da werde ich alter pusher (laut FSY Thread) mich mal wieder an die arbeit machen ;-)
Canada's the place to be, says U.S. mutual fund manager.
By Keith Woolhouse, Canwest News ServiceMay 1, 2009
Robert Loest doesn't want to curry favour, and he's not asking you to invest in his Integrity Growth and Income Fund, a no-load ethical fund which, since its inception in 1995, has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 index and the Lipper Multi-Cap Core Index.
No, let me take that back. Loest, senior portfolio manager, would love to have you to invest in his fund, but it is not possible for foreigners to invest in U.S mutual funds.
"You guys are liable to be terrorists," he says, and, yes, he is joking. "It's just about impossible for us to sell mutual funds to foreigners, even to Canadians. It's a messed up system."
I need to tell you this because when Loest says he considers Canada is one of the best places in the world to invest, with fabulous companies that hold tremendous promise, there is no ulterior motive. Loest means it, and I suspect that if he could pack a fund with all-Canadian companies, he would.
He is less complimentary about Wall Street, corporate shenanigans and America's debt that crashed markets worldwide.
"Canadians have made a lot more sensible decisions in a lot of areas than Americans have. We've been driven crazy by the notion that we can retire on rising asset values and people made a lot of big gambles on that and it didn't work.
"Canadian investors have an opportunity here to steer clear of the mentality of Wall Street. You have some great companies - Bombardier, Research in Motion, Potash Corp., and some big machinery companies. They may not have the sales of the Dow industrials, but that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not people should own them. They have reasonable liquidity."
Loest is bullish for Canada's mining resources such as molybdenum and both precious and basic metals. He's cautious on the outlook for oil and oil-service stocks, preferring the natural gas sector where he sees more demand, and is positive for agricultural resources, fertilizers, potash and nitrogen.
"Even if things slow down a lot in Europe and the U.S., industries still need steel, we don't get tools without molybdenum, people build stuff, things still break, people still have to repair roads and bridges and buildings. There is a demand that's growing in the natural resource area that we're not going to see in things like consumer discretionary, retail and banking.
"Canada's opportunity is that it has the natural resources the rest of the world needs.
"The U.S. doesn't have resources like that and Canadian investors should be overweighted in them, but cautiously, because those prices are so volatile."
Loest owns EnCana Corp., Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, and Agnico-Eagle Mines, and considers the gold miner to be the "best gold mining company on the planet for its low-cost output."
At one time, he owned Thompson Creek Metals and plans to do so again, reasoning that without molybdenum, essential for hardening steel, any industrial rebound will be difficult.
He likes Shaw Communications, which also trades on the New York Stock Exchange, Hammond Power Solutions, WaterFurnace Renewable Energy Inc., headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Newmont Mining Corp.
A problem for Canadian investors, I suggest, is that Bay Street follows Wall Street's lead and any blip in the Big Apple results in major indigestion in Toronto. We're looking for the U.S. to pull the world up by its bootstraps, particularly as the Canadian stock market has suffered as much as the U.S.
"I'm quite happy to be wrong about this," replies Loest, "but I think Canadians need to get over that. This isn't going to happen this time. What's going to save Canada is good management of its natural resources and a sane fiscal and tax policy, instead of trying to be like Americans.
"So, if the U.S. market continues to labour, the Canadian market may not follow that path. I think it won't. Canada has been tied to the fortunes of the U.S. for a long time, but given the future benefits of a natural-resource based economy, as well as a First World industrial economy, I think Canada has the best of both worlds. You've got a great democracy.
"You're paying tax rates that are saner in relation to the expectations of citizens for what those tax rates will buy them and you have a huge amount of exportable natural resources, so what we'll see over the next several years is a divergence between Canada's fortunes and U.S. fortunes.
"If I were a Canadian I'd be cautious about investing in the U.S. because . . . I think the U.S. dollar is at an artificially high level right now because it's a safety issue."
Loest also favours Canadian companies for their higher dividends and better corporate governance standards.
For the next several years, he expects the best gains to come from dividends and short-term trading.
"We're not in a bull market where you can let your money just ride, where you can invest for the long term. It's a market where people have to look for income, primarily for safety, and for me that means high-quality corporate bonds and it means actual resources in the ground, provided they can be bought at a reasonable price, and they can right now.
"I think we could be seeing, in the next year or two, one of the greatest bull markets of all time in commodities, which is going to benefit Canada enormously. The demand for a lot of natural resources is just going to go through the roof and Canada has the huge natural resource gifts the U.S. needs."
Ottawa Citizen
mfg
me
Zurück
