Topic: How To Invest

Pat: What do you think about buying one or more of the following funds: the Dynamic Global Growth Opportunities Fund, the Picton Mahoney Long Short Equity Fund and the Sprott Hedge Fund. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: The Dynamic Global Growth Opportunities Fund, the Picton Mahoney Long Short Equity Fund and the Sprott Hedge fund take both long and short positions in securities, as do most hedge funds. Those two activities differ widely. When you buy high-quality stocks and diversify, you tend to profit automatically over long periods. That’s because well-run companies themselves tend to profit over long periods due to economic growth, population gains, improved technology and productivity, and so on. (That’s why we recommend that you buy high-quality stocks and diversify across most if not all of the five main economic sectors.) Short selling, on the other hand, is pure speculation. It’s also what mathematicians call a “negative sum game.” That’s where the winners must outguess the losers by a large enough margin to achieve a gain after first covering their costs. Moreover, the returns from short selling are upside down, compared…