Ned Goodman, lead portfolio manager at Dynamic funds, is another phenomenal investor here in Canada.  In an article in the National Post last month, he doesn't think oil and commodities are in a bubble.

"First of all I'm an optimist," said Ned, who's a friend of mine, in his opening remarks. "That's because I've never met a rich pessimist."

The Dundee/Dynamic family of funds have outperformed most and their portfolio managers are all top-ranked, both in Canada and internationally. For instance, Rohit Sehgal, Chief Investment Strategy guy at Dynamic, was ranked the world's second smartest hedge fund manager this year by Barron's. He runs its Dynamic Power Hedge Fund and lots of other stuff.

What's best about attending such an event as this, apart from flying on a private jet with Ned to get there, is the collection of brilliant investment nuggets that are pure gold to investors. So here are a few gathered from the speakers this afternoon:

• "The bull market in commodities will last for another decade," said Ned.
• Oil at $130 a barrel is "not a bubble" because commodity prices are being driven by international supply and demand realities.
• Three game-changing companies, identified by Adam Domsky of Dynamic's Focus funds, are: Apple ($21 a share in cash, no debt and only 1% of cellphone market); Roche Group of Switzerland which is concentrating on cancer cures not bandaid pharma treatments and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is undervalued because it benefits from the slowing U.S. economy as well as 4% share buyback announcement.
• Three themes investors should keep in mind for at least the next ten years: FOOD (staples and healthcare); SHELTER (infrastructure, engineering, materials) and ENERGY.
• The credit crisis is not over yet, more writedowns, so it's too early to buy "financials" like banks and other intermediaries.
• Top 10 stocks in Dynamic's "growth" portfolio: RIM; Potash; Agrium; Petroleos Brasilia; Duvernay Oil; PetroBank Energy; Reliance (India's largest conglomerate); Niko (junior exploration in partnership with Reliance in the world's largest gas discovery); Suncor and Pacific Rubiales Energy.
• Outlook for gold is a steady annual increase of US$100 an ounce indefinitely because of supply-demand factors, said Rob Cohen, the group's mining analyst.
• Oil will be "bullish for 30 to 60 days", there will be volatility in the price and natural gas prices will increase dramatically on a global basis, said its oil analyst Andrew Taylor.

Inflation fears are overstated, said many speakers, because the brake on it is the deflationary factors such as collapsed housing prices in the U.S. as well as the continuing flood of cheap exports out of Asia to the rest of the world, thus lowering living costs.

"There will be inflation for some time. It's not like the 1970s, but there will be continuous inflation because of the rise in commodity prices," said Ned. So it's time to pick stocks, rather than rely on indices to rise.