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

Gold? Feels that gold in general is going to be an interesting play. The US$ has been the world reserve of currency, in part because the US was the leader in globalization. The US has decided to abdicate that role, and give it over to China, which is happy to take up the mantle. Whether there will be demand for the US$ like there has been in the past remains to be seen. Longer-term, gold could potentially return to be a store of value. There have been a number of factors depressing the price of gold, not the least of which is the currency crisis in India, the single biggest buyer of gold globally. He is expecting a rebound in gold prices between now and the end of the year. He likes gold stocks as a way to participate.

Gold? He has a little gold exposure. Likes to keep his exposure at 5%. In an era where we are running into such a huge amount of uncertainty, and there is a lot of worry in the world, gold tends to do very well. If he saw his gold stocks run up a lot more, he would probably be taking his profits.

Energy. We have had oil flat on the year, the loonie generally flat, yet oil stocks are down 10%-15%-20% just this month. Why are stocks selling off? It is clearly on concerns about this border adjustment tax, that if it comes through, will put Canadian companies at a disadvantage relative to their US peers. He doesn’t think they are going to tax energy imports. If you are a politician, one of the largest determinants of presidential approval rate is gasoline prices. There has not been an increase in the US federal tax on gasoline in over 30 years. Part of Trump’s mandate is re-industrializing the US, and how do you do that when you are increasing fuel costs for industry. The reward versus the risk you are taking today, justifies being fully invested in energy. His fund is all in, with a major focus on Canada.

Playing natural gas? People were raging Bulls coming into the winter because of a lot of forecasts of a very cold winter. Natural gas has now normalized in terms of inventories. He uses $3 gas in all of his analysis from now until next fall. In the fall of 2018 there is going to be about 21 BCF a day of further take away capacity of the Marsalis, so you are going to have a flood of new supply that will challenge and compete with Canadian gas. From now until then, you are exposed to the vagaries of weather.

Market. His portfolios are somewhat reformed agnostic. Has been reluctant to chase anything he felt would do well as a result of the US election. He is very bottom-up focused and tries to identify good companies. Feels a lot of investors can mitigate some market risks through active management diversification. Diversification is really important. You don’t want to be heavily exposed to one sector or one geography. Healthcare is a great example of a sector that suffered from negative sentiment, however fundamentals are very good.

REITs or utilities for a buy & hold investor? Both are defensive sectors that have sold off quite significantly since the election. Prefers REITs over utilities, because there is a bit more of a cyclical component relative to regulated utilities. Generally, REITs should benefit from an improvement in economic activity.

Markets. The US revenue growth is about 4% year over year and if you factor in 2% inflation, then back out energy and financials, you get negative growth. The forecast is for double digit earnings growth going forward and he does not see that happening. He is concerned about some of the policies that Trump promised. Closing the borders is negative for growth. Entitlement reform is Medicare. It is estimated to cost $50 Trillion out to 2050. If Trump tacks on these border tariffs, there is still potential for the US$ to strengthen.

ETFs for smaller amounts of cash to invest. You can buy a handful of them and buy a much diversified global portfolio. You need to understand risk management.

Educational Segment. Smart Factor ETFs. Reducing portfolio risk. The trend between actively managed mutual funds compared to what capital is going into ETFs show money is moving that way. You can do asset allocation with ETFs and that is by far the most important consideration. The bigger companies dominate the NASDAQ. Three sectors make up half the index. It is very concentrated and heavily weighted into a few stocks. All smart factor ETFs beat the index. They all have different volatilities. You should use all of the indexing strategies in your portfolio.

Markets. We are about 1/3^rd through the Q4 earnings season with 70% of companies beating estimates. This is what she expects. In the end it looks like we are on track for the end of 2016 to get to zero earnings growth. Earnings growth for next year have remained relatively stable. They have not started to go down as they often do with Q4 reports. Trump’s immigration policy could add volatility, but otherwise things look good for the year. The market is at the top of its range as being expensive in terms of PE. Bad tweets and negative headlines have created some opportunities. We are seeing slowing sales, but housing prices are at all time highs. We are seeing more first time homebuyers. She sees high growth there. There are cheaper valuations there in the broader market.

Steel Sector in light of Trump. She likes US steel and the materials sector in general. This is one area where you need all of it for infrastructure. A lot of their orders are exports so she sees good growth across the board. Infrastructure spending will likely not start until next year.

Market. The market pulled back on Trump’s decision to stop people from 7 countries coming into the US. Doesn’t think it means very much in the big picture. The market has gone up on expectation of policy changes. One of those changes is less regulation and lower taxes, and maybe some fiscal stimulus. Any time we deviate from that message, given that we have had a nice run, the market looks for an opportunity to sell off. There is a little concern that we have gone up too far and fast. Thinks the market will continue to rally, but will be bumpy because we have someone unconventional at the helm in the White House right now. We are going to be range bound in energy. You can make money in energy stocks, but you can’t sit expecting it to be higher in 12 months’ time. You have to look for opportunities and jump in when they present themselves and there is a big selloff.

Trade hard Silver in? He would suggest you trade this in and buy Gold, or better yet US dollars. However, if you want to stay within precious metals, he would move towards gold. Silver typically trades at a lag to gold and is more volatile over long periods of time. Also, it is less likely to hold its value.

Market. Even with the indications from the Republicans that Canada is in the crosshairs for potential terrorists, he is not changing his portfolios, but is watching and listening closely. As a portfolio manager, it is riskier to speculate what a government will or will not do, compared to buying good businesses at the right price, and giving them the time that they need to appreciate and reflect back growth.

Preferred shares? If talking about reset preferreds, the fixed resets, it is based off a five-year Government of Canada bond, and then there is an extra component that can vary anywhere between half a point to anywhere over 2%, which is based on the credit quality of the issuer. The lower the quality, the more of a premium they pay. Preferreds have really recovered over the last 12 months or so. You have to ask yourself what do the reset terms look like. The shorter it is, the more risk you face if anything funny happens with interest rates. His view is that the Canadian economy is struggling, and there is a meaningful probability that interest rates will be cut over the next 12-18 months. If that happened, the reset preferred market would be absolutely decimated. He would sell current holdings and reinvest into something that has a lower gain.