By: Larry MacDonald

Using the TFSA as a place to dabble with one’s “mad money” may not be such a bad thing after all, judging from the comments section to my previous post. So let’s go with the flow and ruminate on a few investing ideas for the Jesse-Livermore types (hey, I’ve done some plunging in my time, too).

One avenue for the aggressive investor is penny stocks, or the juniors. At least they are straightforward vehicles compared to commodity futures, stock options, and triple-leveraged exchange-traded funds.

And their time may have come. The best time to speculate in high flyers is when stock markets are rallying out of a bearish phase, as could be happening now — or should be happening within the next year or so. They’re still beaten up, yet a rising tide will lift all boats (except for my Nortel stock, of course). And many of these little boats will really fly with a good tailwind (but can also sink when they spring a leak – need I mention Nortel again?).

There is a front-page column by Dave Skarica in the latest issue of the Investor’s Digest of Canada with many small-cap suggestions, mostly junior mining operations “that possess ounces in the ground in reserves and are in, or going into, production.” Picking at random from the article, three of the recommendations were (do your own due diligence first, of course):

Paramount Gold and Silver
Aberdeen International
Silverstone Resources

Investor’s Digest has been published since the 1970s and is available by subscription, at newsstands, and online through adviceforinvestors.com.