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

Where's the stability right now? It comes from actively managing your portfolio vs. the last dozen years where 85% of the time the market would go up. Especially with inflationary concerns, rising interest rates, and geopolitical concerns. It's more of a trading environment than an investing environment.

A scary time for new investors. You just have to have some trading tools in your bag to protect your portfolio. He shorts the equity indices, as it neutralizes the portfolio.

Semiconductor segment of a portfolio. The segment has 4 moving pieces: designers, foundries, manufacturers, equipment suppliers. For example, you can have a designer, represented by NVDA. Then a foundry like TSM. Hold a manufacturer like a MU. Than add a supplier like LRCX, KLAC, or AMAT.

EV car manufacturer suggestion? All beaten up lately. He'd go back to BYD, which is an ADR on NYSE. Good runway, massive company. Biggest EV and battery manufacturer in China. See his comments today.

Today's rally after days of selling Nothing has changed. The theme now is you sell rallies in contrast to pre-Thanksgiving when you bought sell-offs. Inflation is probably much higher than the official rate, so the Fed is 2-3 years behind. The Fed is no longer backstoppping this market.

Bitcoin $46,000ish is the 200-day moving average, then traded down to $38,000 recently, now back up. Buy it at a breakout above $46,000 or wait for the $38,000 pullback.

Today's rally after days of sharp selling It looked like blind buying across the board today, which makes him suspicious considering the geopolitical risk. How do you play the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war? Technically, we're in a downtrend. Today was a bear market bounce.

Today's rally after days of selling Today's bounce wasn't a surprise. It was a blip. It seemed that like sellers were exhausted. But she would not sell on strength, but would stay long, stay invested in quality names with long-term value and strong balance sheets.

Washington warned Beijing it could face devastating sanction if China defies the ban on doing business with Russia. What will happen to stocks? It's scary, a tremendous game of chicken. China has been the growth engine for companies like Apple, SBUX, McDonald's and Nike. What if China becomes a negative, not a place for growth? She likes Google, Meta and Twitter for having no exposure to China.

The soaring price of oil. US bans Russian oil. It appears Putin's Russian army will push on and the west will continue to block Russian oil sales. The west will need to replace that supply somehow. As a growth stock manager, energy is seldom part of his portfolio, but he did add Whitecap and Chevron recently. Canadian energy stocks were cheap even before the invasion and will continue to rise. The risk is a sudden change in the Russian war that reverses the rise in oil prices/stocks. European defence spending will pick up, so North American defence stocks will continue to climb. He owns Raytheon. Overall, he's shocked about the overdone selling in the markets as a whole.

McDonald's--and other western companies en masse--are setting a precedent by pulling investments or ceasing operations--rightly so. God forbid something similar flares between China and Taiwan; it would force the hand of western companies. You must take these geopolitical actions into consider. It's a tail risk.

Educational Segment. When markets are volatile, it is important to look at longer term investment opportunities. In what's selling off, there are areas he likes that are getting attractive now. Clean energy, robotics, cyber security, bio-tech are investible for the next couple years and decades. Emerging markets are also getting interesting.

In a risk-off market, the CAD will weaken because the US is a safe haven. Money is coming out of Europe to the US. Relative to Europe, the CAD is quite strong. The strength in energy is seen as transitory so it has not bolstered the CAD.

The conflict in Ukraine is not good for the world. It is having a material impact on the world. Russia has stepped down their ask in terms of negotiating. Getting closer to a proper negotiation but there is still a lot of confusion.