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

Tech stocks? Fully believes in the Internet technology stocks. Alphabet (GOOGL-Q), Facebook (FB-Q) and Amazon (AMZN-Q) are in a good position and will continue to grow. There is not going to be any dividend yield on these and the volatility is going to be high. Watch for opportunities to enter, on days when the market is down for no reason.

Markets. They de-stressed the stress test for the banks by taking the qualitative aspects out of it. This week the stress tests will not have much impact. He thinks we will see negative interest rates in the future. He does not think the Fed will be able to unwind the balance sheet of the US much. The equity markets are breaking out to new highs today. There is a recession sometime in the future that will be hard on the markets. He is nibbling away at energy producers, mainly through ETFs such as XEG-T, XLE-N, OIH-N.

ETF similar to ROBO but in Canada. There aren’t any. You will have foreign currency risk with all of these. But even if there was a Canadian one it would have to hold international equities.

Canadian vs. US $ ETF. He believes the US stock markets have never been more expensive. A high quality ETF could fall 25% or more in a bear market. You would still get a yield throughout, however. BMO is the best at covered call strategies so you might go that way.

Buy US$ now? He likes to scale into a position. If you have years to wait, then the CAD$ might get higher. For the foreseeable future you are looking at $0.78 as the maximum, if that.

Guest: Danielle DiMartino Booth, author of Fed Up. She is very critical of the Fed. Credit markets were frozen solid and liquidity was the issue, not interest rates. 9 years later we are not at normalized interest rates. She thinks eventually we will have social unrest. Dividend paying stocks are among the most over valued stocks in the index. Auto and Energy are the two biggest drivers of growth. Auto sales volumes have rolled over.

Markets. It comes down to valuation. With the market multiple at 20 times, it is rather rich. He likes 15 to 20 times if there is 15-20 percent earnings growth. Finding stocks is getting more challenging. There is risk for Canadian stocks with changes to NAFTA. It’s an overhang. US investors are going to want to see some kind of resolution to NAFTA. Stock picking is important as things are likely to go sideways over the summer.

Market. Two areas he likes are defence and construction. Defence has a very long-term cycle and is very easy to identify. Global defence spending fell for 6-7 years in a row, and 2015 was the 1^st year defence spending increased. The cycles tend to last 7-10 years. Construction has to do with the age of the structures. Government statisticians in the developed world, have tracked the age of infrastructure, and it has never been this old. We are already starting to see the cycle. If governments come in with stimulus packages, that can be a catalyst, but the cycle is there, simply because things are wearing out. Regarding automobiles, we have gotten up to a SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Rate of Production of Automobiles) of 16-17 million in the US, so we have literally seen the top of cycle amounts.

US Treasury Bonds? One of the biggest problems globally is low interest rates, which has been largely caused by several factors, not the least of which is foreign governments hoarding them. The People’s Bank of China has the largest central bank balance sheet globally, and they’ve hoarded a massive amount of treasuries suppressing interest rates, and denying American households income. The US government is also to blame. The Pensions Benefit Guarantee Corp. raises the penalty payments for underfunded conditions within pensions, every year sequentially, which leads pension plans to buy duration products, such as long-term government bonds, or corporate’s that are swapped back into the government market. There are somewhere around $1 trillion treasuries that are being held by banks, instead of banks investing their money to provide mortgages.

Oil & Gas? He is more positive on gas, and sees more possible downside on oil. The supply/demand on oil is out of whack right now.

Market. Everybody seems to be calling for a correction, but as probable as the reasons are for this, stocks are real cheap relative to bonds. Europe is starting to get better. America has been good for a while. China has found its footing. The only reason you want to get defensive in stocks is 1) because a recession is coming or 2) valuations are crazy. We had some really good top line growth last quarter, and hopefully that continues this quarter. As that continues to happen, markets actually get cheaper.

Markets. Economies are looking pretty good around the world. Things are improving and it is not just contained to the US. Everything is in expansion mode in the US. Emerging markets are stabilizing. We are seeing instability in oil. Canada is saying the economic recovery is broadening to other sectors. She is encouraged that corporate profits in those areas are improving. Low energy prices are keeping inflation low. Multiples are high, but corporate profits are coming through. Second quarter profits should continue. She forecasts 10-11% profit growth in S&P going forward.

Gold. She is very low in terms of gold exposure because inflation is very benign right now. The US$ is quite strong right now. Volatility is quite low and near historic lows.

Marijuana IPOs. It is not a sector she is looking at because it is news and momentum driven. If companies can go public, they are probably taking advantage of the environment. There is not a lot of fundamental data to work on. Momentum is based on the assumption that recreational use gets legalized. It is hard to model out who is going to be winning going forward. The ETF in the sector creates momentum in stocks and it does not differentiate which ones are attractive.

Market. You can’t look at the market in a vacuum, you have to look at it relative to interest rates. Interest rates are low and are probably going to stay low for another couple of years. GIC rates are probably 2.5%-2.75%. When you buy a GIC from the bank, ultimately you are just borrowing money from them. Instead, why don’t you own the bank? You are going to get a dividend rate of 3.5% to 4.5%. You get a much better yield on equities than you can on fixed income investments. Banks are not cheap, but also not wildly overvalued. Thinks there will be some pickup and growth in the US economy, and the Canadian economy will benefit from that, and we won’t be hurt by NAFTA.