Larry Berman CFA, CMT, CTA

He expected gold at $5,000 to correct back to $4,000 before it made new highs. It has been resting $4,000, but could test $4,500-4,600 in the next 6 months. He's nibbling at gold and gold stocks, starting with Kinross. Note there could be one leg lower here, but now the risk/return is getting better.

He's looking at Africa, where stocks are not diverse, with a lot of mining, banks and telcos. More and more growth is coming outside the US in the next coming years. Historically, if the US dollar is weak, emerging markets outperform and vice versa.

 He's looking at Africa, where stocks are not diverse, with a lot of mining, banks and telcos. More and more growth is coming outside the US in the next coming years. Historically, if the US dollar is weak, emerging markets outperform and vice versa. 

We have lower interest rates here than in the U.S. and falling oil prices, which are dragging the USD down. Also, the Canada-US trade deal looks uncertain.

It's one of the most speculative assets of our time and putting a value on it is a mug's game. It's a massive ponzi scheme. More people are investing in it, though, and it's in some ETFs. Frankly, is one better than another. Look for the most liquid one with the lowest MER. The money Trump has made on Bitcoin should be reviewed by the SEC. He's frontrunning his own tweets and making billions at the expense of the average investor. It's deplorable.

No idea why Rogers bought the rest of MLSE today, but wouldn't be surprised if they sold a piece to private equity.

Crude oil levels returned to pre-war levels below $70, but other assets have not fallen back. However, oil futures past 2032, prices going forward are more negative than they were pre-war. This means that the long-run supply/demand story is getting more and more bearish for the price of crude oil. Maybe because we have more friendly supply of oil coming on market. Looking at the futures contract: Last February, there were 2-2.5 rate cuts priced into the December futures contract. When war broke out and oil prices spike, the expectation changed from rate cuts to hikes. Last week, 1.25 rate hikes were priced in by the end of the year. He predicts the US Fed to pause, but wants to read the Fed minutes and the impact of oil prices on interest rates. Also, the bond market is saying it's worried about inflation, in contrast to the message from the stock market. Finally, as we start Q2 earnings season, earnings growth has accelerated a lot this year, which is supporting the stock market; geopolitics and inflation have almost nothing to do with the strong market this year.

The thing is that the US is the biggest economy in the world, so it has leverage over Canada and Mexico. They're going to make additional progress from what the deal was before, but the structure mandated that it was up for review. It either gets extended through to 2042, it gets extended 10 years, or it's up for annual review. 

He suspects it will take a number of months, but the US will come out ahead. PM Carney will probably be very good at dealing with President Trump as far as public perception goes. But recently at the G7 meeting, there was an off-mic comment that caught the PM in a vulnerable position. 

From Canada's perspective, we're on our heels. But when it comes to terms of trade, what matters most is energy distribution for Canada.

It would be nice to have it between Canada, Mexico and US, but it could go bilateral. The difference between Canada and the US is that, ex-oil, they actually run a surplus with Canada, but a clear deficit with Mexico. That should demand a different focus. For example, Mexico couldn't care less about milk; but it'll be a big issue for the Canada-US talks.

When we look at forward pricing on crude oil, pricing for oil in the back months is $50 out past 2031-32. The question is timing of a resolution. For political reasons, Trump would like oil prices to stay low through the midterm elections, and his decision-making will be largely leveraged off of that. Make no mistake, he started something and he'll probably need to finish it. 

Right now, Iran has the upper hand on the president.

Makes no sense that a $1T company should swing 5% in valuation in a day. Massive amount of speculation going on in this wonderfully exciting area. Given the nature of retail investors, and the second-order effects of what buying call options does to create leverage in markets, it's creating some dramatic imbalances. This is adding to volatility and, typically, doesn't end well.

Challenge is that the volatility on value stocks is not as high as on growth stocks. You get more volatility and enhanced yield on the growth side. Therefore, there really are no ETFs for value that use covered call strategies.

High dividend plays also have a lot of value properties, as they're much more mature companies. Typically, a high-dividend covered call like ZWC will have the principles you're looking for. Banks and telcos, for example, have that value tilt.

You have to do a breakeven analysis. The cost of this ETF and getting that tax efficiency is around 40 bps a year. If your total return in the ETF is (on an after-tax basis) better than 40 bps a year, then it makes more sense to use it (compared to one that doesn't give you that tax efficiency). It also depends on the tax bracket you're in.

Because this ETF is within Horizons corporate class, there are no distributions. This gives you better compounding, and your total return is by way of capital gains when you sell. Great for fixed income.

Lots of stress in recent months for these names due to supply constraints on fertilizer components from Strait of Hormuz. Recent move down makes it more attractive. Loves the "feed the world" trade. 

Very important, but very cyclical. Look at a 10-year chart and see multi-years of up, and then multi-years of down. The sector is not a buy-and-hold for a long time. Cheap now, he likes it.

He takes a look at the 10-year chart -- he's looking to see what's the normal tendency on a growth story like this. (When it corrects, how much does it pull back relative to normal course corrections?) In 2022 when it was a bad market for most stocks, and rate hikes were coming, how far did this pull back? The answer for POW is in the 10% range.

Relative high was made in the last few days. So when you get a 10% pullback, probably a good time to nibble.