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

Q: Should I borrow to invest in dividend-paying vehicles? A: Although he himself has done it in the past, it has never worked out and he has never seen it work out. Specifically, you are borrowing short to invest long.

Cdn$: A tough one to call. Cdn$ has been weak because the US$, relevant to the rest of the world, has been so egregiously strong. No fundamental reason why the US$ is as strong as it is but is still being considered as the world's reserve currency. Cdn$ will ultimately be tied to energy prices.

Market: His signals are telling him that it is only 1%-2% for the TSX to have another major down leg.

Energy: Oil/gas index has actually reached about a 40-year average low, the low point in which the index has staged 2 or 3 really good bull markets. He is watching the entire oil complex with a warm feeling towards that area.

ETF’s: She thinks all providers are fine but her instinct would be to diversify between them. She would discourage using the levered ones that give you 2X, 3X or 4X the exposure, which is a very risky strategy.

Base Metals: Suspects that there will be at least one more ugly bout of bad economic news and that all of the base metal charts will drop lower. Doesn't think all the bad news is out in the world economy. Credit markets are broken and that is of critical importance to mining companies.

Silver: A very interesting but extraordinarily volatile market. Not for the faint of heart. He is a mild bull.

Gold: Probably range bound until we have another seismic event that scares the world. Next event could be the collapse of European banks. He is worried about sovereign risk, a default of a European nation. That could push gold through its former high.

Oil: This is the commodity that he is most bullish on. There is a cap on the supply side of oil. There will be demand destruction because of the lower GDP but sees a drastic stimulus from lower gasoline prices. He expects to see oil doubling in the next 12 months.

Real Return Bonds: Issued by both US and Canadian governments. You are probably better to play this through a fund. With inflation set to go down even more than where we are today, these will not be big winners.

Citibank Canada 4.67% due Dec 28, 2010. It is not clear as to whether or not the main company CitiGroup (C-N) is going to back up that bond. There is the added risk that this is Citibank Finance Canada and not sure if this will be spun off or is the parent company will back it.

Canada Savings Bonds: A nice way of forced savings via payroll deductions. Very safe. AAA credit rating. Rates of return are not very high. Maturity dates are now much shorter so difficult to lock in rates.

Greater Toronto Airport Bonds due July 2010. One of the hot areas of the bond market right now is infrastructure. This is one of them. Always seems to be expensive to him. No problem with safety.

He is currently about 20% Long and about 14% Short so he has a lot of cash.

Options on a falling US$: Buy a Put on the US$ versus whatever currency you want to trade against. The best way to do this is through Philadelphia's (PHLX) World Currency Options. They are very easy to use.