. Unemployment is low, the consumer is good. Since 1960 if you have a positive month in January and February, 92% of the time the markets ended positive the year. Overall there is a pause these days in the market after the tremendous start of the year. his top sector is financials, consumer discretionary, health care and technology. Energy doesn't have really a big place in his portfolios. The US economy looks a little more robust vs the Canadian economy. Energy is a big part of the TSX. He has nothing in Europe. He likes also China in the EM. Trading at 9.5 forward earnings vs 12 forward earnings.

Market Outlook It has been a great couple months for dividend stocks. People are looking for safety and good returns following the selloff in December. The oil story has been good for the TSX and today's inventory numbers were good. The Nigerian election has caused some dissension there, which could lead to higher oil price uncertainty. His portfolio sees value in banks and pipelines right now.

What Beta do you use? He does not scan stocks on Beta -- how it moves with the market. Correlations change as the market moves, he believes. Dividend stocks, on a long term basis, are less volatile than the market -- both in upward and downward moves in the market. Look at the fundamentals to determine how sustainable the earnings are instead.

Wilson-Raybould's allegations today are very serious. For SNC, it's only more negative news which could cause SNC to fall further, since federal contracts may now fall further out of their grasp. Infrastructure is not the business he wants to be in, where bribes are not unheard of in certain parts of the world....US-China trade negotiations will still lead to a deal, he feels....Q3-2018 reports was a tough quarter while Q4 reports (currently) are entirely different, positive enough to keep him fully invested....Laurentian Bank, which got punished today with a bad report, has been a broken stock for a while. Otherwise, he's impressed with Canadian stocks now....Alberta's deficit is lower than expected, which is good news for all of Canada. He has no exposure there himself.

The TSX is up 16% since the low of Xmas Eve 2018. Shooting fish in a barrel. Copper is strong, hitting highs, and is a harbinger of a soft economic landing. Or this rally could be FOMO after de-risking in Q4-2018. We're starting to see wage inflation though nothing like int he 1970s. The Fed wants to get back to a neutral rate, and he takes Powell at his dovish word.

He thinks the US Fed will slow or pause rate hikes this year. He sees no reason to raise them. U.S. housing starts are down 11%; Millennials don't look at a house as a foundational asset (though in Canada we do). Long-term though, U.S. housing should be fine. He's not worried holding Home Depot. He was bullish in December; he doesn't see a recession coming. He's holding onto most of his positions and he's bullish this year. The VIX has fallen back to normal.

Warren Buffet's letter: Always interesting, since he's the Oracle. His large cash position has risen dramatically since 2015. Buffet is looking for undervalued stocks; his cash position has risen because he doesn't see much fundamental value. Berman agrees, doesn't think the markets are now cheap and that interest rates will stay low. Buffet doesn't care about the economical cycle, only in buying good companies at good prices. In the next downturn, Buffet will surely buy with his large cash position. Berman thinks we're in the early days of heading to a market top. China-US trade: Berman doubts there'll be any meaningful change to the intellectual property issue. The markets are pricing in these talks, though. What's interesting in China is include the A-shares in the global indexes, which he thinks is propelling Chinese stock markets up, rather than a trade issue resolution. Apparently, Trump asked some hedge-fund guys about how to raise the stock markets, and they told him to stop tweeting or to tweet positively--and that has happened. Trump is gaming the market and timing his tweets. Debt: the amount of world debt is staggering and at some point we'll have a major credit crisis which will make the inevitable downturn much worse. Nobody knows when this'll happen. Berman is very nervous about markets. Gold: he's most bullish on gold; he still sees 10-20% upside and would sell into that. Gold is his biggest overweight.