You see the white hair right?

It's becoming whiter.

Um, you know, in days like this, in periods like this, Marisa Courage takes conviction in conviction.

Takes courage.

And it's not that we are being flippant or stubborn.

We simply believe that fear is leading the way.

Uh, title of our recent piece that we wrote was called Epidemic and Fear, which has been a crescendo.

Let's call the Corona Virus Cove it 19 the crescendo of fear that is really engulfed.

Investing in the world of financial service is, for all intents and purposes since 8 4009 It doesn't mean that there's not going to be, in effect, of what's happening, quite frankly, and there is a human effect of this, and it's sad and it's terrible.

But from an economic and stock market perspective, we just think it is too early to say that numbers for the year we're gonna be blowing out because of the several week event, and we do believe that there is going to be some collateral damage, but we don't know the facts yet in what has happened because of the fear gauge in the reactionary phase.

And everyone now is a closet or couch epidemiologist we all seem to figure out or have our own viewing with this is gonna end.

Nobody knows when the headlines are gonna end, and we're only one headline away from the market being down another 10% or 20%.

I think it's fruitless to say how much more the market's gonna go up or down from here.

What is the most important thing is that investors stick with their process.

They have a discussion with their investment advisor.

They think about their risk tolerance in the position.

Accordingly, we have you on record saying that the S and P TSX would hit 18,200.

Is it time to temper that forecast?

And I can't imagine there's any way of knowing or predicting this Black Swan.

I don't know if it's a Black Swan, either, but I would say this is the time to temper.

No, it's not.

Maybe the internal parts of that may change, but we are not in a position to change our target at this point.

There's some things that have changed in the marketplace in terms of interest rates, that kind of change models on how you look at targets.

So we believe that that still supports where we are on a target basis.

But mo mentum happens in both directions, right on a near term basis, not to the degree that we've seen the last few weeks.

But remember, the fourth quarter of 2018 was terrible.

We had a 19 almost 20% correction in U.

S.

Markets and Canadian markets.

Well, we fired it right back up almost in the 1st 6 weeks of 2019.

Many people forget that.

So am I calling for the V in my calling for the W and my calling for the U SHAPE recovery not only in terms of stocks, I'm calling for a recovery.

I'm calling that we will ultimately see what we like to call in math the law of diminishing returns that we're going to start to see less and less and less negative news at some point.

Okay.

And with that, fundamentals are a reign supreme, and that's why we believe the fundamental construct of the Canadian market.

But certainly the United States market is really the place to be in terms of equities with respect to global investors.

You and I were having a conversation.

I want to say the end of 2019 where you had suggested that the Canadian markets would outperform the U.

S.

I think it's a little tougher now to say that especially considering what happened with oil.

Now the oil situation is, I think, from the shock that we saw with respect what the Saudis and the Russians did.

Okay, that's a shock, right.

However, investors should not be shocked with respect.

Overall oil weakness.

We've seen downward spiral or trend in oil prices for awhile.

What's interesting is that Canadian energy companies have actually all performed the price of the commodity recently, but we don't think it's time to sell energy.

We think it's time to be a little bit more prudent in our energy picks, especially in the United States, because the United States companies have actually been spending more money.

Canadian companies, actually from a profitability standpoint in cash well standpoint and certainly debt standpoint, have corn unquote received in and put a lot more religion into their models and how they're running their businesses.

So we still favor Canadian companies in terms of energy versus us cos we think Canadian companies will weather this quote unquote storm a lot better.

What should retail investors?

D'oh!

I guess my my fall of question to that would be, you know, do you sell the dip?

Did you get out of energy?

But listening to you just now you're You're not suggesting that Well, there's this whole notion in our business in terms of financial service is and especially investment manager of smart money and dumb money.

Okay, When I learned the business 30 years ago, my very first mentor on Wall Street was William O'Neal.

And it will in no kneeling company investors, Dale and used to tell me that Brian, retail money, too dumb money and institutional money is the smart money.

It is completely flip flop or something completely foot block.

Institutional money so driven for near term performance, trying to pick the bottom, trying to be the smartest person in the room.

Avoid trying to be the smartest person in the room.

You know how you could be the smartest person.

The rumors have a plan, so that's more important than ever to speak to your investment adviser.

Talk about your individual risk tolerance.

Asset allocation is a personal thing for every single investor models or difficulty imprint on everyone.

Your personal s allocations The most important thing we have.

We seen this movement to bonds.

Now that bond become bonds, become more of a risky asset in your portfolio, and you talked your investment adviser.

But what we've seen with respect to the people that own some of our product at B mo and other firms, we've seen that the retail investor actually has embraced this low turnover effect and how we look at portfolios to stick with the best Cos If you liked X y Z company 10 days ago, you like a lot better now, especially if you already own X Y Z company.

Because it's a high quality company.

It's even Maur high quality today.

What sectors should investors be looking at right now?

What sectors should they be getting out of?

We're really concerned about this whole binary move, meaning one direction move into things like utilities or consumer staples.

I mean, honestly, are we going to have a run on bleach and list Doreen forever.

The answer is no.

I think that's a reactionary kind of more of an emotional move.

The opposite of that is you've got energy industrials, financials, even tech the rolling correction territory now so correct.

So tech, tech, you know you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Tech was one of the best performing sectors the last couple of years that some of that is good old fashioned profit taking.

Okay, because of where they have been, However, we believe where investors should be is not in utilities or staples, but more along the lines of those premier kind of longer term, high quality growth companies within the United States would be within technology.

Communication service is some select financials that don't have this massive overhang in terms of net interest margin those financial that have multi divisional assets underneath them, and then some very, very select consumer discretionary.

Why?

Because the consumer really runs the U.

S.

Economy on the industrial Seidler.

So I think that there's a great opportunity for those high quality industrial companies that benefit from or of a domestic recovery in the United States.

within its railroad companies or waste management companies or some machinery companies.

United States We've got some great industrial companies here in Canada.

So from the Canadian perspective, we would still look to those companies in financials that pay the strong dividend that have great cash flow and within communications service.

Is those areas again that have a long standing tradition of paying steady and increasing the dividend?

Earlier on in the conversation, you had mentioned interest rates and do we need to see fiscal policy?

We've seen monetary policy on both sides of the divide.

But do we need to see fiscal policy?

Monetary policy is not going to stop the effect of the headlines.

Write clearly.

Now its fiscal policy going to do that?

Probably not, either.

We need to see less and less headlines and bad news on Corona virus, period.

On the fiscal side, they're probably needs to see something from both countries met.

One.

That's Canada and the United States.

See something from the fiscal side.

What or not that's tax cuts or work, program or infrastructure.

Something like that.

We believe that something is coming that takes a little bit more time to put together in terms of all the constituencies and you have the government involved in trying to get everybody to agree in these types of things.

So we're probably going to see something from both sides.

But we don't believe that you need fiscal and monetary.

What you need is to stop hearing about the bad news.