Month: March 2015

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Went to the theatre to see The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel on the weekend and highly recommend it for a fun evening out.   It’s a feel good movie and the acting by Dev Patel is as superb as the first one.

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy were as terrific as the last one.  It’s always good to laugh….

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

London mayor Boris Johnson (l.) plants waterlilies at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, west London, Monday. Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

A litter of piglets thrive at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Mass., Monday. They are the first babies born there this spring. The Village opens April 11 with the Baby Animal Exhibit. Ben Garver/The Berkshire Eagle/AP

Market Closes for March 16^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17977.42	+228.11
		+1.29%
S&P 500	2081.19	+27.79   +1.35%
NASDAQ	4919.036	+47.277   +0.97%
TSX	14862.76	+131.26
		+0.89%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19246.06	-8.19
		-0.04%
HANG SENG	23949.55	+126.34
		+0.53%
SENSEX	28437.71	-65.59
		-0.23%
FTSE 100	6804.08	+63.50
		+0.94%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.437	1.476
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.074	2.111
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.0735	2.1140
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.6488	2.6987

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.78276	0.78221
US $	1.27754	1.27843
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.34998	0.74075
US $	1.05671	0.94633

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1150.75	1152.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	43.88	44.84

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose the most in five weeks, as Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. climbed to a record on deal news and the nation’s largest lenders led a rally in financials shares.

     Valeant gained 2.5 percent after boosting its offer for Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., besting rival Endo International Plc. Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. increased 2.4 percent after agreeing to buy 21 stores in the U.S. SouthGobi Resources Ltd. rose 3.6 percent after its chief executive officer resigned. Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. and Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. slumped more than 6.4 percent as oil fell to a six-year low.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 131.26 points, or 0.9 percent, to 14,862.76 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the biggest advance since Feb. 3. The S&P/TSX tumbled 1.5 percent last week. It has advanced 1.6 percent in 2015.

     Canadian Pacific Railway climbed 2.4 percent as industrials shares rallied 1.5 percent as a group. All 10 industries in the S&P/TSX rose on trading volume 12 percent below the 30-day average.

     Canadian Pacific advanced after renewing its share buyback program, seeking to repurchase as much as 6 percent of the company’s shares held by public investors.

     Bank of Nova Scotia rallied 1.6 percent and Bank of Montreal added 1.1 percent as the S&P/TSX Banks index jumped 0.9 percent.

     Valeant rose after Salix accepted the drugmaker’s sweetened $11.1 billion takeover offer. Endo dropped its rival bid of $175 a share in cash and stock in the face of Valeant’s $173 a share all-cash offer.

     Salix’s biggest products are for gastrointestinal disorders, including Xifaxan for travelers’ diarrhea. It agreed last month to be acquired by Valeant for about $10 billion in cash.

     Pacific Rubiales tumbled 13 percent and Canadian Oil Sands sank 6.4 percent as West Texas Intermediate oil slumped to the lowest level since March 2009.

     U.S. crude inventories have increased to the highest level since at least 1982, according to the Energy Information Administration, worsening a global supply glut as production continues to rise.

     Barrick Gold Corp. slipped 0.7 percent and Tahoe Resources Inc. lost 8.5 percent as gold futures traded near a three-month low. The U.S. Federal Reserve meets this week to discuss whether the economy has gained enough steam to remove a pledge to be “patient” on raising borrowing costs.

US

By Callie Bost

     (Bloomberg) — The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose the most since Feb. 3, amid corporate deals and as investors weighed the timing of interest-rate increases after lower-than-forecast economic data.

     Health-care companies in the S&P 500 Index advanced 2.2 percent as Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. accepted a sweetened, $11.1 billion takeover offer from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. Life Time Fitness Inc. rose 5.2 percent after agreeing to be bought by private equity firms.

     The S&P 500 Index climbed 1.4 percent to 2,081.19 at 4 p.m. in New York, and moved back above its average price for the past 50 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 228.11 points, or 1.3 percent, to 17,977.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 1.2 percent. About 6.3 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 8.3 percent below the three-month average.

     “People are thinking it’s not a given that the Fed is going to move toward raising rates any time soon,” Donald Selkin, the chief market strategist at New York-based National Securities, which oversees $3 billion, said by phone. “You’ve seen weaker reports and a drop in bond yields.”

     The yield on 10-year Treasuries earlier fell as much as five basis points to 2.06 percent, the lowest in two weeks.

     The S&P 500 has lost 1.7 percent from a record on March 2, as a surging dollar stoked concern earnings growth will be lower than investors project. A gauge of the currency versus its major peers retreated, after posting four weeks of gains, before Fed officials start a two-day meeting Tuesday.                          

     Speculation that a strengthening economy is pushing the central bank closer to an interest-rate increase has weighed on U.S. equities, making them among the worst performers in 24 developed markets this year.

     The Fed may remove the pledge to be “patient” with raising interest rates at this week’s meeting, according to predictions by firms including BNP Paribas SA. While the Fed is moving closer to raising rates, central banks in Europe and Asia are taking steps to bolster growth.

     Factory production in the U.S. declined in February for a third consecutive month, a sign cutbacks in manufacturing will hold back economic growth this quarter. An earlier report showed an index of manufacturing in the New York region fell in March.

     Confidence among U.S. homebuilders unexpectedly retreated this month to an eight-month low as prospective buyers were in little rush to shop for properties ahead of the busier spring selling season.                      

     After six years of bull market amid Fed stimulus, volatility is back in U.S. stocks. The S&P 500, which never went more than three days without a gain in 2014, has twice posted five-day losing streaks this year. Daily equity moves exceeding 1 percent have jumped 50 percent from last year and shares slid 3 percent or more over four stretches in the first quarter.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index slid 2.4 percent to 15.61. The gauge of S&P 500 options prices posted its second consecutive weekly gain March 13.

     Nine of 10 main industries in the S&P 500 advanced. Health- care soared 2.2 percent, and utilities rose 1.7 percent as yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries fell to the lowest since Feb.27. Industrial shares added more than 1.6 percent.

     UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Merck & Co. jumped at least 1.6 percent, among the biggest gains in the Dow. Procter & Gamble Co. added 2.1 percent after people with knowledge of the matter said the company is exploring a sale or initial public offering of some of its beauty brands in a single deal.                          

     Salix climbed 2 percent. Valeant’s revised $173-a-share offer adds about $1 billion in cash for Salix stockholders. Valeant rose 2.5 percent. The sweetened deal led rival bidder Endo International Plc. to withdraw its offer of $175 a share in cash and stock. Endo increased 2.7 percent.

     Drugmakers developing a new generation of cholesterol treatments surged Monday after releasing data that showed the injections cut the rate of major cardiac events and death as they slashed bad cholesterol.

     Amgen Inc. rose 5.7 percent, the most since October. Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. both climbed at least 3.3 percent, with Regeneron reaching a record.

     Life Time Fitness jumped 5.2 percent. The investor group, which also includes LNK Partners and Life Time’s chief executive officer, Bahram Akradi, will pay $72.10 a share in cash for the Chanhassen, Minnesota-based company, according to a statement Monday. The deal is one of the biggest buyouts of the year.

     Edwards Lifesciences Corp. soared 9.8 percent to a record.  The company’s newer, thinner heart valve had lower death and stroke rates than the company’s older devices, a study found. The valve, Sapien 3, is already available in Europe, and Irvine, California-based Edwards has said it expects U.S. approval early next year.                        

     Energy stocks climbed 1.4 percent, erasing an earlier 0.8 percent decline, led by gains of at least 2.9 percent in EOG Resources Inc. and Noble Energy Inc. Oil futures slumped to the lowest level since March 2009.

     Netflix Inc. lost 3.8 percent, the most in more than two months, after Evercore ISI analyst Ken Sena cut shares to sell from hold, citing increasing competition from existing and emerging content distributors.

     Raw-material companies were the only group to fall as DuPont Co. lost 4.3 percent, the most since October 2012. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Kevin McCarthy cut shares to underperform from buy, in part citing the impact on results from a stronger dollar. Alcoa Inc. and Freeport-McMoran Inc. fell more than 0.9 percent.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

As long as the brain, which is so heavily conditioned, is measuring, “the more,” ‘the better,”

moving psychologically from this to that, it must inevitably bring about a sense of conflict, and this is disorder.

Not only the words more and better, but the feeling, the reaction, of achieving,

gaining – as long as there is this division, duality, there must be conflict.  And out of conflict is disorder.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

                                  -Babe Ruth, 1895-1948

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1969, “The Love Bug” opened in theaters across the U.S. The movie is a Walt Disney film about a down-on-his-luck auto racer who goes on a winning streak after teaming up with a Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie. Because of its box-office success, it spawned other cinematic spinoffs including the 2005 movie “Herbie: Fully Loaded” with Lindsay Lohan.

And tomorrow is the most magical day of the year: Pi Day.
 
It’s also the most magical year of the century: Pi Year.

That is, tomorrow’s date is 3/14/15, which matches up nicely with the first five digits of pi, the ratio of every circle’s circumference to its diameter: 3.1415.

 

C/d = π. (kjoonlee)

What’s more, at precisely 9:26:53 am, we’ll have Pi Second: an even more magical time at which the date and time match up with the first 10 digits of pi, 3.141592653.

But it doesn’t stop there. As University of Toronto statistician Jeffrey S. Rosenthal has pointed out, at an infinitesimally brief moment just after 9:26:53.58979 am but slightly before 9:26:53.5898 am, we’ll have Pi Instant.

At this impossibly short moment, our particular civilization’s way of marking the amount of time elapsed since an arbitrary datein history will match perfectly with every single digit of pi, an irrational number that literally never ends (when expressed in abase 10 numbering system, or any system that uses a natural number as its base).

Pi will ring throughout the land. It will extend to infinity. For the briefest of moments, pi will fill the gap in your soul.

The ancient Babylonians knew of pi’s existence nearly 4000 years ago. Illustration: Pi Island by fdecomite licensed under CC BY 2.0

Savor this moment. Appreciate it. Think of circles.

It won’t happen again until 2115, when you’ll probably be dead.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Yang Jini, South Korean chief curator of gallery IHN, places leaves to complete the artwork ‘Untitled,’ by South Korean artist Kim Myeongbeom, during the VIP preview of the art fair ‘Art Basel’ in Hong Kong Friday. Art Basel stages modern and contemporary art shows and is held annually in Basel, Switzerland, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong. Kin Cheung/AP

 

Nico de Boinville celebrates winning the 15.20 Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase on Coneygree at the Cheltenham Festival Friday in England. Dylan Martinez/Livepic/Reuters

Market Closes for March 13^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17749.31	-145.91
		-0.82%
S&P 500	2053.40	-12.55   -0.61%
NASDAQ	4871.758	-21.533   -0.44%
TSX	14731.50	-39.22
		-0.27%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19254.25	+263.14
		+1.39%
HANG SENG	23823.21	+25.25
		+0.11%
SENSEX	28503.30	-427.11
		-1.48%
FTSE 100	6740.58	-20.49
		-0.30%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.476	1.494
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.111	2.131
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1140	2.1156
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.6987	2.6995

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.78221	0.78788
US $	1.27843	1.26922
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.34253	0.74486
US $	1.05014	0.95225

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1152.00	1152.25
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	44.84	47.05

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, capping a second weekly loss, as the nation’s unemployment rate jumped to a five- month high while financial companies and energy producers retreated with the price of oil.

     Canadian Energy Services & Technology Corp. and Gran Tierra Energy Inc. retreated at least 5.8 percent as oil posted a fourth weekly decline. Canexus Corp. lost 14 percent after slashing its quarterly dividend. Cascades Inc. slumped 11 percent after revenue and earnings fell short of analysts’ estimates.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 39.23 points, or 0.3 percent, to 14,731.49 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The S&P/TSX has tumbled 1.5 percent this week, and briefly erased gains for the year both today and on Tuesday.

     Penn West Petroleum Ltd. dropped 5.2 percent and Surge Energy Inc. lost 3.1 percent as energy stocks declined 0.4 percent as a group. Seven of 10 industries in the benchmark Canadian equity gauge retreated on trading volume 16 percent lower than the 30-day average.

     West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery slid 4.7 percent in New York to $44.84, extending the week’s decline to 9.6 percent, the biggest weekly slump since December. The International Energy Agency said record crude inventories in the U.S. may begin to strain the country’s storage capacity.

     Canada’s jobless rate rose to 6.8 percent, the highest since September, from 6.6 percent in January. Nationwide employment fell by 1,000 positions, ahead of the average economists’ estimate of a 5,000 job decline according to a survey by Bloomberg News.

     Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. rose 3.3 percent, snapping a three-day slide. The drugmaker will issue about $10 billion of debt to help fund its proposed acquisition of Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

     Salix is the target of a bidding war, with Endo International Plc offering $175 a share in cash and stock for the company, versus Valeant’s agreement last month to pay $158 a share entirely in cash.

US

By Callie Bost

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its third straight weekly decline, as a dollar rally weighed on raw-material and industrial companies.

     International Business Machines Corp. and United Technologies Corp. lost more than 2 percent. Halliburton Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. declined as crude oil retreated amid rising supplies. Raw material companies slid 1 percent.

     The S&P 500 Index slipped 0.6 percent to 2,053.4 at 4 p.m. in New York. The gauge pared losses of as much as 1.2 percent as energy companies trimmed declines in the final half hour of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 145.91 points, or 0.8 percent, to 17,749.31. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.4 percent. About 6.8 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 2.1 percent below the three-month average.

     “We need the dollar and oil to settle down or we’re going to see more big moves,” Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab Corp., said by telephone. “A lot of this volatility we’ve seen recently is related to most of the data indicating that the Fed’s rate hike is very likely coming in June.”

     The dollar advanced against the euro, rebounding from a drop on Thursday that was the most since Feb. 5. A dollar gauge against its major peers has jumped 8 percent this year, set for the biggest quarterly gain since 2008.

     The U.S. currency’s rise to a 12-year high versus the euro has helped drag American stocks down 3 percent since a record on March 2, amid concern earnings growth will be lower than investors project.                      

     Consumer confidence declined in March to a four-month low as optimism about the U.S. economy was tempered by weaker income expectations and a rebound in gasoline prices.

     The University of Michigan said Friday its preliminary consumer sentiment index decreased to 91.2 this month from 95.4 in February. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 95.5.

     An earlier report showed wholesale prices in the U.S. unexpectedly declined in February for a fourth consecutive month, reflecting cheaper food and a slump in profit margins among wholesalers and retailers.

     Overall, U.S. economic data have been falling short of prognosticators’ expectations by the most in six years. The Bloomberg ECO U.S. Surprise Index, which measures whether data beat or miss forecasts, fell to the lowest since 2009, when the nation was in the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

     All 10 main groups of the S&P 500 declined as utilities and and raw-material shares fell at least 1 percent, leading losses. IBM and United Technologies slid at least 2 percent for the worst drops in the Dow.                          

     Miner Freeport-McMoran Inc. lost 4 percent and specialty metals producer Allegheny Technologies Inc. fell 5.8 percent to pace declines among raw-material companies. Alcoa Inc. slipped 1.7 percent.

     Energy companies in the S&P 500 dropped 0.5 percent after falling as much as 1.5 percent and briefly touching a two-year low. Halliburton decreased 2 percent, while Dow components Chevron and Exxon slumped at least 0.4 percent as West Texas Intermediate crude prices fell to the lowest in six weeks.

     Financial companies in the benchmark index lost 0.7 percent after rising 2.2 percent Thursday in their second-strongest advance this year. Charles Schwab Corp. slumped 2.3 percent, reversing yesterday’s 1.2 percent climb. Morgan Stanley slid 2 percent after Thursday posting its best gain since June.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index gained 3.8 percent to 16, after its biggest drop in a month Thursday. The gauge, known as the VIX, rose 14 percent last week, its biggest jump in five weeks.

     Harley-Davidson Inc. fell 3.4 percent to its lowest level since October after a report that the motorcycle maker is laying off 169 workers at a Kansas City, Missouri, factory.

     Herbalife Ltd. jumped 8.2 percent. The FBI is investigating a contractor hired by Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP and whether false statements were made to regulators, said two people familiar with the matter.

     Ackman accused Herbalife of misleading distributors, misrepresenting sales and selling a commodity product at inflated prices. His fund bet $1 billion against Herbalife’s shares.

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

Our responsibility is no longer to acquire, but to be.

Rabindranath Tagore

As ever,
 

Carolann

 

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

                            -Amelia Earhart, 1897-c.1939

 

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

 
Tangents:

                                                                                             
                                                    You may shoot me with your words.
                                                    You may cut me with your eyes.
                                                    You may kill me with your hatefulness.
                                                    But still, like air, I’ll rise.

                                                                        -Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

 

I was very moved by the commemorative events that took place last weekend to mark the  anniversary of the march for civil rights, a march led by  Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama fifty years ago.  Sadly, fifty  years doesn’t seem all that long ago.  If you haven’t seen the movie Selma yet, I highly recommend it.

The following article was published in the Montgomery newspaper today:

Selma-to-Montgomery marchers reach half way point

Walking down U.S. Highway 80 with a cane in his right hand, Anthony Lee looked straight ahead and said, “I’m 69 years old, and I’m going to prove I can do this.”

Lee has been marching from Selma to Montgomery since Monday with a group organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. By the end of Wednesday, he had walked 35 miles, with 19 more to go until he reaches the steps of the Capitol.

In 1965 he made the final leg of the journey led by Martin Luther King Jr.

“I marched from St. Jude (Hospital) on that final day because I was a student at Auburn at that time,” Lee said. “I didn’t take off the whole time, but I did meet them in Montgomery.”

What he doesn’t mention, at least not at first, is that he was the first African-American to enroll in Auburn as an undergraduate student. He also casually noted that he was the lead plaintiff on Lee v. Macon County Board of Education, a civil rights case that essentially desegregated Alabama’s public school system.

His is the general attitude maintained among the marchers — determined, modest, cheery despite the wearisome distance and rainy days. They came from as close as Dallas County and as far as Australia to complete the pilgrimage.

 

Zion Small, 9, carries the American Flag while leading a five day march on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, from Selma to Montgomery organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The march started on Monday and is scheduled to finish at the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday.  (Photo: Albert Cesare / Advertiser)

“It’s such a powerful thing to actually be a part of American history, to be able to physically take part in something we’ve only learned about before,” said Charley Landes, a high school senior from Colorado.

Thursday at 7 p.m. SCLC will host a gospel concert at Macedonia Baptist Church in Montgomery featuring the Wardlaw Brothers. Friday, it will host a pre-rally at Calhoun Super Foods before departing to walk the final miles to the Capitol steps. Upon arrival, it will host another rally. According to SCLC President Charles Steele, Gov. Robert Bentley will be present, among other speakers.

The organization wanted to mirror the schedule of events it held in 1965 when Dr. King led the group from Selma to Montgomery. The lineup about matches what happened in ’65, and some of the marchers say they’re pushing for the same rights as 50 years ago, but that’s where the similarities stop.

“As I walk along, I think about what they must have gone through, all the hatred,” said Katie Boykins of Dallas County. “For us, this is nothing.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

In this photo provided by NASA, the Soyuz TMA-14M capsule with International Space Station (ISS) crew members Barry Wilmore of the US, and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of Russia floats above the clouds as it descends beneath a parachute just before landing southeast of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan Thursday. Bill Ingalls/NASA/Reuters

An artwork of half a car, ‘Monolithe 147,’ created by Japanese artist Shunsuke Francois Nanjo, is displayed at the art fair ‘Art Central’ in Hong Kong Thursday. The piece was inspired by Japan’s March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. Art Central runs from March 13 to 16. Kin Cheung/AP

Market Closes for March 12^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17895.22	+259.83
		+1.47%
S&P 500	2065.95	+25.71   +1.26%
NASDAQ	4893.289	+43.348   +0.89%
TSX	14770.72	+31.52
		+0.21%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18991.11	+267.59
		+1.43%
HANG SENG	23797.96	+79.99
		+0.34%
SENSEX	28930.41	+271.24
		+0.95%
FTSE 100	6761.07	+39.56
		+0.59%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.494	1.500
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.131	2.135
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1156	2.1086
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.6995	2.6853

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.78788	0.78465
US $	1.26922	1.27445
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.34819	0.74174
US $	1.06222	0.94143

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1152.25	1150.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	47.05	48.17

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian rose a second day, after reaching a five-week low, as banks and insurers extended a rally to offset a drop among commodities producers.

     Sun Life Financial Inc. and Bank of Montreal rallied more than 1.2 percent to pace gains among financial stocks. Gran Tierra Energy Inc. and ARC Resources Ltd. lost at least 4.9 percent as oil producers slid. Loblaw Cos. rose 1.3 percent after introducing a produce brand selling “misshapen produce.”

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index added 31.52 points, or 0.2 percent, to 14,770.72 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The S&P/TSX has advanced 1 percent in 2015, rebounding after briefly paring gains for the year on Tuesday.

     Sun Life gained 2.1 percent, a one-month high, as financial stocks gained 0.8 percent as a group. The industry accounts for about a third of the broader equity gauge. Trading volume was 18 percent below the 30-day average at this time of the day.

     Onex Corp. climbed 3.1 percent to a record. Onex has returned 161 percent to shareholders over the past five years, compared with a 69 percent gain in the S&P Listed Private Equity Index, Bloomberg reported.

     Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. added 2.6 percent to pace gains among utilities shares. The stock slumped 17 percent in a two-day period ended March 9 after delaying its fourth-quarter earnings to March 26.

     Gran Tierra Energy lost 5.2 percent and Suncor Energy Inc. slipped 1.8 percent. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped to a six-week low on concern that production increases will add to a glut. U.S. inventories rose to the highest level since weekly data started in 1982.

     Loblaw rose 1.3 percent, the most in three weeks. The grocery store operator will sell its “Naturally Imperfect” line of misshapen produce including apples and potatoes in some Ontario and Quebec stores.

US

By Michelle F. Davis

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks climbed, after equities had their biggest two-day selloff in six weeks, as banks rose and an unexpected drop in retail sales bolstered the case for keeping interest rates low.

     Morgan Stanley, American Express Co. and Citigroup Inc. added at least 2.7 percent as they announced dividend payments and details on share buybacks after approval from the Federal Reserve following stress tests. Intel Corp. slid after cutting its first-quarter revenue outlook.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 1.3 percent to 2,065.95 at the close in New York, after losing 1.9 percent in the previous two sessions. The gauge climbed back above its average price for the past 50 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 259.83 points, or 1.5 percent, to 17,895.22. Both indexes posted their strongest gains in a month. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.9 percent.

     “I think this is a question of the bad news is good news, which is a reversal of what we had Friday when we got killed,” Donald Selkin, the chief market strategist at New York-based National Securities, which oversees $3 billion, said in a phone interview. “The only reason it’s good is in policy because it throws a wet blanket over the surety of them raising rates.”

     Concern the Fed may start raising interest rates amid a pickup in the economic recovery has weighed on equities this year. Policy makers next meet on March 17-18.

     Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly decreased in February for a third consecutive month as inclement weather and low wage gains restrained shoppers.

     The 0.6 percent drop followed a 0.8 percent decrease in January, Commerce Department figures showed Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 86 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.3 percent gain.

     The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits declined more than forecast last week, returning to a level consistent with an improving labor market. Initial claims dropped 36,000 to a three-week low of 289,000, a Labor Department report said.

     A preliminary report on Friday will show consumer sentiment held steady this month, economists forecast. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the U.S. economy.

     The dollar weakened versus the euro for the first time in three days as investors questioned whether gains of more than 2 percent this week will prompt the Fed to soften its stance on the timing of an interest-rate increase.

     “The weakness in the market has been based on that strong dollar,” Selkin said. “The dollar’s a little weaker today so maybe that’ll help.”

     The dollar’s rise to a 12-year high versus the euro has helped drag American stocks down 2.4 percent since a record on March 2, amid concern earnings growth will be lower than investors project.

     The rising dollar hurts technology companies disproportionately as it reduces the value of foreign-currency earnings when they are repatriated back to the U.S.

     Technology is the biggest industry in the S&P 500 with a 20 percent weighting, accounting for 19.3 percent of the index’s operating earnings last year, data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices show.

     Intel fell 4.7 percent to its lowest since July after the world’s largest chipmaker said first-quarter sales will be less than forecast, citing lower-than-anticipated demand for corporate computers and weakening economies, particularly in Europe.

     Semiconductor companies in the benchmark index declined 1.3 percent after yesterday snapping a six-day losing streak. Intel’s lower sales outlook also weighed on Microsoft Corp., with its shares falling 2.3 percent.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index dropped 8.6 percent to 15.42, the biggest drop in a month. The gauge, know as the VIX, rose 14 percent last week, its biggest jump in five weeks.

     Nine of 10 main groups in the S&P 500 advanced Thursday.

     Financial companies led gains, up 2.2 percent, and consumer discretionary added 2 percent. About 6.5 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 5.4 percent below the three-month average.

     Morgan Stanley rose 6.1 percent after boosting its payout to 15 cents a share, from 10 cents, and saying it will buy back as much as $3.1 billion of its own stock.

     American Express climbed 2.7 percent after unexpectedly raising its dividend. The company also increased the amount of authorized share repurchases to $6.6 billion.

     Citigroup added 3.3 percent after Fed approval to pay 5 cents a share in dividends and buy back as much as $7.8 billion of stock during the next five quarters, up from $1.2 billion over the past four.                       

     Mattel Inc. rose 4.2 percent after Wednesday reaching its lowest level since August 2011. Shares had dropped 7.3 percent since March 2. Tiffany & Co. climbed 2.5 percent after hitting its lowest in more than a year on Tuesday. The luxury retailer’s shares had slid 7.1 percent since March 2.

     Walt Disney Co. advanced 4.2 percent to a record amid its biggest gain in more than a month, after the company said it will release three “Star Wars” films during the next two years and 11 more Marvel movies in the next four years.

     Charter Communications Inc. climbed 5.9 percent after people with knowledge of the matter said the cable company is in talks to acquire billionaire Si Newhouse Jr.’s Bright House Networks.

     Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. tumbled 22 percent, the most in more than five years, after postponing a new drug application and saying its chief executive officer retired.

     Peabody Energy Corp. fell 4.9 percent to a 12-year low, and Consol Energy Inc. slid 3.8 percent to its lowest since 2013 after Bank of America analyst Timna Tanners cut the coal companies to underperform from neutral, citing lower coal price estimates.

     Drilling companies Nabors Industries Ltd. and Helmerich & Payne Inc. fell at least 1.6 percent as West Texas Intermediate oil prices retreated to a six-week low.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

Satisfy one’s desires, certainly, but which ones?

And to what extent?

To determine precisely what I want, and how.

Children?  Money?  Glory? How?

 

Swami Prajnanpad

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

                                            –Carol Burnett, 1933-

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1997, The Beatles lead singer Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his “service to music.” 54 years old at the time, Mr. McCartney, who hails from Liverpool, became Sir Paul in a centuries-old ceremony at Buckingham Palace in central London. -By Kristen Scholer, WSJ.

The video series Everyday Genius tests lots of different supposed solutions in search of the best way to tackle everyday household tasks, e.g., want a better way to peel a hard-boiled egg?  Host Kari Byron keeps the episodes short and to the point.  Find your favorite life hack at American Express’s YouTube channel: www.bit.ly/everydaygenius.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, talks to artist Gavin Turk about his painting ‘Portrait of Something that I’ll Never Really See’ during her visit to the Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kent, England, Wednesday. Suzanne Plunkett/AP

A woman lays flowers in front of photos of (from l. to r.) Florence Arthaud, Alexis Vastine and Camille Muffat at a remembrance ceremony at the French National Institute For Sports in Paris Wednesday. Olympic champion swimmer Muffat, Olympic bronze-medalist boxer Vastine and pioneering sailor Arthaud were among 10 people who died as two helicopters filming a reality show crashed in a remote part of Argentina on Monday. Remy de la Mauviniere/AP

Market Closes for March 11^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17635.39	-27.55
		-0.16%
S&P 500	2040.24	-3.92   -0.19%
NASDAQ	4849.941	-9.854   -0.20%
TSX	14739.20	+97.44
		+0.67%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18723.52	+58.41
		+0.31%
HANG SENG	23717.97	-179.01
		-0.75%
SENSEX	28659.17	-50.70
		-0.18%
FTSE 100	6721.51	+18.67
		+0.28%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.500	1.529
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.135	2.166
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1086	2.1191
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.6853	2.7152

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.78465	0.78816
US $	1.27445	1.26878
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.34386	0.74412
US $	1.05446	0.94835

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1150.00	1162.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	48.17	48.29

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, after tumbling to a five-week low Tuesday, as commodities producers and financial companies rebounded.

     Lightstream Resources Ltd. and Raging River Exploration Inc. rallied at least 5 percent as energy shares advanced. Bank of Montreal and Toronto-Dominion Bank advanced more than 0.6 percent to pace gains among the nation’s largest lenders. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. slumped 3.1 percent after Endo International Plc placed a higher bid for Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 97.44 points, or 0.7 percent, to 14,739.20 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The S&P/TSX rebounded after falling to the lowest since January on Tuesday. The gauge briefly erased 2015 gains amid a rally in the dollar on speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve is moving closer to raising interest rates.

     Lightstream Resources jumped 8.8 percent as energy producers increased 0.9 percent as a group. Nine of 10 industries in the S&P/TSX advanced on trading volume 13 percent lower than the 30-day average.

     Crude oil in New York fell to a two-week low after the Energy Information Administration reported U.S. inventories rose last week. Brent crude snapped a five-day losing streak in London.

     Crescent Point Energy Corp. rose 1.8 percent as fourth- quarter production topped estimates.

     Constellation Software Inc. increased 3.8 percent after acquiring InterAct911 Corp., which develops software systems for law enforcement. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

     AuRico Gold Inc. surged 11 percent after analysts at Raymond James said the stock was a potential acquisition target.

     Valeant dropped 3.1 percent, the most since October, for a second day of losses. Endo’s cash-and-stock proposal values Salix at $175 a share, trumping Valeant’s $158-per-share bid last month. Salix’s Xifaxan drug to treat travelers’ diarrhea is poised to receive additional approvals from U.S. regulators.

US

By Michelle F. Davis and Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, after the biggest equities selloff in more than two months amid the surging dollar, as declines in consumer and technology companies offset banks’rebound.

     Cisco Systems Inc. dropped for the sixth time in seven days, and EMC Corp. had its biggest retreat since 2013. Apple Inc. slid to its lowest level in a month. Tyson Foods Inc. and Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. fell more than 4.3 percent amid reports of suspected bird flu in Arkansas. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. added at least 2 percent after financial stocks Tuesday had their steepest decline since April.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 0.2 percent to 2,040.24 at 4 p.m. in New York, slipping below its average price for the past 100 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 27.55 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,635.39. The Nasdaq 100 Index dropped 0.6 percent, weighed down by technology shares. The Russell 2000 Index of smaller companies rose 0.6 percent.

     “The mood has shifted toward a wait-and-see environment as investors await greater clarity on earnings and possible Fed action,” Terry Sandven, who helps oversee $126 billion as chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, said in a phone interview.

     The dollar’s ascent to a 12-year high versus the euro sent American stocks tumbling yesterday, erasing gains for the year on concern earnings are in worse shape than investors recognized. The S&P 500 is down 0.9 percent in 2015, with the index trailing all but one of 24 developed markets.                          

     A 10 percent strengthening in the trade-weighted dollar lowers the estimated 2015 profit for the S&P 500 by about $3 a share, according to an earnings model created by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The benchmark equity gauge will have earnings per share of $123.52 this year, according to the average of 20 strategist forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.

     Analysts predict profit at S&P 500 companies will drop 5.1 percent in the current quarter after a 4.4 percent increase in the final three months of 2014, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Should S&P 500 earnings fall for the first three months of 2015, it would mark the first period of negative earnings since 2009.

     Dollar General Corp. and Oracle Corp. are among the final companies to post quarterly results over the next week as the earnings season comes to a close. Around 74 percent of companies that have already reported beat profit projections, while 56 percent topped sales estimates.

     Concern the Federal Reserve may start raising interest rates amid a strengthening economy has also weighed on equities this year. Other major central banks are cutting rates and buying government bonds to stimulate growth.

     ECB President Mario Draghi this week started his first round of bond buying to stop deflation taking hold in the euro area, implementing a plan to buy 1.1 trillion euros ($1.2 trillion) of debt.

     The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent last week, the most since January, as data showed the jobless rate fell to within the Fed’s range for what it considers full employment. Policy makers next meet on March 17-18.

     Seven of the S&P 500’s 10 main groups retreated Wednesday, led by consumer staples and technology company shares. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index climbed 1.1 percent to 16.87. The gauge, know as the VIX, rose 14 percent last week, its biggest jump in five weeks.

     Consumer staples shares lost 0.8 percent. Tyson Foods slipped 5.6 percent amid reports suspected bird flu in Arkansas poultry threaten exports. Pilgrim’s Pride and Sanderson Farms Inc. each dropped more than 4.2 percent.                          

     Philip Morris International Inc. retreated 1.8 percent, down in seven of the last eight sessions. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim will retire from the board at the company’s annual meeting in May.

     Apple fell 1.8 percent to a one-month low. The company’s iTunes and App stores experienced outages Wednesday that prevented users from making purchases or downloading applications.

     EMC slumped 4.6 percent to its lowest level since May 2014 after Wells Fargo Securities analyst Maynard Um cut the stock to market perform from outperform, citing a lack of catalysts until 2016.

     Financial shares added 0.6 percent, after falling the most in nearly a year Tuesday. Charles Schwab Corp., Citigroup and Bank of America paced the advance with gains of least 1.2 percent.

     Semiconductor companies in the benchmark index advanced 0.8 percent, snapping a six-day losing streak as Intel Corp.  gained 2 percent and Micron Technology Inc. rose 1 percent.

     Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. rallied 7 percent after Endo International Plc offered to buy the company for $175 a share in cash and stock, topping Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s agreement to pay $158 a share. Valeant fell 3.9 percent.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

If you wish to free yourself from suffering, you must free yourself from pleasure,

and not free yourself from suffering.  Suffering is a reaction.

If you wish to release yourself from suffering,

you must first of all release yourself from pleasure.

Then the suffering will disappear.

 

Swami Prajnanpad

As ever,

 

 

Carolann

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

                                                 -Paul Valery, 1871-1945

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

IPHONE STILL LIFES

If you love to take photos with your smart phone, you’ll be inspired by Minneapolis graphic designer Brock Davis.  He captures simplistic and whimsical still lifes with his iPhone by staging everyday objects (often food and kitchen items) in unexpected ways (think mint leaf positioned as a flame above a match, or a popcorn kernel exploding into a thought bubble of popped corn).  Check it out at http://bit.ly/BDavisArt.  –CSM.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A visitor puts on ‘Truth?,’ a pair of goggles that projects the ‘true emotions’ of a person by monitoring the patterns of his or her heartbeat, during a design competition showcase of wearable technology at the Augmented Human International Conference in Singapore Tuesday. The goggles were made by students from Keio University in Japan. The conference runs from March 9 to 11. Edgar Su/Reuters

Spectators look up at a live video feed of President Barack Obama exiting Air Force One upon his arrival at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while waiting for him to take the stage to speak at Georgia Tech Tuesday in Atlanta. David Goldman/AP

Market Closes for March 10^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17662.94	-332.78
		-1.85%
S&P 500	2044.16	-35.27   -1.70%
NASDAQ	4859.797	-82.641   -1.67%
TSX	14641.76	-212.73
		-1.43%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18665.11	-125.44
		-0.67%
HANG SENG	23896.98	-226.07
		-0.94%
SENSEX	28709.87	-134.91
		-0.47%
FTSE 100	6702.84	-173.63
		-2.52%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.529	1.569
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.166	2.204
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1191	2.1854
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.7152	2.7924

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.78816	0.79337
US $	1.26878	1.26044
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.35502	0.73800
US $	1.06797	0.93635

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1162.00	1168.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	48.29	50.00

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell to the lowest since January, briefly erasing 2015 gains, as financial companies and commodities producers dropped with global equities amid a rally in the dollar.

     Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce slumped more than 1.9 percent. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Corp. and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. tumbled at least 6 percent as base metals dropped. Legacy Oil & Gas Inc. and Lightstream Resources Ltd. lost more than 7.7 percent to pace declines among energy stocks.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 212.73 points, or 1.4 percent, to 14,641.76 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the lowest close since Jan. 29. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge pared its gain for the year to 0.1 percent.

     Canadian stocks joined a global retreat in equities with the MSCI World Index of developed markets down 1.7 percent, the most in two months. U.S. stocks fell with the S&P 500 erasing gains for 2015 as the dollar strengthened to near a 12-year high versus the euro amid speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve is moving closer to raising interest rates.

     “Right now you have to say what is the tone of the market and why is that tone negative, and it has to do with rates,” said Ian Nakamoto, director of research at MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier Inc. in Toronto. His firm manages about C$5 billion. “Anything that feeds into that mentality is going to cause a market reaction.”

     The S&P/TSX rallied as much as 4.5 percent this year through February as gold producers and health-care stocks led a rebound following a 6.6 percent slide from a September record amid the plunge in crude.

     Raw-materials producers, the second-best performing industry in the benchmark gauge as recently as March 1, have slumped 11 percent since to retrace almost all gains for the year as gold has retreated amid the U.S. dollar rally.

     The U.S. dollar rose against all but two of its 16 major peers, touching $1.0693 per euro, the strongest since April 2003. As central banks around the world including Canada have loosened monetary policy to stimulate the economy, the Fed has inched closer to raising its rates amid improving employment figures.

     Home Capital Group Inc. and IGM Financial Inc. each declined 3.7 percent as financial stocks retreated 1.6 percent as a group. Royal Bank of Canada, the nation’s largest lender, tumbled 1.6 percent.                          

     Nine of 10 industries in the benchmark Canadian equity gauge fell on trading volume 10 percent lower than the 30-day average. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest diversified miner, dropped 2.7 percent and Capstone Mining Corp. retreated 7.8 percent as raw-materials shares lost 1.9 percent.

     Copper fell 1.7 percent and nickel lost 3.1 percent to lead a decrease in industrial metals as producer prices declined in China. First Quantum Minerals slumped 7 percent.

     Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. dropped 7.2 percent and Lightstream Resources retreated 9 percent. Brent crude dropped for a fifth day, its longest retreat in almost three months, and West Texas Intermediate crude fell 3.4 percent in New York ahead of a U.S.

US

By Stephen Kirkland and Jeremy Herron

     (Bloomberg) — The strongest dollar in nearly 12 years versus the euro and the specter of higher U.S. interest rates fueled a selloff in global equities that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest slide since Jan. 5. Oil and copper declined.

     The S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent at 4 p.m. in New York, slipping below its average price for the past 50 days and erasing its gains in 2015. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 328 points in its biggest slide since Jan. 5. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.9 percent. The euro weakened 1.4 percent to $1.0704 and a gauge of 20 emerging-market currencies fell for a ninth day. Yields on 10-year German securities dropped to a record, as the yield difference between 10-year Treasuries and bunds hit the widest since 1989. U.S. crude slid below $49 a barrel while copper dropped the most since January.

     Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank should begin to raise rates as the labor market improves. While policy makers from Sydney to Wellington, Tokyo, Zurich and Frankfurt are cutting rates and buying government bonds to stimulate growth, the Fed stands out in accepting a higher exchange rate as a sign of economic strength. The dollar has rallied this year versus 14 of 16 major counterparts.

     “A continuation of dollar strength and euro destruction is certainly raising some concerns,” Michael James, a Los Angeles- based managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities Inc., said in a phone interview. “How much is a stronger dollar going to impact the bottom lines of U.S. companies? I don’t think there was any one specific event or item that caused this. It has more to do with sentiment and emotion than valuations.”

     Selling in equities was broad based, with all but three of the 24 developed-nation indexes retreating. The MSCI All-Country World Index sank 1.7 percent, the most in two months, while nine shares fell for every one that gained in the benchmark for U.S. stocks.

     The S&P 500 retreated 1.6 percent last week, the most since January, as data showed the jobless rate reached the central bank’s range for what it considers full employment. Policy makers next meet on March 17-18. The index has entered the seventh year of a bull market, pushing valuations near a five- year high. It is lower by less than 0.7 percent in 2015.

     The dollar rose against all but two of its 16 major peers Tuesday, touching $1.0697 per euro, the strongest since April 2003. Mexico’s peso weakened to a record, while the yen touched the lowest in 7 1/2 years. The greenback climbed to parity with Switzerland’s franc for the first time since the Swiss National Bank removed a currency cap against the euro in January.

     “The dollar’s going up so much so fast you wonder what it does to U.S. economic growth down the road, to profitability,” Jim Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, which oversees $338 billion, said by telephone. “Fisher made comments — that gives more support around the idea that the Fed window has indeed moved up, which is bringing a more aggressive bid to the dollar and more angst for equity investors.”

     The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dropped six basis points, or 0.06 percentage point, to 2.13 percent. That follows a five basis-point decline Monday. The 10-year German bund yield slid eight basis points to 0.23 percent.

     The lower rates weighed on bank and insurance stocks, sending financial shares in the S&P 500 down 2.1 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. retreated at least 2.5 percent to pace declines.

     All of the 19 industry groups in the Stoxx 600 fell, with five shares declining for every one that advanced, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc dropped more than 2 percent.

     Credit Suisse Group AG added 7.8 percent after naming Prudential Plc’s Tidjane Thiam to replace Brady Dougan as chief executive officer. Prudential fell 3.1 percent.

      The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slid 1.7 percent, falling for an eighth day to erase this year’s advance. Mexico’s peso weakened as much as 1 percent to 15.6271 per dollar as currencies from South Korea to Turkey and Brazil dropped more than 1 percent.

     Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprise Index slid 1.4 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.5 percent. While Chinese producer prices extended a record stretch of declines to 36 months, consumer prices rose faster than economists forecast in February.

     Energy producers led Russia’s Micex Index down 3.7 percent to a one-month low while the ruble slipped 3 percent as trading resumed in Moscow following a holiday on Monday.

     Oil’s five-day slide in London is the longest run of losses in almost three months. Brent crude settled 3.7 percent lower at $56.39 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate declined 3.4 percent to $48.29.

     U.S. crude inventories are projected to have increased further from a record high, according to a Bloomberg News survey before an Energy Information Administration report Wednesday. Production of U.S. shale oil will expand at the slowest pace in more than four years in April, the EIA said Monday.

     Copper fell 1.9 percent to settle at $2.624 a pound in New York, after factory-gate deflation deepened in China. Nickel, tin, zinc, lead and aluminum declined in London.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

An animal, a child and an ignoramus are slaves to their desires.

They want to satisfy them immediately, whatever the time, the place or the circumstances…

How can a man be distinguished from them?  Before satisfying his desires, a man takes into account the time,

the place and the circumstances because he is trying to achieve an aim.

 

Swami Prajnanpad

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.

                                                                        -Thomas Alva Edison, 1847-1931

 

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1959, Barbie made her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Barbie was the first mass-produced doll in America with adult features. Her appearance was modeled after a doll by the name of Lilli, which was based on a German comic strip character.

March 9^th, 1932, Conrad Russell to his sister Diana:

As to parents, some do and some don’t try and teach manners.  I think many are glad for an excuse not to have to say anything in the nature of criticism or a reprimand.  Of course it is only shirking something.  Sir John Horner used to say:  “Shake hands, Katharine, shake hands”, to his daughter [Katharine Asquith] after she was forty if visitors came into the room.  He also never lit a cigarette in his own room without saying to me first, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

…Right up to 1914 it was utterly impossible for two young people to dine at a restaurant together.  When Raymond [Asquith} and Katharine were engaged they used to have breakfast together at an ABC shop.  Except both going to the same ball there was no other way of meeting – at least there would have been the risk of being seen.  That’s twenty-five years ago.  Times have changed. –from The Book of Days.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Madeleine Klonoski, 2, sits on her father’s leg at a kite festival in Redondo Beach, Calif., Sunday. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

A baby polar bear and its mother, ‘Flocke,’ spend time outdoors at the Marineland animal exhibition park in Antibes, southeastern France, Monday. The baby bear was born on Nov. 26, 2014, at the park. Lionel Cironneau/AP

Market Closes for March 9^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17995.72	+138.94
		+0.78%
S&P 500	2079.43	+8.17   +0.39%
NASDAQ	4942.438	+15.067   +0.31%
TSX	14854.49	-98.01
		-0.66%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18790.55	-180.45
		-0.95%
HANG SENG	24123.05	-40.95
		-0.17%
SENSEX	28844.78	-604.17
		-2.05%
FTSE 100	6876.47	-35.33
		-0.51%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.569	1.613
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.204	2.230
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1854	2.2414
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.7924	2.8409

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.79337	0.79211
US $	1.26044	1.26245
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.36765	0.73118
US $	1.08506	0.92161

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1168.50	1175.75
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	50.00	49.61

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell a second day, dropping to a five-week low, as commodities producers retreated after China reduced imports a second month.

     BlackBerry Ltd. lost 7.4 percent after analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lowered their rating for the stock. Concordia Healthcare Corp. soared 26 percent after agreeing to buy assets from privately held Covis Pharma Holdings Sarl for $1.2 billion. Suncor Energy Inc. lost 2.6 percent for a fourth straight loss, the longest streak since November.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 98.01 points, or 0.7 percent, to 14,854.49 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the lowest close since Jan. 30. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge lost 1.9 percent last week, its worst since Jan. 9, to close at the lowest level since Feb. 2.

     Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. fell 9.6 percent and Penn West Petroleum Ltd. declined 6.4 percent to pace a 1.9 percent drop in energy producers. Six of the 10 industries in the S&P/TSX retreated on trading volume 19 percent lower than the 30-day average.

     Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc. slumped at least 2.5 percent as raw-materials producers tumbled 1.6 percent. Raw- materials and energy make up about a third of the S&P/TSX.

     Chinese crude imports fell by 2.43 million metric tons in February to 25.6 million tons. The country’s Lunar New Year crimped imports of oil and other commodities including iron ore and copper.

     Concordia surged to a record. The Toronto-based company will buy almost all of the commercial assets of Covis Pharma Sarl and Covis Injectables Sarl to diversify sales and boost margins. The portfolios include 18 branded and generic products.

     Canadian National Railway Co. slipped 1.1 percent after one of its eastbound trains carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire on March 7.

US

By Michelle F. Davis

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose amid corporate deals after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index tumbled the most in two months on Friday.

     Macerich Co. climbed 7 percent after a buyout offer from Simon Property Group Inc. valued at about $22.4 billion, including debt. RTI International Metals Inc. soared 39 percent after Alcoa Inc. agreed to acquire it for about $1.26 billion.

     The S&P 500 advanced 0.4 percent to 2,079.43 at the close in New York, as equities entered the seventh year of a bull run. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 138.94 points, or 0.8 percent, to 17,995.72. About 6.2 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 11 percent below the three-month average.

     “The Monday morning news is typically deal related,” Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co., which oversees $2 billion, said in a telephone interview. “Two or three today that are somewhat noteworthy. That’s always encouraging — that companies are finding value in other companies. There’s a little better feeling about the world and Europe as far as economic growth and stability.”

     Concern the Federal Reserve may start raising interest rates this year amid a strengthening economy has dragged equities lower. The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent last week, the most since January, as data showed the jobless rate reached the central bank’s range for what it considers full employment. Policy makers next meet on March 17-18.                           

     The S&P 500 is up 1 percent this year, after rallying 11 percent in 2014 and 30 percent in 2013. The benchmark measure is trailing all but two of 24 developed markets this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

     The index has more than tripled from its bear-market low on March 9, 2009, buoyed by three rounds of Federal Reserve bond- buying and low interest rates. The gauge hasn’t had a 10 percent drop since 2011, posting more than 50 closes at all-time highs in the past year.

     The current run, lasting almost 2,200 days, is about two months away from overtaking the 1974-1980 bull market as the third-longest since 1929. After the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 Index all hit records on March 2, and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed above 5,000 for the first time since 2000.

     At 18.6 times earnings, the S&P 500’s valuation is near a five-year high and compares with an average of 16.9 since 1936, data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P Dow Jones Indices show.

     Warnings that stocks are in a bubble and that breadth is narrowing are signs that the thing that really kills bull markets, euphoria, has yet to surface, Laszlo Birinyi,  the president of Birinyi Associates Inc. in Westport, Connecticut, said in a phone interview.

     “We still see continuous negativity,” Birinyi said. “A lot of people have missed and they’ve been wrong. It’s hard to one day turn around and say ‘I was wrong.’ Ultimately, the market continues to surprise on the upside.”

     Reports this week may show an improvement in U.S. retail sales, consumer sentiment and industrial production, and a drop in jobless claims, economists forecast.

     Eight of the S&P 500’s 10 main groups advanced, led by industrial and health care companies.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index lost 0.9 percent to 15.06. The gauge, know as the VIX, rose 14 percent last week, its biggest jump in five weeks.

     Macerich climbed 7 percent after Simon Property, the largest U.S. mall owner, offered to buy the company in a cash- and-stock transaction valued at about $22.4 billion, including debt. Simon slid less than 0.1 percent.                      

     RTI International soared 39 percent to its highest level since July 2011 after Alcoa agreed to buy the company in an all- stock transaction valued at about $1.26 billion. Alcoa fell 5.4 percent to its lowest since June.

     It’s the third aerospace-related deal announced by Alcoa in less than nine months, an area where it sees growth potential outpacing other aluminum-using sectors such as cars and construction.

     Aerospace and defense stocks in the S&P 500 added 1.2 percent, led by gains of at least 1.5 percent in Raytheon Co. and United Technologies Corp.

     General Motors Co. rose 3 percent after announcing a $5 billion share buyback program on Monday. Activist investor Harry J. Wilson will give up his request for a board seat after reaching an agreement with the automaker.

     Whiting Petroleum Corp. jumped 11 percent as people familiar with the matter said the oil producer has hired a bank to pursue a potential sale.

     Apple Inc. climbed 0.4 percent, paring an earlier advance of as much as 2.4 percent, after the company presented new products and services at an event in San Francisco, including a smartwatch and an exclusive Apple TV partnership with Time Warner Inc.’s cable channel HBO for its stand-alone service.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plain living and high thinking

the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.  Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

 

Mahatma Ghandhi

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

The words “I am…” are potent words: be careful what you hitch them to.  The thing you’re claiming

has a way of reaching back and claiming you.    

                                                                -A.L. Kitselman, 1914-1980

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Carolann is out of the office, I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A woman with a purple umbrella is seen through a raindrop-covered car window in the Queens borough of New York Thursday. Another round of winter weather was forecasted to impact the New York region and northeast US.

A border collie named Honda herds sheep during a herd dog demonstration at Diamond B Ranch in Neches, Texas, Friday, during the 1836 Chuckwagon Races. The annual event takes place the first weekend in March to celebrate Texas Independence Day. There are five classes of wagon races as well as Bronc Fann’n, a cowboy style match race, pasture team roping, cowboy mounted shooting, and other western culture demonstrations. Sarah A. Miller/The Tyler Morning Telegraph/AP

Market Closes for March 6^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17856.78	-278.94
		-1.54%
S&P 500	2071.26	-29.78   -1.42%
NASDAQ	4927.371	-55.438   -1.11%
TSX	14952.50	-150.61
		-1.00%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18971.00	+219.16
		+1.17%
HANG SENG	24164.00	-29.04
		-0.12%
SENSEX	29448.95	+68.22
		+0.23%
FTSE 100	6911.80	-49.34
		-0.71%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.613	1.528
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.230	2.129
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2414	2.1154
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.8409	2.7285

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.79211	0.80102
US $	1.26245	1.24842
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.36890	0.73051
US $	1.08432	0.92223

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1175.75	1202.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	49.61	50.76

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, for the biggest weekly decline in two months, as speculation the Federal Reserve will is moving closer to raising interest rates sent gold producers tumbling.

     Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. plunged 9.1 percent after delaying its fourth-quarter earnings results to March 26. Detour Gold Corp. lost 7.3 percent to lead declines among gold stocks. GMP Capital Inc. fell 6.1 percent after reporting a slump in revenue.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 150.61 points, or 1 percent, to 14,952.50 at 4 p.m., the worst slide since Jan. 28. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge lost 1.7 percent this week for the biggest loss since Jan. 9. The drop trimmed its gain in 2015 to 2.2 percent.

     All 10 industries in the equity gauge fell on trading volume in line with the 30-day average. Detour Gold sank and Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. declined 7.8 percent as raw-materials producers retreated 3.4 percent as a group, the most in the S&P/TSX.

     Gold futures for April delivery tumbled 2.7 percent for the biggest drop since December 2013, erasing gains for the year, after U.S. employers added 295,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, the lowest in almost seven years.

     The jobless rate has reached the range Fed policy makers consider full employment, increasing speculation the central bank will raise interest rates around mid-year.

     Penn West Petroleum Ltd. lost 4.4 percent and Trinidad Drilling Ltd. fell 3.1 percent as U.S. benchmark crude futures declined a second day. Trinidad was cut to sector perform, or a hold, by Vladislav Vlad at Scotia Capital.

     Canada recorded its second-highest trade deficit on record in January as prices for the nation’s oil shipments plunged. The deficit widened to C$2.45 billion, doubling from a revised trade gap of C$1.22 billion in December, Statistics Canada said.

     “Crude’s weakness continues to provide a significant headwind,” said Nick Exarhos, an economist with CIBC World Markets, in a note to clients.

     Telus Corp. slipped 0.8 percent and BCE Inc. lost 1.6 percent. Both mobile phone carriers were among companies that acquired wireless spectrum in the latest government auction. Telus paid about C$1.5 billion and Bell about C$500 million.

     Manulife Financial Corp. gained 2.2 percent, snapping a three-day retreat, as the insurer joined a group of investors to buy Montreal Gateway Terminals, the largest operator in the Port of Montreal, from Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure business.

US

By Jeremy Herron and Stephen Kirkland

     (Bloomberg) — The lowest unemployment rate in seven years was greeted with despondency in stock and bond markets, where investors expressed doubt the Federal Reserve can afford more patience on interest rates. The dollar rallied and gold erased its gain for the year.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 1.4 percent at 4 p.m. in New York in its worst day since Jan. 5. Apple Inc. added 0.2 percent on news it will join the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 0.1 percent. The greenback extended an 11-year high against the euro and the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index increased 1.2 percent, the most since 2011. The yield on 10-year Treasuries jumped 13 basis points to 2.24 percent. Gold fell 2.7 percent to $1,164.30 an ounce.

     Employers added 295,000 workers to payrolls in February and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, the lowest in almost seven years. While the Fed has said it will be “patient” on increasing borrowing costs, Chair Janet Yellen said last week the timing will depend on economic data. Diverging outlooks of the U.S. and other countries have seen the dollar rise against most global peers this year.

     “Investors are looking and focusing entirely on what the Federal Reserve will do in the coming months,” Chad Morganlander, a money manager at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., which oversees about $170 billion, said by telephone. “Effectively good news in this data point supports the notion that they will raise rates in the not-too-distant future. That scotches the speculative fervor within the equity market.”

     The Fed has kept its benchmark, the target for overnight loans between banks, in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008 to support the economy. Most Fed officials expect to raise rates this year, according to projections released in December. A number said since then an increase around mid-year was possible.

     Yields on two-year notes, most sensitive to changes in expectations for central bank policy, jumped to the highest since the start of the year. Futures showed the odds of rate increase in September climbed to 55 percent from 49 percent on Thursday.

     “Everybody was waiting to see this number the Fed has been really clear saying everything is data dependent and this is one of the large data segments they’ve been looking at,” George Rusnak, co-head of global fixed income at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, said by phone.

     The dollar climbed against 14 of its 16 major peers, advancing 1.6 percent to $1.0850 per euro, the strongest since September 2003. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 10 major peers, closed at the highest in more than 10 years.

     PPG Industries Inc. is selling 1.2 billion euros of bonds in the single currency, capping a week of issuance from American firms including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Kellogg Co. U.S. borrowers have raised 31.5 billion euros this year, the most for the period since 2007.

     Benchmark equity gauges capped the worst week since Jan. 30, as the S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent and the Dow sank 1.5 percent, nearly erasing its gain in 2015.

     Among U.S. stocks moving Friday, utility stocks plunged 3.1 percent as Treasuries dropped. The group has the second-highest dividend yield among the 10 main S&P 500 groups.

     Apple will join the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing AT&T Inc. The changes will push the number of technology-related companies in the 30-member gauge to six and boost their influence even more as the world’s largest company by market capitalization joins Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Visa Inc.

     AT&T is being kicked out after falling 4.5 percent in 2014. The changes will take effect with the start of trading on March 19. The phone company fell 1.5 percent.

     In Europe, yields are collapsing from German 30-year bunds to Portugal’s two-year notes before the European Central Bank begins its quantitative-easing plan next week.

     Germany’s 30-year bond yield fell as much as seven basis points to an all-time low of 0.87 percent. Yields on equivalent- maturity Portuguese debt tumbled as low as 2.51 percent. Irish, Italian and Spanish 10-year yields also fell to the least on record.

     From Monday and for the next 19 months, both the ECB and the euro area’s 19 national central banks will seek to buy debt from counterparties in the secondary market.

     The Stoxx 600 is poised for a fifth straight weekly gain, pushing gains this year to 15 percent, as the ECB begins additional stimulus.

     Utilities were the biggest drag on the index Friday. EON SE lost 1.1 percent after Banco Santander SA cut its rating on the German power producer. RWE AG fell 2.6 percent.

     The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped 0.7 percent, leaving it down 2.2 percent this week, the biggest drop since the period ended Jan. 30. Emerging-market currencies fell, extending the longest losing streak in three months.

     A gauge tracking 20 developing-country currencies slid to a a record as Brazil’s real dropped to the lowest level since 2004 and peers in South Africa and Mexico lost at least 1.3 percent. The index has fallen for seven straight days.

     The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.2 percent, taking this week’s loss to 2.1 percent, its first weekly decline in a month, amid concern that new share offerings next week will divert funds from existing stocks.

     China lowered its 2015 growth target this week to 7 percent, the slowest pace since 1990, after the People’s Bank of China cut interest rates for the second time in three months.

     U.S. benchmark crude futures dropped for a second day as the the stronger dollar reduced the investment appeal of commodities.

     West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery lost 2.3 percent to settle at $49.61 a barrel in New York. Brent futures dropped 1.2 percent to $59.73 a barrel in London, extending losses this week to 3.7 percent. The European benchmark was at a premium of $10.33 to WTI, compared with $12.82 on Feb. 27.

     Bullion erased its 2015 gains Friday after the jobs data as the possibility of higher interest rates damps the appeal of the metal.

     Gold futures for April delivery fell 2.7 percent to settle at $1,164.30 an ounce in New York, the biggest drop since Dec. 19, 2013. Earlier, the metal slumped to $1,162.90, the lowest since Dec. 1.

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

 

Be magnificent!

 

“Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish.” John Henry Newman

As ever,

 

Karen

 

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.” Marcus Aurelius

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:  Full Moon tonight – deserves a  gaze up at the sky

World’s oldest person turns 117 today: Misao Okawa, daughter of a kimono maker, was born in Osaka on March 5, 1898.

On this day in 1770, the Boston Massacre took place. British soldiers fired on an angry mob of American colonists gathered in front of the Customs House in Boston, killing five. – Dan Strumpf, Wall Street Journal.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate

the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.  -J. W. Goethe

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The moon sets in the early morning hours as a man walks along an ocean pier in Oceanside, Calif., Thursday. Mike Blake/Reuters

A Sri Lankan Buddhist devotee prays offering Lotus flowers at a temple on full moon day in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, Thursday. Buddhists constitute the majority of this South Asian Island nation’s population. Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Market Closes for March 5^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	18135.72	+38.82
		+0.21%
S&P 500	2101.04	+2.51   +0.12%
NASDAQ	4982.809	+15.667   +0.32%
TSX	15103.11	+20.27
		+0.13%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18751.84	+48.24
		+0.26%
HANG SENG	24193.04	-272.34
		-1.11%
SENSEX	29448.95	+68.22
		+0.23%
FTSE 100	6961.14	+41.90
		+0.61%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.528	1.508
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.129	2.102
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1154	2.1172
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.7285	2.7198

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.80102	0.80477
US $	1.24842	1.24260
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.37712	0.72615
US $	1.0309	0.90654

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1202.00	1199.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	50.76	51.53

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, snapping a two-day decline, after the European Central Bank detailed the start of its asset-purchasing plan to combat deflation.

     Great Canadian Gaming Corp. surged 12 percent, the most since August, after posting earnings ahead of analysts’ estimates. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. rose 5.1 percent after boosting its dividend on rising profit. SNC Lavalin Group Inc. tumbled to a two-year low after its 2015 forecast fell short of analysts’ estimates. Encana Corp. lost 3.1 percent after disclosing a plan to raise C$1.25 billion through a share sale.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 20.27 points, or 0.1 percent, to 15,103.11 at 4 p.m., narrowing an earlier gain in the final minutes of trading. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge has advanced 3.2 percent this year.

     Eight of 10 industries in the benchmark index advanced on trading volume 8 percent below the 30-day average.

     Financial stocks declined 0.1 percent as a group. Canadian Western Bank sank 7.1 percent, the most since July 2009, after posting first-quarter earnings and revenue short of analysts’ estimates.

     Methanex Corp. added 5.3 percent and B2Gold Corp. increased 2.9 percent as raw-materials producers advanced.

     The MSCI World Index of developed markets increased 0.1 percent after a two-day decline. The ECB will begin buying about 60 billion euros ($66 billion) in bonds a month starting March 9, ECB President Mario Draghi told reporters in Nicosia where officials had met, the first salvo in a bid to head off deflation in the euro area.

     The central bank also unveiled forecasts showing higher economic growth with an inflation outlook that puts the ECB on track to reach its inflation goal of just below 2 percent.

US

By Michelle F. Davis and Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, after equities posted their biggest two-day slump in more than a month, amid corporate deals before Friday’s government jobs report.

     Pharmacyclics Inc. surged 10 percent after AbbVie Inc. agreed to buy the drugmaker in a $21 billion deal. Mallinckrodt Plc climbed 4.7 percent after buying closely-held Ikaria Inc. for about $2.3 billion.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.1 percent to 2,101.04 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 38.82 points, or 0.2 percent to 18,135.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3 percent. About 5.8 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, the lightest volume since Jan. 2.

     “We didn’t really get anything definitive out of the ECB so people are just kind of flattening out in front of the employment report tomorrow,” Matt Maley, an equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co LLC in Newton, Massachusetts, said by phone. “We’re going to be in this tight range as traders push it around a little bit, and until we go one way or the other, people aren’t going to jump in with both feet.”

     European Central Bank President Mario Draghi primed investors to be ready for the central bank’s first bond-buying salvo as he signaled officials are convinced the measure will succeed in the choking off the threat of deflation.                        

     Six years after the Federal Reserve began its own quantitative easing program, the ECB’s Governing Council committed to begin asset purchases next week that will amount to 60 billion euros ($66 billion) a month, its president told reporters in Nicosia. He also unveiled forecasts showing higher economic growth with an inflation outlook that puts the ECB on track to reach its inflation goal of just below 2 percent.

     “Obviously the whole notion of European style QE has been well advertised at this juncture,” Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist in Philadelphia at Janney Capital Management LLC, which oversees about $68 billion in assets, said by phone. “More encouraging is the fact that they’ve raised their view of economic growth over the next several years. There’s been more upbeat news coming out of Europe.”                      

     The S&P 500 dropped 0.9 percent in the previous two days for the biggest slide in five weeks after rising to fresh records four times in February. The Dow fell 1.1 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.8 percent after surpassing 5,000 on Monday.

     The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose 7,000 last week to 320,000, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 52 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected 295,000 jobless claims.

     A separate report showed factory orders unexpectedly fell in January. Data on nonfarm payrolls and unemployment are due Friday, with economists predicting employers added 235,000 workers in February, while the unemployment rate is expected to drop to 5.6 percent, matching a more than six-year low.

     Six of 10 main S&P 500 groups rose. Health-care advanced for a second day as Mallinckrodt gained 4.7 percent after agreeing to acquire closely-held Ikaria Inc. to expand in neonatal intensive-care treatments.

     Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped 5.8 percent after Wells Fargo analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in a note that one of the company’s drugs may get early approval. Investor attention is now focusing on Vertex’s cystic fibrosis drug Kalydeco/VX-809, Abrahams wrote.

     The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index advanced 2.2 percent to an all-time high, as Pharmacyclics climbed 10 percent after AbbVie agreed to buy the company for $21 billion to expand in cancer therapy. AbbVie fell 5.7 percent.

     Kroger Co. rallied 6.7 percent after the biggest U.S. grocery-store chain’s surging same-store sales lifted fourth- quarter profit well above analysts’ estimates.

     Costco Wholesale Corp. climbed 2.7 percent after second- quarter profit rose 29 percent as sales outpaced discount rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

     Joy Global Inc., the world’s largest maker of underground mining machinery, fell 5.2 percent to its lowest in more than five years after cutting full-year earnings and sales forecasts following commodity-price declines.

     H&R Block Inc. lost 4.2 percent after reporting revenue below analysts’ estimates. The company reported an adjusted loss per share of 13 cents, compared with an estimated 17 cents.     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index slipped 1.3 percent to 14.04 after two days of gains. The gauge, known as the VIX, lost 36 percent in February for its biggest monthly decline on record.
 

Have a great evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

To understand pleasure is not to deny it.

We are not condemning it or saying it is right or wrong but if we pursue it,

let us do so with our eyes open, knowing that a mind that is all the time seeking pleasure

must inevitably find its shadow in pain.

They cannot be separated, although we run after pleasure and try to avoid pain.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Good words are worth much, and cost little.

                    -George Herbert, 1593-1633

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

-from V. Sackville-West:
So cosmopolitan, these English tulips,
To cottager as native as himself!
Aliens, that Shakespeare neither saw nor sang.
Alien Asiatics, that have blown
Between the boulders of a Persian hill
Long centuries before they reached the dykes
To charm van Huysum and the curious Brueghel,
And Rachel Ruysch, so nice so leisurely
That seven years were given to two pictures.

Tulip, dulband, a turban; rare
Persian that wanders in our English tongue.

How fair the flowers unaware
That do not know what beauty is!
Fair, without knowing they are fair,
With poets and gazelles they share
        Another world than this.

They can but die, and not betray
As friends or love betray the heart.
They can but live their pretty day
And do no worse than simply play
        Their brief sufficient part.

They cannot break the heart, as friend
Or love may split our trust for ever.
We never asked them to pretend:
Death is a clean sufficient end.
        For flower, friend, or lover.

   -from The Garden, Spring, 1939-1946.

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn. – Lewis Grizzard

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The interior of a Rolls-Royce Serenity luxury car is seen during the second press day ahead of the 85th International Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Buddhist monks pray at Wat Dhammakaya temple in Pathum Thani province, Thailand, during Makha Bucha Day ceremonies Wednesday. Makha Bucha marks the anniversary of Lord Buddha’s mass sermon to the first 1,250 newly-ordained monks 2,558 years ago. Sakchai Lalit/AP

Market Closes for March 4^th, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	18096.90	-106.47
		-0.58%
S&P 500	2098.53	-9.25   -0.44%
NASDAQ	4967.141	-12.760   -0.26%
TSX	15082.84	-51.01
		-0.34%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18703.60	-111.56
		-0.59%
HANG SENG	24465.38	-237.40
		-0.96%
SENSEX	29380.73	-213.00
		-0.72%
FTSE 100	6919.24	+30.11
		+0.44%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.508	1.427
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.102	2.032
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1172	2.1207
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.7198	2.7135

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.80477	0.80072
US $	1.24260	1.24887
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.37697	0.72623
US $	1.10814	0.90241

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1199.50	1212.75
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	51.53	50.37

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell a second day, to a one- month low, as commodity producers and financial shares declined after the Bank of Canada decided against a second straight interest-rate cut.

     Bank of Nova Scotia dropped 1 percent to lead losses among the nation’s largest lenders. Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc. retreated at least 2.4 percent. Avigilon Corp. plunged 16 percent to pace declines among technology shares. Bombardier Inc. sank to a 10-year low after the company canceled its 2015 investor day and Qatar Airways Ltd. said it won’t buy any CSeries jets.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 51.01 points, or 0.3 percent, to 15,082.84 at 4 p.m., the lowest since Feb. 4. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge has advanced 3.1 percent this year.

     The Bank of Canada kept its key interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent as exported crude oil prices and inflation have remained close to policy makers’ assumptions and a weaker currency will boost non-energy exports.

     Eighteen of 23 economists in a Bloomberg News survey expected no change, following a surprise rate cut in January.

     U.S. firms added 212,000 jobs in February, short of analysts’ estimates for a 219,000 increase, according to data from ADP Research Institute ahead of Friday’s scheduled non-farm payroll report.

     Bank of Nova Scotia, the nation’s third-largest lender, fell 1 percent for a second day of losses as financial stocks slipped 0.2 percent as a group. The industry accounts for about a third of the overall S&P/TSX. Six of the 10 main industries fell.

     Bombardier slumped 4.6 percent to the lowest since April 2005. The stock has fallen 12 percent in the past four days. The aerospace manufacturer in February shook up its management as the founding Beaudoin family brought in outsider Alain Bellemare as chief executive officer after years of delays in its aircraft programs and mounting losses.

US

By Jeremy Herron and Emma O’Brien

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks retreated for a second day, while the dollar rallied as investors assessed data on jobs and service industries for clues to the timing of interest-rate increases. The euro slid to an 11-year low and gold fell.

     All but one of 10 industry groups dropped in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which was down 0.4 percent by 4 p.m. in New York, still within 1 percent of a record. European stocks halted a two-day drop. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index returned to a decade high as the 19-nation euro touched its weakest level since September 2003. Gold futures fell 0.3 percent. U.S. oil advanced 2 percent, while Brent crude slipped 0.5 percent.

     Companies added fewer workers to U.S. payrolls in February compared with the previous month, private data showed before Friday’s official monthly jobs report, while service industries unexpectedly expanded at a faster pace in February. The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book showed most of the U.S. economy continued to grow from January through mid-February, as spending and manufacturing rose. The European Central Bank is expected to unveil more details on its quantitative easing plans Thursday.

     “It’s just across-the-board selling,” said Thomas Garcia, the head of equity trading at Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Thornburg Investment Management Inc. “It just seems like a little profit taking in front of the ECB meeting tomorrow and the payroll number. I doubt that they will say anything that would spook the markets, just fear of the unknown.”                         

     The market value of global equities has grown by more than $6 trillion since mid-October amid a wave of central-bank monetary easing and signs of strength in the U.S. economy. While the S&P 500 climbed to fresh records four times in February, its 2 percent advance this year through Tuesday trails all but two of the 24 developed markets tracked by Bloomberg.

     The S&P 500 halted its slide Wednesday at 1 percent after it touched the average price for the past 21 days of 2,088.39.

     The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.3 percent in a second day of declines, after closing Tuesday within 1.4 percent of a record reached in 2000. It has taken two bull markets and more than 4,500 days for the Nasdaq to get close to making up all the ground lost in the dot-com collapse. The index surged 7.1 percent in February, its best month since 2012.

     “We had a nice little run here and I just think we’re running out of gas,” Michael Block, chief equity strategist at Rhino Trading Partners LLC in New York, said by phone. “There’s not any leadership in stocks among sectors. The ECB should sound accommodative and the jobs report this week should be good, so if we can’t push higher after that then we’ve got a problem.”

     Among stocks moving Wednesday, Alcoa Inc. sank 3.9 percent as industrial companies tumbled 0.8 percent. Energy companies in the S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent, while phone stocks fell the most, down 1.2 percent.

     Health-care shares were the only group in the benchmark to advance, as Tenet Healthcare Corp. and HCA Holdings Inc. rallied more than 5.8 percent amid questioning during a Supreme Court challenge to insurance subsidies under the U.S.’ Obamacare program.

     Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often provides the court’s swing vote in important cases, said Wednesday there is a “powerful” point to the Obama administration’s argument that the health-care law would fall apart if the subsidies were ruled unlawful.

     Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. jumped 6.1 percent to the highest level since 2001 after winning expanded U.S. approval for its lung cancer drug more than three months ahead of schedule. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index climbed 0.6 percent, touching an intraday record.                        

     Economic reports this week could give clues on when the Federal Reserve may raise benchmark rates from near zero. Wednesday’s ADP National Employment Report showed payrolls rose by 212,000 workers in February, after rising by a revised 250,000 in January. Economists had projected a 219,000 increase for last month.

     The Labor Department’s report due Friday is projected to show the world’s largest economy added 235,000 jobs last month, down from 257,000 in January. Broad-based strength in the labor market supports consumer spending and the economy, even as a slump in fuel costs prices limits hiring in the energy industry.

     In Europe, the Stoxx 600 gauge rose 0.8 percent as Standard Chartered Plc drove banks higher, with the U.K. lender capped its best day since October. ING Groep NV gained 1.2 percent after the biggest Dutch bank said it will sell its remaining stake in Voya Financial Inc., completing an exit from its former U.S. insurance unit. ITV Plc added 5.7 percent after saying it plans a special dividend.                          

     The Stoxx 600 earlier erased gains after an index tracking euro-area manufacturing and services increased less than economists forecast. While the purchasing managers index rose to a seven-month high, it was less than initially estimated. Investors are waiting for a meeting of the ECB Thursday for details on the region’s stimulatory bond buying program announced in January.

     “It’s worth noting that the market may want to increase their short euro exposure ahead of the ECB actually starting their QE program,” said Sam Lynton-Brown, a currency strategist at BNP Paribas SA in London. “While the announcement led to euro weakness, we also think the flow impact of QE is going to be very important.”

     The euro weakened against all but three of its 16 major peers Wednesday. The currency declined 0.9 percent to 132.60 yen, and fell to a record against New Zealand’s dollar. The Australian dollar also slumped to a record versus the kiwi.

     Portugal’s bonds rose with debt in Spain and Italy. The yield on 10-year Portuguese securities declined five basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 1.88 percent, approaching the record 1.739 percent set on Monday.

     The Micex slid 2.7 percent in Moscow, falling for the first time in three days. Activity in Russian service industries shrank for a fifth consecutive month in February, at the fastest rate of decline since March 2009 as demand weakened.

     The Shanghai Composite Index added 0.5 percent Wednesday, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index lost 1.7 percent.

     A purchasing managers’ index from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics on Chinese services climbed to 52 for last month from January’s reading of 51.8. Premier Li Keqiang is expected to announce a 2015 economic growth goal of around 7 percent on Thursday, when the National People’s Congress starts its annual meeting. That would be a drop from last year’s 7.5 percent.

     Gold futures due in April dropped for a third day, declining to $1,200.90 an ounce, while silver, platinum and palladium all slid at least 0.3 percent in the spot market.

     West Texas Intermediate crude rose to $51.53 a barrel in New York, climbing for a second day, while Brent for April settlement fell to $60.71 a barrel in London.

     U.S. crude inventories climbed to 444.37 million barrels last week, the highest level since the government’s Energy Information Administration began compiling weekly data in 1982. Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI futures, increased by 536,000 to 49.2 million barrels. Cushing supplies have more than doubled since November.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

We would be happy to do the millions of things that we are not able to do.

The will is there, but we are not able to fulfill our desire.  Thus when we feel a desire,

but we are unable to realize that desire, we undergo a reaction we call suffering.

What is the cause of desire?  I am, only me.

As a result, I myself am the cause of all of the suffering that I have known.

Swami Vivekananda

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.

                                       -Margaret Fuller, 1810-1850

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1931, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the official national anthem of the U.S. after President Herbert Hoover signed it into law. American lawyer Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to the song on September 14, 1814, after watching Britain’s overnight bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. -Wall Street Journal, 3/3/2015.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The Villarica volcano erupts near Pucon, Chile, Tuesday. The volcano erupted around 3 a.m. local time (0600 GMT), according to the National Emergency Office, which issued a red alert and ordered evacuations. Aton Chile/AP

Cats crowd the harbor on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture in southern Japan. An army of cats rules the remote island, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village where felines outnumber humans six to one. Thomas Peter/Reuters

Market Closes for March 3^rd, 2015     

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	18203.37	-85.26
		-0.47%
S&P 500	2107.02	-10.37   -0.49%
NASDAQ	4979.902	-28.194   -0.56%
TSX	15138.19	-125.86
		-0.82%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18815.16	-11.72
		-0.06%
HANG SENG	24702.78	-184.66
		-0.74%
SENSEX	29593.73	+134.59
		+0.46%
FTSE 100	6889.13	-51.51
		-0.74%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.427	1.380
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.032	1.986
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1207	2.0873
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.7135	2.6884

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.80072	0.79736
US $	1.24887	1.25409
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.39556	0.71656
US $	1.11745	0.89489

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1212.75	1212.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	50.37	49.59

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks dropped the most in a month after Bank of Nova Scotia led financial shares lower as profit came up short of analysts’ estimates and materials producers tumbled.

     Scotiabank, the nation’s third-largest lender, lost 1.7 percent after domestic and international banking earnings declined. Major Drilling Group International Inc. sank 7.1 percent after reporting a third-quarter loss. Air Canada, the nation’s largest airliner, rose 1.1 percent to snap a four-day loss.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 130.20 points, or 0.9 percent, to 15,133.85 at 4 p.m., the biggest drop since Jan. 28. The benchmark Canadian equity gauge has advanced 3.4 percent this year, the fourth-worst performing market in the developed world, ahead of the U.S., Singapore and Switzerland.

     Scotiabank’s drop paced a 1.2 percent retreat drop among financial stocks, which account for one-third of the broader index by weighting. All but one of the 10 industries in the S&P/TSX retreated, with trading volume 13 percent lower than the 30-day average. Raw-materials shares sank 2.2 percent, the most in the benchmark gauge.

     Scotiabank, the last of the country’s six big lenders to report results, joins Bank of Montreal in posting profit that missed analysts’ expectations. Bank of Montreal retreated 1.2 percent.

     Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. lost 1 percent. Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc., the drugmaker to be acquired by Valeant, said U.S. regulators are investigating possible securities law violations connected to the company’s inventory accounting.

     Canada’s economy grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter, at a 2.4 percent annualized pace, Statistics Canada said. The agency also raised third-quarter growth to 3.2 percent from an initially reported 2.8 percent.

     The growth is in line with the 2.5 percent estimated by Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz who is scheduled to release his next interest-rate decision March 4. The central bank unexpectedly cut rates Jan. 21.

     BlackBerry Ltd. fell 1.2 percent, reversing an earlier gain. The smartphone maker unveiled a 5-inch device targeting the lower end of the market. The Leap, which comes in white and gray, will cost $275, less than half of what the latest smartphones from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. go for.

US

By Jeremy Herron and Emma O’Brien

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, with benchmark indexes retreating from record highs, as car and technology shares slipped. European equities slid before the release of details on economic stimulus, while metals sank and crude oil rallied.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.5 percent from an all-time high by 4 p.m. in New York, its worst day since Jan. 30. The Nasdaq Composite Index retreated back below 5,000 points. Ford Motor Co. sank as sales missed estimates and Seagate Technology Plc tumbled. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.9 percent as Barclays Plc led banking shares lower. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index retreated 0.1 percent. Copper lost 1.5 percent on concern China’s economy is weakening. Crude oil jumped in London after an attack on Libya’s biggest oil port.

     Stocks took a breather after the Nasdaq Composite climbed to within 1 percent of its dot-com era record, with Mylan NV driving biotechnology shares lower. Economic data this week may provide clues as to the timeline for Federal Reserve interest- rate increases, with central banks outside the U.S. easing monetary policy to support growth and fight deflation. The European Central Bank issues more details of its 1.1 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) bond buying plan on Thursday.

     “We’ve had some fantastic gains recently putting stocks at or near all-time highs so the markets are due for a little bit of consolidation,” Kevin Caron, a market strategist and portfolio manager who helps oversee $170 billion at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Florham Park, New Jersey, said by phone. “There’s not a lot to move the market, so perhaps this is some momentum carrying the market a little bit.”

     The S&P 500 hit fresh records on four occasions in February, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average — which also retreated from an all-time high Tuesday — climbed 5.6 percent for its best month since January 2013.

     It has taken two bull markets and more than 4,500 days for the Nasdaq Composite to get close to making up all the ground lost in the dot-com collapse. The index surged 7.1 percent in February, its best month since 2012.

     Among stocks moving Tuesday, Micron Technology Inc. retreated 5 percent after Nomura Holdings Inc. lowered its rating on the shares. Mylan, the Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based drug maker, sank 4.2 percent. Pharmaceutical companies and drug developers have been leading the Nasdaq Composite’s gains this year.

     Ford slipped 2.4 percent. Light-vehicle sales fell 2 percent after analysts had projected an increase, while General Motors Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Nissan Motor Co. rose less than estimated as cold weather slowed showroom traffic. GM shares added 0.5 percent.

     Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. tumbled 2.9 percent to the lowest level since it began trading in September, after the company was told to leave Taiwan within six months over alleged investment violations. At the same time, rival online retailer JD.Com Inc. reported better-than-projected earnings, fueling concern that Alibaba’s sales growth may be decelerating.

     Best Buy Co. rose 1.4 percent. The world’s largest electronics chain said it will offer a special dividend of 51 cents a share, or $180 million. Best Buy also said it will repurchase $1 billion in shares over the next three years.

     Stock buybacks vaulted to a record in February, with chief executive officers announcing $104.3 billion in planned repurchases. That’s the most since TrimTabs Investment Research began tracking the data in 1995 and almost twice the $55 billion bought a year earlier.

     Companies in the S&P 500 have spent more than $2 trillion on their own stock since 2009, underpinning an equity rally in which the index has more than tripled. They were on pace to spend a sum equal to 95 percent of their earnings on repurchases and dividends in 2014, data compiled in October showed.

     Treasury yields touched the highest level in more than a week as corporate-bond issuance, led by Actavis Plc’s second- biggest sale on record, drew demand away from U.S. securities. Rates on 10-year Treasury notes rose four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 2.13 percent.

     Actavis wrapped up the $21 billion debt sale after receiving orders equal to more than four times the offering size. Company bond issuance in the U.S. headed for its second- busiest day ever, with $28 billion expected from Actavis Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. alone, as central bank stimulus pushes investors to avoid low-yielding government debt.

     The Stoxx 600 retreated Monday from a seven-year high before falling on Tuesday by the most in a month. The Stoxx 600 is still up 13 percent in 2015, its best-ever start to a year, after Greece reached a bailout deal and the ECB announced its quantitative easing plans.                         

     “This week is very much about the ECB and the jobs report,” said Witold Bahrke, an asset-allocation strategist at Nomura International Plc in London, referring to monthly U.S.payrolls data due on Friday. “We had a very strong run in the recent week. It’s only natural that people will step a bit more into the sidelines, especially when you’re heading into these big events at the end of the week when we could see larger moves.”

     ECB president Mario Draghi may present details of his QE plans at a Governing Council meeting in Nicosia on Thursday. Policy makers will also unveil their first growth and inflation forecasts for the euro area in 2017.

     Barclays dropped 3.2 percent. The lender set aside an extra 750 million pounds ($1.2 billion) to cover the cost of settling the probe into alleged currency rigging and posted a 32 percent drop in full-year pretax profit at its investment bank.                        

     Denmark’s foreign currency reserves rose to a record in February after the central bank dumped kroner on the market to beat back speculators and defend the nation’s euro peg.

     The Canadian dollar rose the most in two weeks after a report showed the economy grew at a faster rate than estimated with policy makers meeting Wednesday to consider further monetary stimulus.

     Brazil’s real fell more than 1 percent to the lowest level in a decade at 2.9342 per dollar. Signs of conflict between President Dilma Rousseff and lawmakers indicated she may struggle to win support for efforts to cut deficits.

     Ukraine’s hryvnia jumped 8.5 percent versus the dollar to 24.25. The country’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate to 30 percent from 19.5 percent as policy makers struggle to support a currency that’s lost 60 percent in the past 12 months amid conflict involving Russia in its eastern regions.                       

     Australia’s dollar rose as much as 1 percent after the central bank unexpectedly left key rates at a record-low 2.25 percent Tuesday. A 25 basis-point reduction was forecast by 18 of 29 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, with swaps traders pricing better than 60 percent odds of a cut before the decision.

     Emerging-market stocks fell for a third day as concern grew China will target slower economic growth. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped 0.3 percent in a third day of losses. The gauge is still up 3.1 percent this year as countries from India to Turkey cut rates to preserve growth and amid a rebound in Brent crude, which is up 32 percent from its lowest price since March 2009.

     Beijing may set a China economic-growth target of around 7 percent for this year, the Xinhua News Agency reported. That’s below the 2014 target and may be announced at the start of the National People’s Congress on Thursday.

     Stocks in Shanghai posted the biggest loss in a month amid speculation new-share sales will divert funds from existing equities.

     Brent climbed 2.5 percent to $61.02 a barrel after sinking 4.9 percent on Monday. The port of Es Sider wasn’t damaged in an attack by a plane belonging to Libya’s Islamist-backed government, the nation’s Petroleum Facilities Guard said.

     West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.9 percent to $50.52 a barrel, settling above $50 for the first time since Feb. 25 as investors awaited U.S. government data on oil supplies in the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity.

     Stockpiles probably expanded by 3.95 million barrels last week, extending a record high, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.

     Copper fell from its highest close in seven weeks, with futures down 1.5 percent to $2.6565 a pound after a 1.4 percent drop in the metal in London. Nickel lost 1.3 percent with zinc on the London Metal Exchange, while gold — viewed as a hedge against inflation — retreated 0.2 percent in the spot market to $1,203.90 an ounce. Silver slid 0.7 percent.
 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

We must always bear in mind

that we are not going to be free,

but are free already.

Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

Every idea that we are happy or unhappy

is a tremendous delusion.

Swami Vivekananda

As ever,
 

Carolann

 

Don’t be overly concerned about your heirs.  Usually, unearned funds

do them more harm than good.

                                                -Gerald M. Loeb, 1899-1974

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7