That brings us to the next commodity, copper.  As many of you have read my quarterlies in the past it is no secret that I am a long term fan of copper.  There is a current belief as goes the price of oil so goes copper.  I firmly disagree with that view; however in the very short term financial players will be able to move the commodity price lower if they are so inclined.  Copper unlike oil is not in over supply.  January typically is a copper storage build month as the Chinese slow down their buying as they go into the Chinese New Year leaving market players a quiet market to move price.  The same time last year, many experts predicted copper would be in surplus in 2014.  In fact copper ended in deficit for the year that just passed.  If in fact global growth is still in a slow recovery copper demand will continue to grow at a reasonable pace as has been the case the last few years.  It is the supply side that experts believe will put downward pressure on price.  The final quarter of the year has had the CRU and Wood Mackenzie revise their forecast for surpluses of plus 500,000 tonnes to less than 300,000 tonnes and as low as 150,000 tonnes.  The leading producer and trader of the red metal, Glencore in their most recent investor presentation states they believe there will be a significant deficit in 2015 and takes the very predictions of the industry analysts on mine supply and shows exactly where they have been too aggressive in their supply expectations.  The companies in the sector have some great growth prospects with solid balance sheets and historically very undervalued equities on every metric; P/NAV and P/CF.  My favorite of the group is Lundin Mining.

The portfolio has a market weight in golds, focused on companies that have good growth and good management to execute the strategy.  The favorite names include RioAlto, Semafo and Richmont Mines.  Gold has had a significant run recently despite the strength of the U.S. dollar.  The new price band appears to be in the $1200 to $1300/oz.  As the world worries about deflation or inflation and currencies and being thrashed about gold seems to have found a base to build from and many mid size companies have interesting projects providing good investment upside.

Technology is an area I continue to look for more companies to invest in.  In Canada, there still is a limited supply of good small cap tech names which I believe will rectify in time as more companies seem to be in the pipeline to come public.  Despite that I still have an overweight in the space to offset the resource sector.

With the volatility of the resource sector this year, exasperated by the downward movement in energy I have reduced my over/under weight of sectors to neutralize some to the sector movements until a clearer picture emerges from the global economy.  As always however my bias is towards growth!

If there are any questions or concerns you would like to discuss, by all means please do not hesitate to contact me directly.  In conclusion, I wish you a healthy and prosperous 2015.

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