Mike Philbrick

Look back to 2000 and the darling that was CSCO, trading at 120x forward PE. Compare that to today's darling NVDA, which has grown a lot and could be called expensive. Yet it's trading at ~35x forward PE, a pretty significant difference.

Looking at the chart from a technical perspective, how extended are we above the 200-day MA? Because that gives you a sense of how bubblicious or extreme the recent market move has been. At its peak in 2000, the NASDAQ was 54% above its 200-day MA. The NASDAQ today is 14% above. 

So during the dot-com era, the darling stock was 4x more expensive and the market was 4x further away from its 200-day MA.

AI and the AI adoption curve have been followed by earnings. So today it's an earnings story, and the growth is actually there. Investors might miss out by sitting on the sidelines.

With silver, have to remember that it's volatile, especially short term. Moves around on USD strength as well as on the price of silver. It's had quite an upswing. Mid-term, very supportive backdrop -- benefits from industrial demand, as well from an asset preservation perspective.

If you believe in AI, then you have to believe in all the things that build AI. AI isn't build in the cloud, it's built on the ground in data centres. All that is very bullish for the industrial demand side for silver. Long term, potential structural shortfall if electrification keeps ramping.

See his Top Picks.

Going all in on any one sector is a bit extreme. If we get into higher-than-expected inflation, utilities will struggle. Defensive tilt, and sells calls to enhance income. Low volatility sector means call-writing premium also lower. Fine choice for part of a diversified portfolio.

Part of diversification is recognizing that you don't always know the future. You want different things in your portfolio that are going to respond differently to economic factors. 

He thinks that we're going to run a little hotter and have a bit more inflation and growth. But at some point in the future, in the next couple of years, that's going to meet the deflationary force of AI. So yields could end up lower in the long term as well. 

We don't have one pervasive trend the way we did from 1982-2022, with 40 years of persistently falling interest rates. We're in an environment of inflation and interest rate volatility, so it won't be higher all the time or lower all the time. The average will probably be higher than people expect.

He has positions in gold/silver/platinum/palladium, and they change regularly through active management. He's both long and short, but generally long in the precious metals area. Scarce assets are something that most portfolios are underexposed to. 

We're at a moment in time of higher inflation and monetary debasement. We're printing a lot of money, monetizing debt at probably 8% a year over the last few years. When that happens, you want something in your portfolio that's not printable, but scarce. 

Scarce assets are things like gold and, to some degree, silver, bitcoin, platinum, and palladium. These can't be reproduced easily. If we need more oil, prices will skyrocket and more wells will be drilled. If we need more copper, more mines will be dug. For gold, the amount of gold that can be produced (even at all-out rates) is only ~2% of overall supply. 

A scarce asset serves a different role in portfolios. It responds to macroeconomic factors like monetary policy and geopolitical situations. Globally, sovereign nations are stockpiling gold as they look for alternatives to US treasuries as reserve assets.

Have to make sure you understand what you get with call-writing on various indices. Compared to an equal weight, unwritten bank portfolio, in the type of market we've been in (trending upward), the total return for the covered call one is lower. You get income, but give up some of the upside. It's not good or bad, it's just a fact.

It does hedge to the downside, but not a lot. So if there's a large drawdown, you're going to feel most of that.

Why not put some in ZWB and, for the upside, some in an equal weight bank ETF with no call-writing?

Remember that you haven't had any volatility with your GICs. It's been a fixed, set rate of return. They only ever went up.

If this is your first foray into the market, pace yourself. Get used to the fact that you're going to have volatility day to day. Have to make sure you won't get scared out of your portfolio during something like the tariff tantrum earlier this year. On the chart, you can see how this ETF had ~20% decline in April because of that, and that was in big, blue-chip US stocks.

Fee on this is 9 bps, very cheap. Very good access to the US market. Consider broadening your diversification. Also have some global and Canadian equities. Also have some bonds. Add gold, and maybe a smidge of bitcoin, to buoy your portfolio during inflationary shocks. See today's Past Top Picks for a good solution from Fidelity, FEQT.

Holds ~20-23 of the very large global healthcare names on an equal weight basis. Pharma (35%), healthcare equipment (25%), biotech (14%). MER is ~1%, bit pricey, but you get value because they're covered-writing part of the portfolio to generate extra income. Struggled, so entry point isn't bad. Nice diversification to a Canadian-centric portfolio.

Global in nature. Good dividend with a call-writing strategy. If you want more growth from your utility stocks, look for a global utility ETF that doesn't write calls and put both types in your portfolio.

With inflation volatility in US, starting to see international and EM stocks do better than US stocks. That includes Canada. You want to make sure you're diversified, and this one does that (including bitcoin), though you do have to tack on your own gold and bonds.

Digital assets are very volatile. Buy a bit, buy a bit more on drawdowns. Keep it small, an amount that doesn't scare you away. Like a bit of salt on your meal. He's still very bullish.

The idea of China is a good one and a diversifying one. Their business cycle and monetary policy are so very different from what we have in Canada. Focus is on a single country. MER is around 0.85%, as it's harder to gain access to those securities. Pretty good exposure.

Good to get diversification outside Canada and US. Hard to find a defense ETF that isn't dominated by the USA. This one is a niche, niche play. 

New and interesting product, narrow focus. Very tech-heavy, so you get lots of covered-writing income because the stocks move around a lot. But you give up some upside, and he's generally bullish in this area due to AI rollout. To "park money" sounds short term. Its distribution is composed of some dividend, but mostly capital gains and return of capital.

Could pair it with a NASDAQ 100 or Mag 7 ETF to keep some of the upside.