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

Markets. Expect the markets to move higher over the next year but not without some volatility. He is constructive on US stocks. There is lots of choice.

Thoughts on a basket of the sin stocks, such as alcohol, tobacco, firearms, etc.? You have to be selective and look at it from a bottom up standpoint. There are many that have done extremely well. His view is that there are lots of opportunities out there and if he is facing moral headwinds, why not go with others?

Markets. Finding some bargains. Market is like a coiled spring. The lower it goes, the quicker it can snap back. Feeling quite positive about the outlook for stocks but we are surrounded right now by headlines and fear. How long this can continue, who knows. You have to use valuations as your benchmark. S&P is trading less than 13X this year's earnings compared to its usual 16X, so there is upside once we get through this.

Europe situation. She is concerned. Voters are revolting there against austerity. Previous governments had promised to put in certain measures to get funding but now there is a big question mark. It is also the risk of contagion of spreading to other countries. Creates a lot of uncertainty going into the summer.

Markets. She had been expecting a pullback and wasn't chasing the market when it was going up. Have been selectively selling certain names where there is no near-term catalyst. Has a list of stocks she is interested in but isn't going to Buy right now because potentially there could be more downside in Europe and she wants to see how that is going to work out first.

Natural gas. It is hard to say where this is going to go short term but you see it moving up because below $2 a lot of shut-ins occur. Longer-term investors are looking ahead knowing that in the $2.40 range is not sustainable. Larger institutional players are starting to move early to be Long natural gas versus Short. Thinks we may have seen the Lows.

Investments. His change in investments is the choppiness that occurred in 2011 and we have kind of reverted to that. There is a clear indication that small cap was winning in the 1st quarter. Some of the best companies are small caps, actually better than some of the big caps. Many of his big caps are fairly sad but he needs them for the dividends. Thinks that will continue.

Markets. We generally have a correction in the spring and that is what we are going through now. He looks more at the earnings then just the corrections in the share price. Earnings picture remains strong. There may be some concern in the commodity-based companies because oil, a lot of the base metals, etc. are easing off. He is happy with the economic performance of companies he has invested in. Feels we will have a quiet summer in then a strong rally again in the fall.

Markets - Thinks we are in an economic trend and taking numbers one month or one week at a time takes it out of context. It is important that we view things in a longer-term trend. Markets are reacting the way they should. They had gotten a bit too expensive. He is about 25%-30% in cash now and looking for a dip in the market to put the money back in. There are some really interesting opportunities that are going to rise in the longer term. We have been 12 years into a Bear market and there is a Bull market of there somewhere and it is going to come when nobody expects it.

Markets - There was overreaction on the jobs numbers. You don't hang your hat on one month’s numbers. Market was in a nervous state because of some elections in Europe. People should not think of this as a meaningful correction. If the European elections go the wrong way, it could prolong this. Earnings have not been bad.

Mining and Exploration sector. People are not willing to look into a brighter future. If they don't see any growth or dividend yield, they get tired of waiting. Junior mining cannot raise funds and a lot of them are languishing. This is going to be a tough sector to operate in.

Any thoughts on a good junior natural gas player? Most of them are on life support. Juniors don't hedge. With gas at $2, he doesn't know how some of the juniors can survive. Storage in the US is at 51% above the 5 year average.

Markets - Filtering out all the moving parts in the market is a real big challenge. He tries to look at the longer term trends. One of his key metrics is lead indicators. Currently he is seeing a little bit of soft patch for the fall. Not anything to worry about yet but could be something down the road that he could be concerned about. He is seeing pretty good growth momentum in the US economy, slowly and steadily improving. Asia right now, China in particular is right on the borderline of the growth pace of 7.5%-8% that they are looking for.

Markets - TSX is not necessary attractive right now. Primarily made up of financials, gold and oil. Oil seasonal period that tends to do well has just finished but it didn't do so. This is telling us that there is more underlying weakness. There are times in the summer that you want to be focused on consumer staples, utilities, healthcare and there are opportunities for agriculture later on in the summer and heating oil later on in the summer.

Technical analysis on penny stocks? Very difficult to apply technical criteria on a small stock compared to the large ones. Penny stocks are news driven. You can use technical analysis at little bit but much more important is the news that is coming in.