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

When to get into a bank. Employment numbers Friday were not credible. When did Alberta add that many jobs? The Canadian economy is going to do okay (2%ish). There are headwinds for the Canadian banks. In the next month or two, real estate values may pull back. He thinks banks will fall to their recent lows and that is the time to put new money in.

Educational Segment. A Safe Withdrawal Rate from Retirement Savings (e.g. RRSP/RRIF). With a 5% interest rate return, it would have taken $178k for an income of $48k through retirement. Now you have to put $563k to get the same payout. This environment crushes the savers. Less than 10% of Canadians have a financial plan. You HAVE to have one. There is a pending crisis regarding retirement because of low interest rates. If you withdraw at too high a rate, you run out of money.

Markets. Oil is above $40. He thinks there will be continued volatility. The supply is coming out of the market gradually. It should be higher a year out. He has made a few purchases and thinks opportunities will continue to surface over the next year or so. There is a vote this year for Britain leaving the EU. It is a good time to hedge your portfolios. Trump is, if nothing else, unpredictable and the markets don’t like unpredictability. Canada is interesting for investment because it has been so beaten up over the last couple of years.

Canada’s Gold Reserves. Gold is not held to back currencies now. Governments feel that currencies can hold up on their own. He thinks this trend will continue around the world.

Comment. Expectations are low this quarter. Earnings are the missing piece in the puzzle. Economic data has been improving, but US earnings numbers are expected to be down 9.5%. We always start quite low, and then beat expectations and sort of trail up. Expects that maybe we may come in at -5% or -6%. If there is a catalyst that takes this market higher, it will be a very strong earnings season with strong guidance. Energy has been dragging down S&P earnings, materials stocks have been dragging it down, and all the businesses that run off that, the industrials. Oil price has been improving, the material’s complex has been improving a little and some industrial numbers have been looking a bit better. He is a little more optimistic, but thinks the earnings number is the missing piece, so is not willing to bet the farm just yet. He looks at 3 key things. 1) credit spreads, 2) volatility and 3) moving averages for the major markets. All 3 have been improving over the last 6 weeks. Has about 90% exposure to the market now.

Markets. The drop off in US production has been slow. Eventually we have come to 77%. He thinks we will fall almost as much again this year. This should balance the supposed oversupply. Iran is adding almost as much production this year. But the Chinese are going to be down more than that, and so on. Iran is about the only country increasing production. Globally we are drawing on inventories of oil. The market today is undersupplied. It does not make sense for anyone to drill for more oil. This is why he sees $60 oil next year. We are going to see a higher price than consensus believes and it will take industry longer than we think to respond to a higher oil price.

Oil Services Sector Stocks. The headwinds are so overwhelming in this space today as there is so much oversupply. There will be a time to buy. He is shorting PD-T right now. You are probably two quarters early to go long in oil services sector stocks.

Markets. There has been a lot of strength attributed to the decline in the US$ since the start of the year. The decline has been in a perfect trend channel and is now testing the lower limit of that channel, which would imply that the downside risk is limited and we could get a bounce back. Investors want to pull chips off the table now that we have the earnings season starting next week, and they want to see those valuations prove themselves. We are at an extreme valuation here. Technicals are overbought and have been rolling over for the past couple of weeks. Also. we are getting into the period of “sell in May and go away”. You have to be tactical during the summer. Avoid areas where volatility persists, such as industrials, materials and consumer discretionary. Go for defensive names such as yields that can lower the beta in your portfolio, so you can cushion yourself from the volatility.

Markets. Canadian stocks are coming out of a trough valuation. A 3^rd of our index was trading below BV. The market had come off in US$ terms, about the same as it has in each of the last major pullbacks. There were really oversold conditions on what he considers value stocks, which is very typical of a market bottom. Since then there has been a move higher in value stocks. The money has essentially been coming from growth stocks. Former growth darlings have sold off, deeper value cyclical stocks have turned the corner. Relative with the price of crude and the Cdn$, they all tend to move together, which has moved the TSX up about 12% from its lows.

Energy. Had been Short energy stocks for about 18 months. As of the beginning of March, he is no longer Short energy stocks in Canada, a fairly significant shift for him. This comes out of his process of sifting for value. Two months ago, valuations were there, but price momentums were very poor. Now that the turn is starting to happen, he can gear up risks moderately in his funds.

What is a value stock and a growth stock? The traditional definition of a “value stock” is using Price to Book, companies that are cheap relative to their BV. Traditional value of a “growth stock” is exactly the opposite, a high price to BV, companies that do not have a strong earnings profile, but have a strong earnings “growth” profile. A lot of the early stage Internet type businesses would be in the growth category, and a lot of the cyclical old industry businesses today, fall into the “value” category. Money has been very much flowing from “growth” to “value”. Value has been such a laggard in terms of an investment style, so there is quite a bit of room for it to run over the next 6-12 months in any case.

Markets. We are range bound and will be for some time. He is seeing near term upside resistance on the S&P500 at the 2100 level. You have to be cautious. It means you have to have upwards of 15-20% cash. Look for singles and doubles rather than home runs. We have seen a lot of revisions downward. Guidance will be key. We need significant earnings growth before we see new highs in the market. Just because the markets are range bound does not mean there will not be opportunities. Fixed income is tough because yields are low and will be for some time. A lot of his fixed income is outside of North America where rates are going lower or negative and so bond prices have been going up. Banks had a nice rally and then pulled back. He got out of TD-T because it overshot to the upside.

Markets. The Canadian market, 2 years out, looks like a better bet than the US market. There has been a lot of Short coverings in Canadian banks. More importantly, looking at it earnings in 2016, they are probably trading at about the same multiple as the US. Looking out to 2017, people are underestimating the amount of torque there is in Canadian earnings going forward. Investors should stick with growth in the US, but stick with dividends in Canada. That part of the market looks very, very robust.

Energy. He sees energy production looking okay here. Rig counts keep on coming down. Production in the US is flattish to down. Those are all positives going forward for the oil sector. Expects oil gets to $50 by the end of the year.

Markets. Feels US and Canada are below consensus growth globally. There are a lot of things on the horizon that could come in that would negatively affect global growth. He is not calling for a recession, but is looking for about 2.5% global growth, 2% US growth and 1.5% for Canada. He is defensive and is holding a fair bit of cash of 25%+. From 2013 onwards, there has been consensus forecasts that start at a higher level at the start of the year, and then gradually go down, towards the end of the year. First and foremost, he wants to make sure clients’ capital is preserved.