BUY

It has been one of the stronger stocks in the sector. It had a 50% swing in the last year. It is still up. It is probably going to run quickly.

TOP PICK

He is going for the new company, the hold-co. There are two businesses. The old legacy stuff is separated, but this has the rest as well. It has long term upside. It generates tons of cash. He is looking forward to their first earnings release. He took a small position just to see. He thinks the market will have better visibility and will like it.

TOP PICK

He has had this for quite a while. It has just had a breakout move and he is looking at $78. He knew they would lose the NHL, but it improved their profit.

TOP PICK

50% US banks and 50% UK banks, best of breed. You have to be mindful of the currency. It has been a steady climber. You can’t totally hedge the US dollar. 5.7% yield.

N/A

Markets. We could be looking at a 15 inning game. The recovery of the financial crisis was not anywhere near what you would see in a normal business cycle. It has been a slow recovery and he thinks it is dragging out the length of this business cycle. We are also going through what is typically seen as a contraction in 2015, which is quite healthy for the market. You get a correction and then you move higher. You can get a correction through price discovery, where prices go down, or you can get a time correction, where you actually get stagnant markets for longer periods of time. He thinks we are in a time correction. This will likely go on for the rest of 2015. The price of oil declined so rapidly and so quickly, and was such a dramatic decline, he doesn’t think a lot of people believed it, so the dividends received that you got from lower prices at the gas pump actually went into savings as opposed to spending. We are now starting to see an uptick in consumer spending, and this is going to lead in to a stealth economic growth period. There is so much nervousness that next year could actually be a pretty decent year. We are going to have higher interest rates and that is underpinning everything. The 1st rise in interest rates will not do much, but it will benefit banks by having a psychological impact on them. They will be able to charge more for loaning money out and are not paying any more to get it because they are sitting with $2.7 trillion in excess reserves. Investors should be thinking about their portfolios in terms of that.

COMMENT

An Indian ETF for the long-term? He is looking at ETF’s that have a lot of liquidity and low costs. This one tracks the index of Indian stocks. It has an MER of .68%. If you want exposure to India, this is probably the easiest way. If you just want the large cap players, you might look at the iShares India 50 (INDY-Q). The MER is a little higher at .94%, but it is the 50 largest companies in India.

COMMENT

An Indian ETF for the long-term? He is looking at ETF’s that have a lot of liquidity and low costs. If you want the large cap players, you might look at this which has an MER of .94%, and is the 50 largest companies in India. Or you could use IShares MSCI India (INDA-US), which simply tracks the index of Indian stocks. It has an MER of only .68%. If you want exposure to India, this is probably the easiest way.

BUY

He is a big fan of this bank. It has been challenging year for all the banks. It pulled back because interest rate hikes were not coming. They announced their earnings and blew it out of the water with $0.04 above expectations. Also, said that if their trading revenues did not pick up and do the kind of things they are expecting, they are going to get out of that business. Thinks the real rally in the stock is going to come when the Fed actually raises rates. You can buy a $17 Call for Jan 2017, or even the 2018 if you want to go away out. He would buy and see what happens.

N/A

Which factors affect ETF’s the most, the price of the stocks or the popularity of the ETF? The price of the stocks would affect the ETF the most. The whole approach to trading ETF’s from a market makers perspective is to keep the value of the ETF very close to the Net Asset Value. However, some ETF’s will trade slightly above or slightly below the NAV because of large trading volumes.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick June 29/15. Down 3.57%.) *Covered Call* He doesn’t have a problem with this. It rolled down to $26 as a low and came back up again. This is trading on where oil is. A very volatile component in the energy sector. The option premiums are very rich, which is why he selected it. The option will likely expire in January. If you own, continue to hold.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick June 29/15. Down 6.39%.) Healthcare and biotech have been hit pretty hard lately. He really likes this on a longer-term basis. This is an area that continues to be very, very important, and this will continue to do well. If you own, continue to Hold. Still a Buy.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick June 29/15. Down 4.95%.) Banks have had a very poor year in general. You are going to have higher interest rates. When interest rates go higher, the banking sector is one of the best ways to hedge that. If you own, continue to Hold.

COMMENT

A basket of US or Cdn bank stocks for a TFSA account for an 88-year-old? You could buy BMO Equal Weight Bank ETF (ZEB-T). This is the easiest way to get a basket of stocks. Yield on the Canadian banks is better than 4%.

COMMENT

Gold based or gold companies income producing ETF? This is Covered Call ETF’s that are on gold stocks. He is not a big fan. Not sure that a weaker US$ is going to push up the value of gold significantly. To get a significant rise in gold, you would have to get significant inflation. That is when gold performs the best. However, a gold ETF that has Covered Calls tends to bring in all of the premium, and then they pay it all out.

COMMENT

The pain in the preferred share market was mostly the result of the huge number of Reset Preferreds that came onto the market within the last 5 years, so a lot of these preferreds did not reset their dividend for 5 years, and a lot of them did it this year because it was their 5 year anniversary. When they reset their dividends, they were cut dramatically, because they were based on some value above either a 5-year Government of Canada bond or treasury bill if it was a floating rate, or a 5-year Government bond if it was a reset. In both cases, they came down because interest rates declined. However, preferred shares that have fixed rates, that has stayed the same for a long period of time and are investment quality, they have not done that bad. This one is yielding 5% because they have a collection of quality preferreds and different terms giving you instant diversification.