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

Markets. One of his concerns is the Chinese banking system. That is a story that started in 2009. The big global stimulus that came with the recovery in the financial meltdown really started in China, which was a massive spending program for a number of years. They spent to keep capital going, keep people employed and to keep their economy going. When you look at it, it was unproductive spending, and was done mostly on borrowed funds. There is a day of reckoning for that kind of expenditure. When you look at the amount of debt that powered up in China in the past number of years, you are at about 250% of their growth domestic product. It is sort of where Greece is, and we know what that situation caused. Because China is an opaque government, you don’t really see what is going on in the banking system. He thinks that a lot of this stock lift has had to do with extremely low interest rates. People like stocks because earnings are going higher, but they are not; because of the growing economy, it is slowing down; valuations are low, but they are not.

Gold. The best case for gold is low interest rates, but more importantly is the anti-currency. When everybody is rushing to depreciate the value of their currencies, that should get some rise out of gold. The problem is, it is a psychologically driven asset, and the stocks are harder to value. He would be inclined to have no more than 5% of your portfolio in gold, as a little bit of insurance.

Markets. After Janet Yellin’s dovish statements, growth projections have come down. Even the most hawkish Fed Governor doesn’t think the Fed is going to be raising rates for the next few quarters. Probabilities are still below 50% all the way through to the end of the year. These are reasons to be more constructive on stocks, and to use any weakness now to stay invested. He is finding his portfolio of stocks, on a weighted basis, are getting below 11X earnings. It’s as cheap as his portfolio has been in a long time. If you don’t believe we are going to go into a recession in Canada or the US in the next few months, then stocks are going to do extremely well. He is finding good value in this market in a lot of areas where the companies are doing well and revenues are growing. He looks for stocks that have good operating momentum and price momentum, and that look good on the charts and operationally. He is about 95% invested.

Markets. If Britain votes to leave the euro zone (BREXIT), it will create economic uncertainty. Investors have an opportunity to invest for the next week and beyond. We have a combination of multiple expansion and financial engineering that has really propped markets up for the last several years. If you are in too much cash, it is really to your peril. There are so many good companies on the TSX, 3%-7% dividends with dividend growth and earnings per share growth, that are priced well below their peers.

Gold. Thinks gold has proved itself to be okay and viable again. He would prefer to be in the big Cap names. Expect we are in a flat interest rate environment for some time, and that is a good environment for gold.

Markets. The BREXIT fears seem to be dominating the whole market. Yesterday you had the US$ being strong, the British £ being weak, both British and European stocks being weak, and commodities being down. This is because the US$ has been strong. With the shooting of the British Labour MP, things swung more to the “stay” side, so the £ started to strengthen, the US$ came off and commodities started to come up. It is all connected to what is going to happen with England. Thinks the market has overblown this, because it is not a binding vote, it is a referendum. The market views this as a crisis, and crisis equals opportunity. He has some cash and will be buying.

Markets. Janet Yellin is determined to get the US back into inflation. Technology, globalization and innovation are deflationary. We have been fighting inflation, the wrong war, since Paul Volcker got into power, so inflation needs to be created. The way that is done is to keep interest rates down. He would like to see Janet Yellin as bold as Paul Volcker was in the 1980s, and stop doing this incremental independent dance that she has been doing with the market. Stand aside and let capital get to its true valuation. Let’s get inflation. Let’s get growth going, and then they can raise interest rates.

Gold. $8.3 trillion of sovereign debt globally have negative yields. Gold has no yield. It is a diversification away from sovereign debt. There are very prominent economists suggesting to the emerging-market Central Bank to own at least 10% of their FX holdings in gold. He thinks gold is just getting going.

Efficient market hypothesis? This theory is that every security already reflects the information that is out there. It is a theory that was based on the 1960s, and we shouldn’t be using it. He doesn’t hold to this, because people make mistakes and they are emotional. There is no perfect hedge. There is a huge opportunity to generate alpha, or outperform, by not adhering to this hypothesis. He would argue that the market is not pricing everything efficiently, and he takes advantage of that.

Converting Cdn$ to US$ with a 6-12-month time horizon? What you need is to find a manager that is willing to hedge that position. Doesn’t think the Federal Reserve will move until after the US Federal election in December. Feels the Cdn$ is going to appreciate in value once we get through BREXIT.

Markets. The BREXIT is coming a week from today, which may create volatility for a while. The issue is that the bond market is telling us something that is very different from what is going on in the world. It is telling us that we are slowing down, the US, the UK, everywhere. The market seems to be telling the Fed what to do, and that is not what is supposed to happen. Negative rates has a huge impact on the banks, insurance companies and savers, but people forget that it really affects the savers. The vast majority of people are not in the equity market, so that really does hurt people. We have to get to some kind of world where rates are a little higher. Also, a lot of people are not thinking of what happens if the UK leaves the euro zone.

Markets. The Fed lowered the expectation for future rate hikes, and the market didn’t like it. It clearly said it was worried about the economy. Historically the Fed has had a very, very poor record of being able to anticipate what the economy will do. He does what he has always done which is to create balanced portfolios for clients. The process is not to expect to be right all the time, it is to minimize losses to a point where you outperform markets, or the opportunities that other investors have versus yourself. If you can do that, then you will add value, the buying power will be better, and economically their life will be better.

Markets. Both US and Canadian markets have had a pretty good run from their lows. TSX was up 20% from January lows, and the US about 16%. It isn’t surprising that we are getting a bit of consolidation or pull back. Markets seem to be wanting to find a reason to pull back, so everyone is focusing on BREXIT, which has been an overhang for the last few days. It looks like a lot of the official agencies are calling for a quicker pass to rebalance supply and demand on oil. If crude hits $50-$60, that may be enough to have some additional supply come on stream in North America. Doesn’t think the Canadian economy will go back into recession, given that the US economy is recovering, and we are their largest trading partner. Banks have had a nice run from the beginning of the year, and are still very well reasonably priced based on historical valuation levels. They are yielding over 4% and are continuing to increase their dividends. Pulling back a bit, so now is a good chance to get in if you don’t have exposure.

Markets. This is a really interesting market. Everybody is peering around every corner for what could derail the market. There are lots of jitters. The percentage of bullish advisors in the US is still hovering around 20%, not much above the 30 year low that it hit a few months ago. Also, Brexit is coming up, there are concerns about China, concerns about other countries in Europe, so there is no shortage of things to worry about. Yet we are at about 2.5% from the highs in the S&P 500. He runs a model that tracks the percentage of securities in a particular market that are performing well technically. Since February there has been a slow steady improvement. Even in the last 10 days, where the market has been wobbling around, there has virtually been no damage to that indicator. Money is working its way into stocks despite all the big concerns. As we go through the summer, stocks can actually probably go a lot higher. When you look at the return they are generating on their capital, versus where you can go to buy a piece of fixed income, the risk premium you are getting paid as an investor is very significant, not to mention the yield. The markets looks pretty attractive and we just have to get through some of the noise. There are all kinds of great companies that are better than the market, with really strong balance sheets and very strong dividend growth, north of 10%, and you are not taking on that balance sheet risk of buying a government bond at no yield. We are in a secular bull market for stocks where you tend to get better returns on the long-term average.

Elliott wave theory. Not a big proponent of this. It is only after the fact that we can we evaluate whether it worked or didn’t. The conclusion is that nothing works all the time, and it is about managing risks.