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

Biden presidency. The street research says that election night certainty will be bullish. Taxes and stimulus money will be different between Trump and Biden. Once the uncertainties are settled, the markets will be bullish. However, Berman is sceptical that Trump will go down quietly.

The monumental amount of debt has been growing for decades. The last time we had this much debt was during the great depression. The natural rate of growth has never been lower than today. There is a growth dynamic problem and the math doesn't work. Inflation could be a solution to deal with debt but he sees more stagflation.

Gold. It is the traditional money and it moves for various reasons. Historically, it has moved relative to real yield. The yield has stalled out at a big negative. In order for gold to go up, the real yield needs to get more negative, or move in that direction. Gold struggles when you can get positive return from bonds.

U.S. Dollar. The US dollar will remain the reserve currency for the immediate future. As long as the world is trading goods in US dollars, it will continue to hold this status.

Educational Segment. The stock market needs a stimulus bill. If Trump wins, then the stock market could see a growing market, and if Trump loses, then the stock market could fall according to metrics. If there is no stimulus bill pre-election, we will see a weaker market too. It is a hot political issue. An incumbent loss in the white house will be detrimental to the stock market.

Market. There is COVID-19 in the White-house. There is a chance of a deflationary shock in the short term. If anything were to go wrong, then the US$ would soar. Investors should look at what equities they have in US$. If we get that deflationary shock… your portfolio will survive in the forth quarter. What's driving the market now is headlines. It wants to judge if we are going into a deflationary shock or do we go into hyper inflation. Technology is a hedge if we go into seriously bad news. He would be balanced, diversified, holding a lot of US$ and let's see what happens. He thinks a stimulus package is critical. He thinks it will get passed.

Gold. He distrusts it as these levels. It is the only mistake recommendation in 21 years. This includes the gold companies.

Where to put RESP money. He would be tempted to include GOOG-Q. Even if they get broken up, the smaller companies would do well.

Banks. If we go into a deflationary shock, all the banks will get hit. He would have some banks but not them all and not be overweight banks here. Everywhere but Canada, the banks are broke and are bad businesses. We have to get through this period.

Foreign Currencies. In the past you have just profited from the Canadian dollar going down. He thinks it will go into the $0.60s shortly. There is no indication the CAD$ is going to move back up yet.

Today's rally was driven by contradictory forces. The market traded like both Trump AND Biden will win the Nov. 3 election. Trump is recovering faster than expected from Covid, using treatments (Regeneron's) that prove that Covid can be beat. At the same time, Biden is getting strong polling numbers, making a landslide victory possible. Biden though wants to raise taxes, which is not good for markets, but Biden will have better, warmer relations with China which will benefit markets. Nobody wants a trade war. Meanwhile, a stimulus bill looks likely as talks continue. If so, then the government needs to raise interest rates. This will boost lagging financials. Energy: sell into strength; energy stocks surged today. Last week's market was insane, and today felt less uncertain.

Trump testing positive for covid. The markets are hoping for stimulus out of the US, but there is no value being added by today's news on that. There's a lot of nervousness in the markets right now.

Currently, he's focusing on the long term, and to remind clients of what the main objective is. Low interest rates makes the uncertainty of investing go away. The only way to get returns is investing in risk assets like stocks.