The Number One Precious Metals Fund

Today the Federal Reserve Board cut lending rates by another half percentage point bringing the key government lending rate to 3%. This follows last week's 75 point cut which makes this month's action by the Fed the most aggressive cut in rates by the Federal Reserve in history. While the Fed tries to save the US Customer who has maxed out their debt and is seeing their equity in their number one investment (their home) eroded by falling real estate prices, gold and other commodities continue to benefit from the falling US dollar.

One very easy and effective way to get some more exposure to the rising price of Gold is through a Precious Metals Fund. The 20 year bear market in precious metals eliminated many of the funds and experts in that area from the mutual fund industry. With renewed interest in precious metals investing, we are starting to see more precious metal funds pop up. The key behind choosing any mutual fund is finding out who is making the decisions. You are paying a hefty MER (usually between 2 and 3%) for this expertise and thus should know who you are trusting your hard earned money with. With the recent departure of Charles Oliver from the AGF Precious Metals Fund, this decision just became a little harder since Oliver's Fund was a great performer averaging 26% return over the last five years. The index only averaged 16% return. The sign of a good fund manager is someone who can pick high performing equities for his portfolo that are outpacing the general index.

With the departure of Oliver from AGF, another "young gun" has risen to the top of the Precious Metals Fund Manager List. His name is Kevin Maclean and his Fund is called the Sentry Select Precious Metals Fund. Kevin started the fund at Sentry Select in August of 2004. At that time, the fund had a net asset value of $13.85 per unit. By January of 2008, the NAV of Kevin's Fund had ballooned to $41.05 giving him an exceptional 3 and a half year return of 207%. In other words, $10 000 dollars invested in the Fund in 2004 would now be worth $40 000.

Kevin Maclean began his investment career in Precious Metals working with one of the most respected managers in the Fund Industry, John Embry at RBC. This experience proved invaluable in assisting him in getting the know the ins and outs of the mining industry. He applied his engineering background to the analysis of mining potentials of companies and used this to assist him in picking the winners in the industry. He is an active trader and thus has taken advantage of the volatile precious metals sector, locking in profits and buying equities when they are on sale. He recently was the Winner of the 2007 Canadian Lipper Fund Award* for Sentry Select Precious Metals Growth Fund: best risk-adjusted performance (over three years) in its category. The Fund was also the top performer in the precious metals category in 2005 and 2006.

The current top nine holdings of the fund include:
1/Yamana Gold-7%
2/Osisko-6%
3/Kinross Gold-5%
4/ Quadra Mining-4%
5/ Silvercorp-5%
6/ Jaguar Mining-5%
7/ Semafo-4%
8/ IAMGOLD-4%
9/ First Uranium-4%

Kevin Maclean's strategy is to pick mid-tier to small cap stocks that are prime takeovers or have a huge growth profile ahead of them. He is an active trader and thus his portfolio changes as value surfaces in the precious metals industry. One of his newest holdings, Jaguar Mining, has performed over a 100% in the last six months.

An investment in Sentry Select Precious Metals fund secures you a highly leveraged position in the Gold Bull Market. It also ensures that you have a proven expert in the industry making non-emotional decisions for you that have the potential to net you huge gains in your investment portfolio.