AGM recap

This was our third year of consensus investing and the results have been mixed.  At our annual review on Dec 6th, we discussed possible future investments.  Here is a summary:

• refocus on short to medium term investments- 3 to 6 month time frame should keep ideas fresh as well as frequent reevaluation
• focus on capital gains and less on dividend type plays that take may take longer to play out
• Cdn investments seem preferable at this time due to it's stronger banking and debt situation as compared to other regions of the world
• continue holding RY for exposure to the Cdn financials, although we may have been early on this one
• we already have broad commodities exposure via COWS - an agricultural ETF - and a debate about further commoditiy exposure to either oil or gold was considered
• we lamented the fact that Canada's economy was mostly commodities and RIM, and Lululemon - there is virtually no retail investments (with a brief mention of Loblaws and Shoppers)
• considered an investment in the only growth story in Canada - LULU but a cautious approach was taken as it has already moved up considerably
• a gold position was considered to capture the upward momentum with the European debt crisis playing out
• gold is a neutral currency, a safe haven investment, as well as an inflation hedge
• an exit strategy for the proposed gold/precious metals investment would include looking at the correlation between the general market and gold (i.e. if the market was moving ahead but gold plateaued, we would consider that a sell signal)
• bonds, uranium, timber, pharma, and tech were given passing consideration

We have yet to execute the precious metals play to round out our portfolio, but I will take advantage of the recent pull back in gold soon.  As always, more ideas welcome.

Bullish on Oil?

After wavering about the price of oil in this Euro crisis environment, I read this article about why the recent strength in oil will continue.

Why $100 crude is imminent.

Not sure why a winding down of contango would cause the spot to spike, because as tankers are brought on shore to unload their cargo, the spot market would be flooded causing price weakness. Or perhaps what the author is suggesting is that as the price of oil has risen in the past year, specs have gradually already unloaded their 'contango' positions?

I hate it when I don't fully understand their logic. Buyer beware!