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

Markets. There is no one that can consistently forecast what the market is going to do in the short term. He uses a strategy that he thinks shouldn’t be dependent upon the direction of the markets or commodities, but just a strategy that can make money in all different market conditions. He tends to spend all of his time focusing on individual companies, as opposed to making calls on the market or forecasting what it is going to do. Always has hedging in place.

Resources. He is absolutely not tempted to put any money back into this sector. Made a decision a couple of years ago to pull out of direct exposure to the resource space. He likes low volatility in his fund. This just comes down to risk management, which means know your names very, very well. Doesn’t think anybody can know resource names as well as non-resource names.

Pipelines. The trouble is that it is a crowded trade and everybody owns it. Since 2008, everybody has been scurrying to the safety of pipelines, so they trade at very, very lofty valuations, relative to their historical band. Also, in a rising interest rate environment, they are going to be harder hit than other sectors because they tend to be dependent on debt. He prefers the derivative plays on pipelines. (See Top Picks.)

Markets. Sam Stovall of S&P Capital IQ is saying that he is looking for the S&P to go to $2,250, a very healthy increase. He is also looking strongly at the tech sector, industrials and healthcare. Along with a couple of others, he has been consistently bullish for the last couple of years, and has been absolutely right. It is just a matter of putting volatility in context. Most people look at volatility and think the market is either going to soar or crash. It is a lot more subtle than that. John Hood likes big Pharma, but also likes a couple of ETF’s that are little bit more diversified in terms of healthcare, providers, equipment, etc. He is pretty much out of Europe now.

ETF’s. Hedged or unhedged against currency? Depends on what area you are looking to buy. If he were buying Europe, he would definitely want something that was hedged against the decline in the euro. However, if looking at the US, he is happy to buy in US dollars.

Recently bought 2 levered ETF’s. What do you think of levered ETF’s? He wouldn’t touch them. If someone is going into these, and recognizes that what they are doing is gambling, not investing, more power to you. These things are meant to be traded on a daily basis, and you never hold them overnight. When they have to come back and rebalance the index, you can be completely right on the right side of the index and still lose money because of the rebalancing process.

Covered calls. How do you hedge the downside? You are probably suggesting perhaps putting an insurance Put on them. He doesn’t do that much. If he is Selling a Call to an income, and he is buying an equivalent Put at the same price, the cost of buying the Put offsets the gain of the Call. You would have to buy a Put several dollars out of the money for that strategy to work.

Markets. Santa Claus is really helping stocks this year. Usually you see from Dec 15 until the second trading day of new year (Jan 5^th this year) 80% of the time stocks go up. Look for a really strong end of the year because pension money comes in right at the end of the year. After Jan 5^th, look out because the focus is on earnings. In the US, with large cap stocks, it is based on the strength of the US dollar. The Canadian market, however, should outperform the US market until mid-March. Looking at a three year chart on oil, it tends to move lower until this time of year, which is what has happened, and then historically it bottoms around here and forms a base until end of January and then tends to go higher. Now is the time to be in the Canadian market until the first week in March. Technicians are seeing a bullish continuous wedge pattern in BB-T. The consumer electronics show in Las Vegas should benefit this stock, it does every year.

Where in North America to invest now. The Canadian Market is the way to go, e.g. XIU-T. It has just started, as of today, to outperform the US market. The energy sector in Canada should bottom in January and have strength until May. They have not set up yet, but we are getting there.

Educational Segment. Metals. Gold has two periods of seasonal strength: Mid-July until the beginning of October, and then January to the end of February. He does not like gold. He prefers Silver, platinum or palladium where seasonal strength is stronger. The supply of silver is diminishing because the price is so low. People are buying silver for solar panels, Chinese weddings and smart phones which consume silver. Lots of silver ends up in landfill, but gold does not. The Gold-Silver ratio is at a historical high. It means silver is likely to outperform gold for at least the next 18 months. Platinum/palladium demands from the auto industry are expected to increase. WITE-N is a way to play silver metals.

Markets. Real estate should stay up until the FED jacks up rates. In the mean time it should perform well and offer a really good yield. Spreads are 5-7%. This gives him a comfort level. It is an opportunity to buy into a good solid income. The yield is income, sometimes return on capital and sometimes a dividend.

Markets. Economically, he would say we are mid-cycle because the 2008-2009 recession was so bad that people said it will take at least 8-10 years to recover, so we are only about halfway through. We have more to go on the upside, certainly in terms of the cyclical recovery. Probably have 3-4 years left to go at least.

Energy. As of last Friday, this was the 6^th worst decline since 1979. With the exception of the 2 market pullbacks in 2000 and 2007-2008, the stock market has pretty well ignored the fluctuations in oil prices. That gives him great comfort going forward. This is a benefit to consumers, not only in the short term, but possibly in the longer-term also.

Markets. He didn’t have a lot of energy companies this year, which he was glad of. Was more positioned in growth stocks than in financial services. Right now he is up 21%, while the market is up 5%-6%, so he has done well. Thinks 2015 is going to be another good year for knowledge based industries such as pharmaceuticals, software, etc. For this sector, he looks strictly at Canada. The resource sector has already been sold off, so he doesn’t think it gets any worse. Next year could be a very good year for the TSX because the non-resource sector will continue to perform well, and the resource sector has been oversold. This makes it a buying opportunity. Although he is looking at energy stocks, he hasn’t bought. The single most important thing is for the commodity to steady up. He has a different way of looking at growth. Looks at it from a ROE point of view, i.e., the growth and net worth of a business. A similar methodology that Warren Buffett uses. Because he applies this methodology in Canada, which is not as efficient as the US, he seems to get a huge amount of bang for the buck. The single most important thing that is tied up in ROE, are firms that have a competitive advantage, or big moats built around them. He wants businesses that are growing at 20% a year, but are protected in some way so they can grow 20% year after year after year. Started his fund 7 years ago and has averaged 28% per year in returns. His target is a minimum return of 20% a year.

Canadian dollar. Canada is a petrocurrency whether we like it or not. Our Canadian$ moves around for a variety of different reasons, but it is heavily influenced by the price of oil. A chart showing West Texas crude and the Cdn$ showed that they have a similar average trend per year. We have seen a weak period for oil that has occurred recently and the dollar has come down at the same time. This is also a seasonal trend. He showed a graph of the TSX relative to the S&P 500 which had a dropping line from September into December, which is saying that this is when the S&P 500 typically outperforms the TSX Composite. Given that the oil is weak in October and November that is to be expected. The better market to be, in the fall time, is the S&P 500. In the last couple of weeks in December, you start to see a little bit of a pick up, and the Canadian market can hold its own coming into April. As of now, you should start increasing your Canadian equities.