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

Small or Micro Cap and Tech Analysis: Support and resistance levels are a lot less important. In a small cap you are buying the news.

REITS: Tend to well March to July and Now until end of year.

Market: October 26 is the date to get into the market for a Santa Clause rally according to seasonal investing. If you invested for the best 6 months of the year since 1950, $10k would be worth a million. If you invested since 1950 for the other 6 months of the year you would loose $4k. There is some truth to buy when it snows and sell when it goes.

Market: He is taking a hard long look at China. They are they key to this whole equation. He is not that concerned with it. Market has caught up with data that shows they are slowing. 9% is all we need. He is careful with banks. There are lots of issues that could easily fall off the rails. Has had good performance in his dividend paying portfolios. They have been solid as a rock and are a safe haven.

Market: Valuations in some case look tremendous. You have to overlay the dicey macro overlook in Europe and get a comfort value. Enough agreement in Eu that we don’t get a banking credit crisis tomorrow like 2008. He has a lot of cash he would like to spend over the next little while. 20% of equity model is cash.

Market: He is now advising funds. Started opportunity fund. He believes gold is going back into record territory.

Market: Thought he saw a significant low in October 4-5 indicating a late year rally. It is not necessarily being lead by cyclical stocks, but rather by more defensive stocks. Valuations got so beaten up that money is working its way back into equities. Thinks we are at a near term bottom. But he thinks it will continue to be sloppy next year. Work toward yield and more defensive sectors. Focuses on market leadership. 25% pipelines and energy infrastructure, then the rest in real state, pharma, quick service restaurants and technology. Needs defensible revenue lines.

Markets. Stock market is looking more optimistically on what is happening in Europe and China than what the bond market is. Historically, the bond market gets it right more than the stock market. There is probably more Hope than Reality in the market.

Market: There was such an extreme level of pessimism it was hard to find anyone who had anything good to say back in September. Thinks we are off the bottom a little bit. It feels like a recession, but we priced in a very negative outlook. Sees this rally having legs. Best thing about CAT results was the positive view for 23012. It is a proxy for the global situation. He is doing some buying. He doesn’t need dividends, but he looks at ROE.

REITs. Structurally people are shifting away from investing for growth to investing for income to fund their retirements. This is accelerated with interest rates being low. Aconomic growth is pretty anaemic for most of the developed nations.

Markets. People got carried away with the slow economy earlier this year and when it came, everyone extrapolated from there a downward curve. But things have picked up. The Philly Fed report was extremely positive. Employment numbers have improved. A whole bunch of earnings from major US corporations is having more beats than misses. US corporate sector is quite healthy but they're sitting on all their money so there's not much expansion or hiring. Aggressive and small-cap stocks are going to languish until there is real momentum in growth.

REITs? He is concerned about this sector. They have been a favourite. Yields have come down. Feels the real estate sector as a whole is somewhat suspect these days. Residential is okay but he wonders about the commercial side.

Short selling? This has been around for a long time. Back in the 30s they put in a rule “Up Tick” where you couldn't sell short unless there was an up tick. And has now disappeared and has added to the problems. Has some impact, but high-speed computer trading has a lot more. Feels they should not allow “naked shorts”, in other words you have to borrow the stocks.

DRIP programs in RRIFs? Makes a lot of sense. An attractive way and some DRIP programs give a little extra advantage in terms of pricing.

China. Growth is slowing from 9.5% to 9.1% but it still means they are going to need about 9% more of everything next year. Expects they’re waiting for copper and oil prices to drop and then will be buying again. G