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

Oil market. The demand side of things is going to continue to shrink over time. For the next 6 months you could buy oil stocks, but oil and gas are not investible long term. On a long term, don’t chase the prices, but on a momentum play you can play it.

Market. Bitcoin could be called Nerd Gold. It is the next evolution beyond the Internet. Bitcoin is not subject to central banks. Gold has about $8 Trillion in market cap vs. Bitcoin having $150 Billion market cap. If there was a 5% reallocation to gold to Bitcoin, it could easily get to $33,000, from $9,000 today. The Marijuana sector is very overvalued. The three largest producers have costs of $2.01/gram vs. $0.35 to grow at home. As soon as US markets have gone legal, the price has fallen substantially.

Trading Crypto Currency. Coin Base in the US is the first place to trade. These are platforms that you just trade the 'alt' coins on. Binance is another platform.

Green Rush moving to the US? (Marijuana) There are states where it is viewed as a social ill. It will catch on state by state. This is not something that gets resolved in a year.

He just returned from the southern U.S. Trump loves to operate in chaos, but markets don't. His negotiating strategy is to throw a hand grenade into a room and walk away. Best to separate the bluster from the reality (i.e. trade tariffs which still overhang the market). Trump won't renogate NAFTA as badly as people fear. His bark isn't as bad as his bite. And this market could reach new highs. Option premiums have risen dramatically. The biggest theat is higher interest rates--and they are coming. Can consumers withstand a 4% rate on a US 10-year bond? At 3.5%, he'd sell more equities. In Canada, the debt ratio is a serious concern.

How does the VIX work? It meaures volatility on options implied on the S&P 500 (in Canada: the iShares TSX 60 ETF). Basically, the VIX goes up when equities go down. Short volatility--inverse volatility ETFs which happened in February--is a very dangerous game. Those investors literally went backrupt overnight.

Options strategy in current volatility? Volatility has increased, though it's not dramatic right now. Premium levels are higher than 12 months ago. He would sell that premium, because it's worth more than it was before. If you're buiying options, the tend to cost you more. If you're bullish on a stock, either buy the stock or write a covered call. He'd write options in this environment.

He doesn't think oil is sustainable and is priced too high now. Alternative sources of energy will continue to grow in the future. Saudi Arabia is selling Saudi Aramco and so is keeping oil prices artificially high. He doesn't think Iranian oil will come off the market. (That's Trump's bluster.)

CAD vs. Euro and USD for the next 6 months? The CAD is closer to its low than its high--he sees upside in the next 6 months. Oil will stabilize or continue to rise, especially if the politics make it more favourable to business.

Bank stocks or ETFs? He prefers U.S. banks with their rising margins, while he doesn't see higher interest rates helping Europe's banks which also face tight margins. He likes both US and Canadian banks. If you trade options on banks, do the individual stocks for diversification to protect your downside.

Have you ever been assigned an option (approaching expiration) without your approval? No, they can't assign an option that you're long. You choose that. When you're short an option, the person who bought it has the right to exercise it--which means you're assigned. If you are long an option and go into expiration like the last day of trading, then the next day if your option is in the money you would want to get it assigned. If the option is in the money at any amount, it's settled automatically.

How do call spreads and LEAPS work? A LEAP is a long-term option, one that expires longer than a year. (It's like the old warrants.) You're writing options against a position you have on a stock long-term. The return is better than if you held the stock. It's a good strategy. [More about LEAPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEAPS_(finance)]

Mutual funds vs. ETFs? Mutual funds have been closet indexers for a long time (which led to ETFs), because the large, diversified ones look like the broader economy. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs you can buy and sell on the market during the day, but with ETFs you don't always get the NAV, though this has improved. Mutual funds cost more than ETFs, so go for the lower cost.

What European ETF to buy? He suggest you put them in an RRSP, because you guy and hold them. The grandaddy is EFA-N. It's large, liquid and diversified. The Canadian version is XEF-T. Also look at XEH-T, which is purely Europe, though hedged to CAD. (Buy this if you think the CAD will rise against the Euro.)

Do you write calls on Canadian banks for the entire position or just a percentage? A percentage no more than 40% of a portfolio. He likes Canadian banks for their long history of raising dividends. You can buy and hold them for a long, long time.