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.