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Short-term corporate bonds, ZCS-T or CBO-T? They both have very similar holdings. This one weights bonds with a traditional laddering strategy, whereas ZCS-T weights the bonds in the portfolio related to the size they have in the market. It is really hard to say which is better, because all bond ETF’s are ladders of a sort.

This is an example of an area of the market that has been booming. Very focused, thematic niche ETF’s. It is very new, and he can’t offer a lot of commentary on its performance as it only launched in Sept/16. The theme may make a lot of sense to people who are worried that a robot may take over their job. It could perhaps be a hedge against that. As a long-term theme, it certainly has promise and potential and probably risky, but think of it as a hedge if you are worried about robot overlords calling the shots.

An example of a kind of satellite position for US equities. For your core, you want to have a low cost, passive Index ETF that gives you a lot of exposure, but if you want to experiment with a new breed of products, Strategic Beta, Factor Investing or Smart Beta, this is a great example. It tracks an index from MSCI which tries to give exposure to 4 market factors, which historically have given evidence of a possibility for outperformance. They are value, quality company stocks that are moving in an up-trending direction. This is currency hedged.

An example of a core holding for an international equity. It is currency hedged, so it is hedged against the fall of other global currencies relative to CAD, mostly euro and Asian currencies. If you believe that international equities are going to perform well over the future, but it is going to be export driven companies that do well, you may wish to bias towards large caps.

If you showed a graph, you would almost see a flat line. It doesn’t mean that the patient is dead. It is basically an ETF that holds Cash. Pays about 1%. If you are very tax sensitive and you don’t like premium bonds, but want a cash like exposure in an ETF form, this is a way to do it.

Market. Feels investors are really looking for clues from Donald Trump for timing, magnitude and details surrounding some of the policies that he has talked about, and we didn’t see a lot of that. Thinks the trend for corporate tax reform, tax cuts, infrastructure spending, deregulation will continue, and will feed into those sectors that are in the cyclicals, and not into the more defensive types of names. Given the massive run up since the election, it is very, very possible there will be a pause or consolidation in the market. If interest rates move too quickly, that could pose some anxiety in the market. We also need to see some very sustainable strong corporate earnings. If there are some policy disappointments or some excessive protectionist measures that is taken by Trump, that could also deflate some of the market moves. Thinks value will outperform growth once again this year, so value is a theme he is holding onto. Financials fall into both the cyclical and value themes after having been beaten up for so many years.

He likes this. Technically, it is above the 200-day moving average, which is positive. Fundamentally, it looks interesting. The most dominant Chinese e-commerce company, dominating about 75% of online sales. Recently upgraded the type of things they are selling online. Fundamentally it makes a lot of sense. Trading at a pretty decent valuation at about 30X valuation, but growing at a pretty high clip of 20%-25%.

Recently sold his holdings. Looking at the macro picture, he is stepping more into cyclical names, and away from defensive, low volume, high dividend type names. Probably wouldn’t want to own a lot of consumer staples. He is zero weight in consumer staples. There is lots of competition with Loblaw’s, Walmart, etc.

In tobacco, he likes this a bit more because the US$ is going to be continuously bullish going through the next couple of years. Phillip Morris (PM-N) is based on international operations, where Altria is based on domestic revenues. Phillip Morris has dropped below its 200-day moving average. After many years of these tobacco stocks doing extremely well and paying a nice dividend, the investment market has started to step away from some of these names. They’ve gotten very expensive. Dividends are good, but are probably not going to grow very quickly. In a rising interest rate environment, these look less and less attractive.

He continues to like this. They are expanding very nicely internationally, into markets like China. It is a little expensive, trading at around 25-27 times earnings. However, there is no other name like this. Technically it has broken out a little above the 200-day moving average.

Recognize this is not all technology. He doesn’t mind the NASDAQ index. It is hitting new highs and has names in the Tech space, but keep in mind that it does have names in the consumer discretionary space as well as the pharmaceutical biotech space. When you compare it against some of the other pure play technology ETF’s, it hasn’t done as well.

He really likes this. Growth is continuing to be very explosive. They have a very unique type of marketing and advertising, and continue to monetize the various types of things they have. Shares got a bit weak after the election and fell below the 200-day moving average, but not by much. Now it is back above it and the average is very, very positive. Trading at about 30X earnings and growing at a 30% clip.

A consumer staples name, and the stock has been a little bit weak in the last little while. Investors have been pulling money out of this space. However, it is one of the faster growing names in packaged food, growing at about a 20% clip in terms of EPS. Pays a decent yield of about 2.75%. Technically, it is probably one of the better consumer staple stocks and is still trading above its 200-day moving average. The only concern he has is that it probably generates quite a bit of its revenues from outside of the US, and will probably lose some money on the top line due to fighting foreign currencies coming in.

He likes the big banks in the US. This is probably one of the more interest rate sensitive banks in the US, so if interest rates move up, you’ll probably get a pretty good lift on the stock price. Wouldn’t be surprised if this gave back some of its recent gains, but is still a good Hold.

(A Top Pick Dec 3/15. Up 19.53%.) Sold his holdings. They have done a really good job in moving from the console games to the more digital games. They’ve partnered with Disney (DIS-N) to use Star Wars games. Not a bad name at 22X earnings.