Just for Centeron and those who wish to assist him

[Yodean]

@Centdude:

Hey, I just received your private email regarding loonie vs. USD, etc., and related queries.

I started a new thread, just for you, for you to ask as many questions as you would like on any topic, so others may chime in, if they are so inclined, and offer their insights.

Always happy to try to assist a fellow Canadian when possible.

Based on your previous posts and the information you have revealed about yourself, we are very different animals when it comes to investing.

We are at differing points in our life cycles, and our investing styles will naturally be dissimilar.

I tend to treat investing and trading as a fun poker game, and probably take more risks than I really need to. I am quite comfortable with extreme volatility - maybe too comfortable - and although this has benefitted me when it comes to investing overall, at times I stay in losing trades a bit too long.

So you probably shouldn't do what I do, as a rule of thumb. I expect the general equity markets to be extremely volatile for the foreseeable future, and I think this will be hard on investors like yourself and YoungAnakin, for example.

With respect to your more specific questions about the loonie and the USD, in the past I did play this currency pair using DLR.TO and DLR-U.TO.

I echo the T.I. view that the USD will appreciate over the next two years or so against the Euro as well as the "commodity-petro" currencies like the loonie and the Aussie dollar, etc. for a variety of reasons.

However, oil could easily spike up here and there briefly in a primary degree petro-deflationary downtrend, so I expect there will be periods of time when the loonie will appeciate against the USD, but overall, the loonie will likely depreciate vs. the USD.

I am not playing this trend by using DLR.TO and its opposite, DLR-U.TO, currently. I am simply long the USD by holding most of my current net worth in USD-denominated assets, as well as USD cash in my brokerage account.

[SOL]

We have subscribers from all over the world. So when we speak of the dollar rally, its for subscribers that are mostly not in the US.

Way to take advantage of this
Hold more cash in USD and go long US equities: generally, the best time to do this is during sharp pullbacks as markets are now trading at the low end of the overbought ranges.

One could go long UUP (Dollar ETF) but it's not going to produce gains overnight and its a slow mover

Very high-risk ways to play the long side

GO long US dollar futures or via FX market

[Yodean]

"Thank u in advanced: some various questions to my mind:

Smart Phone - do u use one to make ur trades (I have avoided much use of one because of a neck injury that only relief is really good posture) on one or do u handle all on laptop?
I am thinking i will have to consider linking to smart phone (which i will have to figure out how as i use both firefox and microsoft Edge with most financials including ScotiaItrade on Medge but run my bmo investorline as have problems for some reason last year or so connecting to some of financials including my Credit Union on FF. It would be good to hear an alert come in when outside or sitting in living room - Any comments in this regard?

The TRACKING system i have evolved for keeping track on updates that come in: using two alert systems on investorline the one for MU on my margin acct and AI one on my RIF acct (unrelated to which portfolio i will make the trade in) BECAUSE investorline allows one to write notes of exact instruction including the the particular update date etc like red green or because a stock will take off or down if reaches certain numbers - that will show up when i open my alert email on hotmail and i can use side by side screens to make my entries directly as the updates come in. I have entertained thoughts of going over to NAtional Bank online broker because they have gone to zero commissions which could save me about $5 to 6k trading fees per year at $10 between SI and BMinvestoronline (also because BMoil has royaly screwed up on 10 large holdings' bookvalues since i brought my stocks over from BMOnesbitt in May 2020. But i cannot figure a way to successfully handle the trade updates without a couple of alert systems that do not allow notes - otherwise i will have to keep checking back over the back issues of the updates to find the correct and latest entry (prior i had tried to just use the orders and seem to be messy with so many). Any suggestions here - i am aware there is a system developed by Triplethought that maybe does this - but i do not have enuf spreadsheet expertese to handle plus my eyesite really strains on small print of spreadsheets not to mention the strains on my low energy reserves. Any comments here? are there independent sites to use alerts which will allow notes and at least 2 sets of alerts one for MU and one for AI?

Do u use the TI for ur Tfsa and if u do do u have any concerns with CRA declaring u a trader there with severe tax consequence if u make too much or too many trades. I was thinking of selling off the stocks i have there and using it as well for TI assets. thks for ur patience.

Finally have u partaken in precious medals and r we as canadians restricted to using a Canadian dealer rather than one Sol reco's in usa?"

*****

The above was emailed to me by the Centdude on this site and after perusing it, there is nothing too personal in the content so I thought I'd post it as I suspect there are others who may be in better position to answer his questions.

@Centdude:

1) I am a bit low-tech and somewhat of an old school curmudgeon about certain things - I trade using a laptop or a desktop, and thus far have never completed a single trade on my smartphone.

2) Alert/tracking system: a long time ago, fellow sub. LANGDJ told me about barchart.com, and I use that site to set up various watchlists, as well as to do technical analyses, etc.; they allow you to post your own notes next to stocks, etc., as well as set up alerts for the stocks in question when certain price levels are reached, etc.; I pay a small fee monthly and they do spam your email account daily with multiple, dubious offerings, but I don't mind too much since I use the stuff they send me as contrarian indicators, to a certain extent. I also make liberal use of my Investing Journal (pen and paper) to remind myself to look something up, follow a particular sector or stock particularly closely for certain developments, etc. Like you, I am not a huge fan of complicated spreadsheets so I don't use the ones that jhooter/TripleThought came up with - between barchart.com & my paper-and-pen Investing Journal, for the most part, things have worked out pretty well for me, thus far.

3) TFSA: I don't trade too much here simply because I have already maximized the limits of the TFSA, a long time ago; I am not too concerned about the CRA's threats of people trading too much in their TFSAs - it's really a grey zone, and my accountant says it's probably not a big deal; you should probably talk to your accountant about this; over 90% of my assets are in a corporate trading account (RBC); I usually keep only one or two assets in my TFSA (with Questrade); the RBC trading account charges a lot of fees but I am used to its interface from being with them for > 17 years, & am too lazy at this point to switch to a no-fee/reduced fee brokerage; also, due to my corporate structure, I can actually write the trading fees off as expenses against my realized profits/dividends, etc.

4) Precious metals: I don't own bullion - I like royalty streaming companies and ETFs/Trusts for this. In a sense, I view PM royalty streaming companies as storing bullion, silver, uranium, etc. for you below ground at the mines. I am not a believer that we will ever return to a "gold-standard" global money system, at least not in my lifetime. I own PM proxies for insurance and as a portfolio diversifier, not for tremendous gains. Thus far, they have done well. WPM, FNV, MTA, MMX, & UROY trade on both sides of the border, so you can play with the loonie vs. USD exchange here a bit, too.

[Budge]

4) Precious metals: I don't own bullion - I like royalty streaming companies and ETFs/Trusts for this. In a sense, I view PM royalty streaming companies as storing bullion, silver, uranium, etc. for you below ground at the mines. I am not a believer that we will ever return to a "gold-standard" global money system, at least not in my lifetime. I own PM proxies for insurance and as a portfolio diversifier, not for tremendous gains. Thus far, they have done well. WPM, FNV, MTA, MMX, & UROY trade on both sides of the border, so you can play with the loonie vs. USD exchange here a bit, too.

Some physical is handy after all you only have assets on paper and with trust in government(s) eroding who knows what they'll try. Don't know if you have quite the same concept as here in US of "junk silver" ie buying bags of pre-1964 silver coins or even buying them at auction or ebay.

Here's a chart I keep of some of Canada's silver coinage:



The final column is the value of the silver in each coin in US dollars (current price of $23.6/oz)