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Market. He does not think there is anything more important going forward than the trade issues between the US and China. There is an important dinner meeting Saturday night and we will see how that goes. Trump is being urged to take a very hard line on theft of intellectual property. Any deal that does not include China admitting this exists and how they are going to get rid of it will be judged as a soft deal and a non-win for Trump. This is going to become a political issue going into 2020. Trump wants a rate cut. China has less risk in the talks and more staying power. But technology companies in China are going to hurt US suppliers. Regarding Iran, diplomatic solutions are always the best. Trump was initially against war but he is adamant about doing deals and putting his stamp on things. There is always going to be a hot potato in the middle east and that is never going away. Gold prices have soared on the geopolitical tensions, the Fed easing again and the weaker dollar. All of that is bullish for gold and it is one of his biggest equities.

High yield bonds are an equity part of your portfolio even though they pay a dividend. It is a basket of the worst quality balance sheets in corporate North America. It is very high risk from a price perspective. The realized default rate even in the great recession was about 10% or so. So when the bonds do go bad, it is about 10% of the companies that are affected. So long as you think about it as an equity-like risk, then he has no issue with it. He has no issue with holding it indefinitely. This one is hedged to the Canadian dollar.

The US 10 years have hit 2% in the last two weeks. This is going to be a big hurtle. 1.5 was the pre-Brexit low and we will hit that when we go into recession. He sold all his long bonds. He is slightly short. He expects interest rates to keep falling.

The US capital markets are the most liquid in the world but from time to time volatility shocks can happen. He loves gold and thinks it is breaking out here. We probably have another 10% in gold and 20% in gold equities. He would prefer a gold equity ETF, although it is not early.

Defensive Move Recommendation. Bond yields are low. He would not rush into bonds. Utilities and staples are expensive. He would prefer to be defensive with puts. Stay in the great companies you own if you want to own them.

Educational Segment. The Earnings Recession and What it Means. We will know after this quarter if we are in an earnings recession. It means we had two quarters of negative growth. He wants to be protected when (1) markets get over valued and (2) there are geopolitical issues as these can trigger a recession. Earnings weakness is coming from trade. 21.5% of the S&P is technology. Because it is such a big sector it will be swinging earnings round and round. When we go into recession we will get a multiple contraction as well as an earnings contraction and this is the worst case. He maintains low, low risk portfolios but with as high a yield as possible, moving into areas such as bonds, cash-like instruments and gold, etc. to lower overall risk. It is always all about asset allocation.

Market. He is seeing signs of froth in the market. Investors are probably happy with the year-to-date returns but there are more traps than there are opportunities as we get to half way through the year. Beyond Meat is trading at 90 times sales. Uber investors are subsidizing rides about 30% right now.

Everything is $5 and below. If it pulls back or if it went sideways and earnings caught up to valuation it would be a buy. It is probably fully priced today. If it got down to 35 times earnings you would probably be okay.

They are getting involved with digital currency through a separate firm. Some people think it could be a long term opportunity. It is expected that next year their earnings and growth should track each other. He could see this one getting to over $200 in the next several months.

They announced 50% revenue growth but then guided down to 33% revenue growth going forward. They are really a domestic play in China even though they go up and down with trade tensions between the US and China.

They pulled back recently. They announced an acquisition in the UK which will allow them to have growth opportunities outside North America. There may be slower growth going forward in the US as most of the bus acquisitions by municipalities were based on 'The Fast Act' in the US which helped them fund buses after the 2008 recession.