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

Markets. Part of the crisis is that governments continue to print money and to stimulate. Part of the demand for gold is from central banks rather than holding euro dollars. Ultimate solution is monetary inflation, which eventually leads to stagflation and the printing of more money. Feels we are setting up for another 1976-1984 type of recovery, which is stagflation, lower sustained unemployment, more government involvement, slow muddling growth and hard assets acting as an inflation hedge.

Allocation of money for the next 5 years? You always want some fixed income, which is not correlated with stocks. Preferred shares are very sensible because you get the tax break. You would also want some good corporate bonds as well as provincial. Also dividend paying stocks from companies with good balance sheets.

Comment Markets. Doesn't look at this as a buying opportunity yet. Hasn’t had a confirmation yet from the TSX 60 that this is anything more than just a bounce off a set back. Financial stocks in particular are acting poorly. If there is no leadership from the financials, he is always suspicious. (Stay with gold.)

There are 2 opposing influences going on in the market. One is the confidence crisis in Europe and the other is the US which refuses to fall into a recession. Data in retail sales, housing starts, etc. seems to be somewhat better than expected. Feels 2012-2013 will be years of modest economic growth.

Oil. Expects oil will hit $200 in the foreseeable future. There is tepid growth right now. Industry has not invested enough to keep up. $38 trillion is needed now and in the next 25 years just to keep oil prices where they are now.

Copper. Of all the metals, the fundamentals are most supportive for copper. We have a mine deficit in 2012 so supply will not meet demand in 2012 through mine production. New production will be delayed until 2013 on. Thinks the price will go well above $4 next year.

Markets. A good time to be thinking defence. We have choppy markets driven by Europe and will likely have that for the next 6 months to a year.

Market: There is a difference from what traders are doing and what investors are doing. Traders are focused on technologies and commodities; investors are in utilities, consumer staples, healthcare and also healthcare because it has a long term up trend. Headlines are heading toward what traders want. No leader wants to say that we are in a structural grinder and it will take time for the things in Europe to work out. Gold is still in a long-term bull market as well. US and Canada are setting the stage floating out the trial balloons that we may need some quantitative easing / rate cutting.

Markets. There is a very good case for a Santa Claus rally if you look at 4th quarter historically, which is generally a good quarter. Doesn't happen every year but thinks it's a pretty good bet this year.

Economy. European economy is in recession but the US economy is growing stronger. Looking for a positive movement in the next little while.

Markets. We are setting up for stagflation. A replay of what happened in Argentina and Brazil. Everywhere where governments get overloaded with debt, the only solution for them is to start printing money, devalue the currency which benefits hard assets. Expects US will have to raise the debt limit again pretty soon as they used up all that money. Gold is building a base around $1600 and thinks it's going much higher.

European situation. Thinks it will get dealt with and when the Europeans get towards a solution, expects China, Japan, etc. will step up to help finance it.

Markets have been moving sideways for about a decade. Probably has another 5 years of up-and-down choppiness that we have been experiencing. Very typical of what has happened over the last 125 years. We’ll eventually break into a new bull market in the next 4-5 years.

Gold. Has been working in a trend channel for about 2 years, particularly the equities. It is now getting back to the top of the trend channel. He just sold his gold equities because it is getting back to the top.

Technical analysis software? A couple of really good free programs on the Internet are FreeStockCharts.com and StockCharts.com and you can get longer charts on the latter for about $15-$20 a month.