A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert (A Commentary)

Gold and silver. If gold breaks through $1000 it could easily be $1200-$1300. If this happens, silver could be $18-$20 without any trouble.

Gold. Believes this will go through $1000 and when it does a good easily go through $1200-$1300 in the next 18 months. It's the corollary of the amount of money that is being printed. Eventually when economies do pick up, that will feed through at some stage into higher prices.

Province of Ontario Australia$ bond maturing 2016 with about a 6.75% yield to maturity.

Dividend Stocks. He is a big believer in quality companies that pay dividends, especially ones that increase them on a regular basis. Comparing stocks and bonds historically there is no comparison. DRIPs for retail investors is a pretty good strategy also.

Gold and Silver. Big tug-of-war, which is why they are going sideways in US$’s. In Cdn$’s the price has been going down as the Cdn$ has been going up. He owns gold as insurance.

US financials. If you are a trader and are fairly nimble there could be some upside to the extent that they have been oversold. Short-term you are looking at very strong trading revenue for some of the banks that have good exposures.

How do you play US stocks with Cdn$ going higher? You could buy Bear ETF’s on the US$. This will partially hedge your exposure.

Natural Gas. Did what he expected by dropping to the $2.95 area. US inventories are at about 3.2 TCF and maximum capacity is about 3.7. Plugging in the average of 5 years storage between now and end of September, it will be full either the last week of September or the first week of October. Withdrawal does not start until November 1st so there may be a few weeks where there is no place to store, which might have prices go down to very low levels such as $1 or $1.50.

Oil. There is still 100 million barrels more in storage. Demand did not go up and once you get past Labour Day gasoline demand will fall off again so there will be too much crude. OPEC is cheating at 75% compliance versus 80% a couple months ago. Expecting $10-$15, maybe $20 of downside in the S&P TSX energy index. When the correction comes you want to be ready to buy the bargains.

(3 Top Picks theme is on rebalancing portfolios.) There has been a nice run on the markets including equity markets and Corporate bonds. You now need to make sure you have rebalanced your portfolio, which may mean selling some of your winners.

(3 Top Picks theme is on rebalancing portfolios.) Preferred shares have had a very strong run in the last 2, 3 months. These are very attractive tax effective dividend vehicles. These are great things to pick away at for the income.

(3 Top Picks theme is on rebalancing portfolios.) Hard asset commodities. Believes in the inflation story and a declining US$. In both of these scenarios, hard assets like gold and silver will benefit from that.

Uranium ETFs? There are no ETFs that are exclusively uranium. You could look at Uranium Participation (U-) that is really ownership of physical uranium. If you believe in nuclear energy, it is an interesting area to participate in.

Market Neutral Investing is a strategy that attempts to take out the market risk from securities selection. Isolating Alpha and taking out Beta. You are decreasing volatility. Market is pricing in a ‘V’ shaped recovery. Market will have a lift the early part of next year.

We will see a range-bound market for the next 2 years. More downside risk at present than upside potential.