Month: April 2024

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
April 16, 2003: The Treaty of Accession admits 10 new countries to the European Union, including Poland, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic.
April 16, 2003: Michael Jordan played his last NBA game as his Washington Wizards ended their season with a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.  Go to article >>

Charlie Chaplin, b.1889.
Margarethe, former Queen of Denmark, b.1940.

Most massive stellar black hole in the Milky Way discovered ‘extremely close’ to Earth
Astronomers found the most massive stellar-mass black hole in the galaxy after spotting a star “wobbling” nearby. The baby monster is the 2nd-closest black hole to Earth ever detected. Read More.

32 astonishing ancient burials, from ‘vampire’ decapitations to riches for the afterlife
Archaeologists have discovered lavish and grisly burials the world over. Read More.

Top total solar eclipses to look out for over the next decade
Want to experience totality again? Here are the next seven total solar eclipses across the world, from Alaska to Australia. Read More.

2,000-foot-wide ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid has just made its closest approach to Earth
The 2,000-foot-wide asteroid 2013 NK4 just made its closest approach to Earth in recorded history, sailing by at about eight lunar distances. You can still see the massive rock with a backyard telescope.
Full Story: Live Science (4/15)

Tired of your laptop battery degrading? New ‘pulse current’ charging process could double its lifespan.
Using pulse current charging, or a constant current divided with a few short breaks, lithium-ion batteries hold up better over hundreds of charging cycles and can last twice as long. Read More.

Olympic torch lit in Greece ahead of Paris 2024 Games
The flame for the 2024 Paris Olympics was lit in Olympia earlier today — the birthplace of the ancient Olympics! See images from the ceremony.

Beyoncé is sending Levi’s and Western boot sales soaring
Country fashion is having a moment, thanks to the fanfare surrounding Beyoncé’s new album “Act II: Cowboy Carter.”

Meet the winners of this year’s Boston Marathon
A marathon victory is no easy feet. Here are the winners from Monday’s race.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

London, England
Gallery assistants view a painting called The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula during a press preview of The Last Caravaggio exhibition at the National Gallery
Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

Tel Aviv, Israel
Youths play on a beach
Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​New York, US
A model walks the runway in a dress from the Dior pre-autumn 2024 women’s collection at Brooklyn Museum
Photograph: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters
Market Closes for April 16^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	37798.97	+63.86
		+0.17%
S&P 500	5051.41	-10.41
		-0.21%
NASDAQ	15865.25	-19.77
		-0.12%
TSX	21642.88	-97.33
		-0.45%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38471.20	-761.60
		-1.94%
HANG SENG	16248.97	-351.49
		-2.12%
SENSEX	72943.68	-456.10
		-0.62%
FTSE 100*	7820.36	-145.17
		-1.82%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.731	3.741
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.642	3.635
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.6674	4.6014
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.7626	4.7167

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7233	0.7249
US $	1.3826	1.3795

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4679	0.6812
US $	1.0616	0.9420

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2344.20	2344.20
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.36	85.41

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1998, Cendant stock crashed 46%. The once-popular growth stock had disclosed “potential accounting irregularities” resulting from its binge-buying of other companies.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the fifth day, dropping 0.4%, or 97.33 to 21,642.87 in Toronto.
The index dropped to the lowest closing level since March 6.
Royal Bank of Canada contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.4%.
First Majestic Silver Corp. had the largest drop, falling 8.2%.
Today, 129 of 224 shares fell, while 87 rose; 9 of 11 sectors were lower, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* The index advanced 5.2% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 21% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 3.3% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 15.8% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 3.2% in the past 5 days and fell 0.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.1 on a trailing basis and 14.8 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.45t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 8.43% compared with 8.31% in the previous session and the average of 8.75% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -51.7734| -0.8| 10/17
Materials | -16.8727| -0.7| 18/29
Industrials | -15.9054| -0.5| 12/15
Energy | -9.7595| -0.2| 21/17
Utilities | -8.9890| -1.2| 1/13
Consumer Staples | -7.8008| -0.9| 4/7
Real Estate | -2.5895| -0.5| 3/18
Communication Services | -1.8449| -0.3| 1/4
Consumer Discretionary | -0.6443| -0.1| 8/5
Health Care | 0.8129| 1.2| 3/1
Information Technology | 18.0450| 1.0| 6/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
RBC | -18.4900| -1.4| 64.8| -0.7
Barrick Gold | -14.6000| -5.0| 92.1| -4.8
Enbridge | -14.5600| -2.1| 107.5| -4.5
Shopify | 3.4620| 0.4| 42.6| -8.0
Suncor Energy | 6.0440| 1.3| -26.4| 22.3
Constellation Software | 8.2260| 1.7| 34.9| 11.1
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest bond market was hammered anew, with the two-year yield briefly hitting 5% as Jerome Powell signaled policymakers are in no rush to cut interest rates.
The Federal Reserve chief said it will likely take longer to have confidence on inflation — adding that it’s appropriate to give restrictive policy time to work.
Treasury yields climbed to fresh 2024 highs, though bonds pared some losses as dip buyers emerged.
The dollar saw its best five-day gain since October 2022.
Equities fell.
To Jeffrey Roach at LPL Financial, Powell’s comments signal the Fed will likely stay on hold for longer than originally planned.
“If you were looking for bits of easing or dovish talk from Powell, you did not miss it. He didn’t give it,” said Andrew Brenner at NatAlliance Securities.
The S&P 500 dropped to around 5,050.
Bank of America Corp. sank as charge-off for soured loans topped estimates, while Morgan Stanley climbed as traders delivered solid revenue.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. led gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after its results.
Treasury 10-year yields rose six basis points to 4.66%.
Powell’s remarks represent a shift in his message following a third straight month in which a key measure of inflation exceeded analyst forecasts.
It also shows officials see little urgency to cut rates and suggests that any reductions in 2024 may come relatively late in the year, if at all.
“The outlook for inflation has not deteriorated as much as the bond market seems to think,” said Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research. “If three months of poor inflation data gets them to do push back, what will three months of better inflation do? All Powell is doing is following the market, taking three months of bad inflation data and assuming it forward.”
To Jamie Cox at Harris Financial Group, the Fed has a “free pass” to sit on rates longer while the labor market remains strong, consumption is unaffected, and the typical consequences of hiking rates quickly aren’t apparent in the economy.
“Markets need to focus on the fact that rates are sufficiently restrictive, instead of how many cuts are in the pipeline,” Cox added.
Policymakers around the world are struggling to confront a surging greenback and lofty US interest rates, according to Mohamed El-Erian.
“Authorities are a little bit frozen around the world as to how do you react to a generalized dollar strengthening?” El-Erian, the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, told Bloomberg Television Tuesday.  “How do you react to a generalized increase in interest rates in the US?”
Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said Tuesday that while there has been considerable progress in lowering inflation, the Fed’s task of sustainably restoring 2% inflation is “not yet done.” His San Francisco counterpart Mary Daly reiterated late Monday there’s no urgency to adjust interest rates, pointing to solid economic growth, a strong labor market and still-elevated inflation.
After starting the year by pricing in as many as six rate cuts in 2024, or 1.5 percentage points of easing, traders are now doubtful there will even be a half point of reductions.
Most Wall Street economists have dialed back forecasts as well, setting up a dour scenario for US yields including a possible repeat of maturities breaching 5% as they did last October.
Amid all the anxiety, the widely watched MOVE index, an options-based measure of expected volatility in Treasuries, spiked to the highest since January.
State Street Global Advisors is standing by a contrarian call for the Fed to cut interest rate as soon as June despite a string of hot economic data that has spurred most traders to push back bets to later in the year.
The asset manager remains convinced the central bank will start monetary easing well before the US presidential election in November to avoid being seen influencing the result, according to Chief Investment Officer Lori Heinel.
The inflation backdrop still supports this move given policy works with a long lag and the quality of recent data prints has been low, she said.
Exposure to stocks is now so high that any weakness is likely to set off a bigger slump once investors start to cut back on their long positions, according to top Wall Street strategists.
There are $52 billion of long positions on the S&P 500 and 88% of them are in a loss, a situation that Citigroup strategist Chris Montagu sees as a risk for the market.
A BofA survey showed that investors have raised their allocation to equities to net 34% overweight — the biggest since January 2022 — in a poll conducted from April 5-11 among 224 participants with $638 billion in assets under management.
A separate note showed BofA clients were net sellers of US equities for a third consecutive week.
Clients pulled a net $800 million from US stocks in the five-day period through April 12 as the S&P 500 Index slumped for the week, quantitative strategists led by Jill Carey Hall said Tuesday in a note.
“A stock-market correction is unfolding right now triggered by Middle East tensions, rising bond yields and worries about delayed Fed rate cuts,” said James Demmert at Main Street Research. “Stocks have been due for a pullback for quite some time.”
BlackRock Inc.’s Robert Kapito says the stock market is poised to benefit as investors deploy their outsized holdings of cash.
There’s almost $9 trillion sitting in money market funds and the same amount in cash alternatives at banks, Kapito, president of the world’s largest asset manager, said at the Asia Pacific Financial and Innovation Symposium in Melbourne on Tuesday.
“Rising bond yields are a sign that the global economy and corporate profits are strong and resilient,” said Demmert at Main Street Research. “While this economic and corporate strength may result in fewer than expected or even no rate cuts for the foreseeable future, that isn’t something that will ruin this new bull market.”
“In the early phase of a new business cycle, it’s earnings — not the Fed – that drive stocks. Earnings have been far better than expected and we envision a similar outcome as earnings season is once again in full swing,” he concluded.

Corporate Highlights:
* Lockheed Martin Corp.’s delay in delivering F-35 jets with computer hardware and software upgrades is likely to persist until August or September, according to a Pentagon official.
* Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster is mulling a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as it looks to restructure its debt, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
* PNC Financial Services Group Inc. missed estimates for net interest income in the first quarter, a sign that the Pittsburgh-based lender has continued to grapple with muted loan growth.
* The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. reported first-quarter revenue that topped estimates as the oldest US lender benefited from higher market values and increased client activity.
* UnitedHealth Group Inc. beat Wall Street’s profit expectations and affirmed its outlook for the year, despite the costs associated with a cyberattack on one of its subsidiaries that has roiled the health-care industry.
* Johnson & Johnson’s first-quarter drug sales narrowly outpaced Wall Street expectations as the company beat profit estimates, a step towards boosting profitability after the spinoff of its consumer division.
* LVMH sales growth slowed at the start of the year as wealthy consumers reined in spending on pricey Louis Vuitton handbags and Hennessy Cognac.
* Adidas AG raised its profit target for the year amid strong demand for classic sneakers like the Samba and a boost from \sales of its diminishing stockpile of Yeezy footwear

Key events this week:
* Eurozone CPI, Wednesday
* Fed issues its Beige Book, Wednesday
* Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester speaks, Wednesday
* Fed Governor Michelle Bowman speaks, Wednesday
* BOE Governor Andrew Bailey speaks, Wednesday
* Taiwan Semiconductor earnings, Thursday
* US Conf. Board leading index, existing home sales, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Fed Governor Michelle Bowman speaks, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Thursday
* Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks, Thursday
* BOE Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden and ECB Governing Council member Joachim Nagel speak, Friday
* Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 was little changed
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.8%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.3%
* The euro was little changed at $1.0622
* The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.2431
* The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 154.64 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 0.6% to $62,747.05
* Ether fell 0.8% to $3,058.86
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced six basis points to 4.66%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 2.49%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 4.30%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.1% to $85.30 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.3% to $2,390.07 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Farah Elbahrawy, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Esha Dey, Natalia Kniazhevich, Alexandra Semenova, Carter Johnson and Anya Andrianova.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. –Marcus Aurelius, 121 AD-180 AD.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Monday.
April 15^th, 1912: RMS Titanic sinks at 2:27 am off Newfoundland as the band plays on with the loss of between 1,490 and 1,635 people.  Go to article >>

April 15, 1955: First McDonald’s opens.

Drowned land off Australia was an Aboriginal hotspot in last ice age, 4,000 stone artifacts reveal
The landscape features in the dreamtime stories of Australia’s Indigenous people. Read More.

Ancient Indigenous lineage of Blackfoot Confederacy goes back 18,000 years to last ice age, DNA reveals
A new DNA study of living and historical members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the U.S. and Canada suggests that they share a lineage with people from the last ice age. Read More.

Are we in a 6th mass extinction?
If we continue on our current trajectory, the sixth mass extinction is inevitable and the times we’re living through now will be part of that geological period. Read More.

There’s a baby star ‘sneezing’ in the constellation Taurus and it could solve a longstanding cosmic mystery
In a rare observation, scientists found a baby star “sneezing” gas, dust and magnetic energy out of its disk. This behavior could help solve a longstanding mystery about how stars form without tearing themselves apart. Read More.

Exercise may reverse sign of aging by ‘flushing’ fat from muscle
Researchers say they’ve identified a kind of fat that plays a major role in aging and can be controlled with short-term exercise. Read More.

Concertgoers enjoy eventful weekend at Coachella
No Doubt performed their long-awaited reunion set at the music festival in Indio, California. The crowd was also surprised by big guest appearances — including Will Smith dressed in his iconic “Men in Black” look.

Scottie Scheffler clinches second Masters title
Scheffler won his second green jacket over the weekend and solidified himself as the preeminent force in men’s golf.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Athens, Greece
Performers who will take part in the flame-lighting ceremony for the Paris Olympics join a rehearsal at the ancient Olympia site
Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

Frankfurt, Germany
Rape fields are in full blossom in the outskirts of Frankfurt
Photograph: Michael Probst/AP

​​​​​​​Kahramanmaras, Turkey
People look out from the Ali Rock glass observation terrace, which is built on steep cliffs above a lake
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Market Closes for April 15^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	37735.11	-248.13
		-0.65%
S&P 500	5061.82	-61.59
		-1.20%
NASDAQ	15885.02	-290.07
		-1.79%
TSX	21740.20	-159.79
		-0.73%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39232.80	-290.75
		-0.74%
HANG SENG	16600.46	-121.23
		-0.23%
SENSEX	73399.78	-845.12
		-1.14%
FTSE 100*	7965.53	-30.05
		-0.38%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.741	3.649
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.635	3.550
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.6014	4.5216
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.7167	4.6294

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7249	0.7306
US $	1.3795	1.3587

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4649	0.6826
US $	1.0619	0.9417

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2344.20	2401.50
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.41	85.66

Market Commentary
📈 On April 14, 2021, Bernie Madoff, the architect of one of the largest financial frauds in American history, died in prison. He had been serving a 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scheme that swindled more than $17 billion from investors.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the fourth day, dropping 0.7%, or 159.79 to 21,740.20 in Toronto.
The index dropped to the lowest closing level since March 8.
Today, energy stocks led the market lower, as 9 of 11 sectors lost; 177 of 224 shares fell, while 44 rose.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 2.0%.
BlackBerry Ltd. had the largest drop, falling 10.2%.
Insights
* The index advanced 5.6% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 22% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 2.9% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 16.3% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 2.3% in the past 5 days and fell 0.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.3 on a trailing basis and 15 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.47t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 8.31% compared with 7.98% in the previous session and the average of 8.92% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | -55.3501| -1.4| 3/38
Financials | -39.5235| -0.6| 3/24
Information Technology | -23.9099| -1.3| 1/9
Materials | -22.4388| -0.9| 11/36
Industrials | -11.0027| -0.4| 5/22
Real Estate | -6.7619| -1.4| 1/20
Utilities | -6.0023| -0.8| 4/11
Consumer Discretionary | -1.6682| -0.2| 5/8
Health Care | -0.7433| -1.1| 1/3
Communication Services | 0.7196| 0.1| 2/3
Consumer Staples | 6.9011| 0.8| 8/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Natural Resources | -16.4300| -2.0| -13.6| 23.1
Shopify | -16.2100| -2.0| 45.7| -8.4
Barrick Gold | -8.0990| -2.7| -1.5| 0.1
Loblaw | 2.6930| 1.8| -0.1| 16.3
BCE | 2.7420| 1.0| 1.4| -14.4
Couche-Tard | 3.3190| 0.9| -18.9| -2.5
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Tech mega-caps dragged down stocks as bond yields jumped after hot retail sales spurred bets the Federal Reserve will be in no rush to cut rates.
Oil whipsawed on geopolitical angst.
In a volatile session, the S&P 500 erased an earlier advance and fell over 1%. Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. led declines in the rate-sensitive technology space.
Volatility perked up, with the premium for one-month put options to protect against a pullback in US equities hitting the highest since October. Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — the VIX — hit levels unseen this year.
“Stocks began to violate uptrends and pull back,” said Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler. “Interest rates are expected to stay higher for longer. A more cautious and tactical approach is favored as earnings season gets underway.”
The S&P 500 broke below 5,100, dropping to the lowest in almost two months.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slid over 1.5%.
Both gauges breached their 50-day moving averages — seen as a bearish signal by several chartists.
Banks outperformed on a surprise profit from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Treasury 10-year yields spiked nine basis points to 4.62%, while those on two-year notes came closer to 5%.
Bonds were also under pressure as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. tapped the US high-grade bond market, the first in a likely parade of bond sales from banks after results.
West Texas Intermediate reclaimed its $85 mark — after briefly falling below it — and gold climbed on fears of escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Top Israeli military officials reiterated the country has no choice but to answer Iran’s weekend attack.
US retail sales rose by more than forecast in March and the prior month was revised higher, showcasing resilient consumer demand that keeps fueling a surprisingly strong economy.
As long as a robust labor market supports household demand, there’s a risk that inflation will become entrenched.
“If the S&P 500 is going to avoid its first three-week losing streak since last September, investors will need to move past concerns that rate cuts will be delayed because of sticky inflation,” said Chris Larkin at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley.  “In the near-term, that could come down to the tone set by the first full week of earnings season, but geopolitical tensions in the Middle East remain a wild card.”
The strong tailwind from easy financial conditions continues to boost inflation and growth, including consumer spending in March, said Torsten Slok at Apollo Global Management, who continues to bet the Fed will not cut interest
rates in 2024.
“The markets have been buoyed by strong corporate profits and the elixir of lower rates, but it seems like those two things are increasingly at odds with each other, so we would exercise some caution in the near term,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance.
Expectations for monetary policy have been shifting toward a later start to Fed rate cuts, which officials have said requires a higher degree of confidence that inflation is on a sustainable path back toward their 2% target.
Traders are no longer fully pricing in a rate cut before November.
“In our view it’s not about ‘higher for longer’ when it comes to the Fed’s rate regime rather, it’s a continuation of the ‘pause for now’ until inflation gives up its stickiness,” said John Stoltzfus at Oppenheimer Asset Management.
Due to the heightened concern that the Fed will be “slower to lower” interest rates, investors now worry that these sticky inflation readings will be viewed as a catalyst for correction, said Sam Stovall at CFRA.
For all 24 corrections since World War II, it took the S&P 500 only four months to recover all that was lost in the decline, he added.
Better yet, since 1990, the market got back to breakeven in only three months.
“Therefore, history once again reminds us that, for long-term investors, it has typically been better to buy than bail,” Stovall said.
Stubborn inflation, a robust economy and signals from Fed officials that interest rates will remain higher for longer have derailed traders’ optimism for an interest rate cut by summer.
But that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily worried about the stock market.
Soothsayers at Jefferies JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and State Street Corp. agree that the strength in economic data and corporate earnings is enough to keep this year’s stock market rally going — whether or not interest rates are dialed back.
Stickier inflation stemming from strong economic momentum is better for US equities than stagflation, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists led by Ohsung Kwon.
“If inflation is sticky because of momentum in the economy, that’s not necessarily bad for stocks,” they wrote, adding “but stagflation is.”
“Recent inflation data has laid to rest the notion of a Goldilocks US economy. Instead, investors and the Fed will have to put up with a bumpier disinflation path than they assumed at the start of the year,” said Jason Draho at UBS Global Wealth Management. “But overall macro conditions of trend-level growth, slow and bumpy disinflation, and a Fed ready to exercise its put of rate cuts is still supportive for risk assets.”
Don’t bank on an upbeat corporate earnings season to drive equities higher as much of the optimism is already priced in following the record-breaking rally this year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Mislav Matejka wrote.  “Equities have already had a good run into the results, suggesting that investors are more optimistic than the downbeat earnings projections by sell-side analysts convey,” they said.
“We need to see clear earnings acceleration in order to justify current equity valuations, which we fear might not come through.”
Strategists at BlackRock’s Investment Institute see signs of earnings growth broadening beyond US technology behemoths to other sectors like industrials and materials in this reporting period.
Strong economic data and corporate earnings have supported risk appetite so far this year despite a jump in bond yields, but “earnings will need to deliver on high expectations,” team led by global chief investment strategist Wei Li said Monday in a weekly commentary note.
An improving outlook for the US economy and continued easy financial-market conditions have prompted Wells Fargo Investment Institute to boost its outlook for the US stock market and corporate earnings estimates.
The investment adviser raised its S&P 500 Index 2024 year-end forecast to range of 5,100 to 5,300.
“A point of emphasis is that these year-end targets allow for potential market disappointments related to the track of inflation and the federal funds rate,” strategists at WII wrote.

Corporate Highlights:
* Two of Tesla Inc.’s top executives have left in the midst of the carmaker’s largest-ever round of job cuts, as slowing electric-vehicle demand leads the company to reduce its global headcount by more than 10%.
* Lockheed Martin Corp. beat rival Northrop Grumman Corp. in a $17 billion contest to continue development and eventual production of the US’s next-generation missile interceptor warhead, according to two people familiar with the decision.
* M&T Bank Corp. boosted its 2024 outlook for net interest income, a key source of revenue.
* The union for American Airlines Group Inc. pilots warned members to be vigilant amid a “significant spike” in safety-and maintenance-related problems at the carrier.
* Clearlake Capital Group LP has made a sweetened bid to acquire Blackbaud Inc., offering $80 a share about a year after its last approach was rebuffed by the cloud software provider.
* Charles Schwab Corp.’s first-quarter net revenue topped estimates as the retail brokerage tries to put 2023’s turbulence behind it.

Key events this week:
* China property prices, retail sales, industrial production, GDP, Tuesday
* Germany ZEW survey expectations, Tuesday
* US housing starts, industrial production, Tuesday
* Morgan Stanley, Bank of America earnings, Tuesday.
* Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson speaks, Tuesday
* BOE Governor Andrew Bailey speaks, Tuesday
* IMF publishes its latest world economic outlook, Tuesday
* Eurozone CPI, Wednesday
* Fed issues its Beige Book, Wednesday
* Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester speaks, Wednesday
* Fed Governor Michelle Bowman speaks, Wednesday
* BOE Governor Andrew Bailey speaks, Wednesday
* Taiwan Semiconductor earnings, Thursday
* US Conf. Board leading index, existing home sales, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Fed Governor Michelle Bowman speaks, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Thursday
* Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks, Thursday
* BOE Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden and ECB Governing Council member Joachim Nagel speak, Friday
* Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.6%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7%
* The MSCI World index fell 1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%
* The euro fell 0.2% to $1.0625
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2447
* The Japanese yen fell 0.7% to 154.24 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 0.8% to $63,338.62
* Ether rose 1.1% to $3,101.54
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced nine basis points to 4.62%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced eight basis points to 2.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 10 basis points to 4.24%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude was little changed
* Spot gold rose 1.7% to $2,385.37 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alexandra Semenova, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Yongchang Chin, Alex Longley, Julia Fanzeres, Felice Maranz, Ye Xie, David Marino and Kasia Klimasinska.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.
April 12,1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space.  The Soviet Cosmonaut’s flight took 108 minutes from launch to landing.
April 12, 1981: The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on its first test flight.  Go to article >>

Franklin D. Roosevelt, d.. 1945.
David Letterman, b. 1947.
1955: Polio vaccine.

Car-size asteroid discovered just days ago flies 30 times closer to Earth than the moon
A newly discovered asteroid got within 12,000 miles of Earth on a harrowing, ultra-close approach. The space rock won’t return for 70 years. Read More.

Uranus and Neptune aren’t made of what we thought, new study hints
A study suggests the ice giants Uranus and Neptune aren’t quite as watery as previously thought. They may also contain huge amounts of frozen methane, potentially solving the puzzle of how they formed. Read More.

Toxic formaldehyde in hair-straightening products to be banned
Experts explain what the expected FDA ban on formaldehyde in hair-straightening products really means for everyday Americans. Read More.

Watch derpy robots show off their soccer skills thanks to new AI training method
Short, stumpy robots learned how to play soccer — and improved their skills dramatically thanks to a new AI training technique that combines several pre-existing methods. Read More

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry have two new Netflix shows in production
An upcoming Netflix series curated by Meghan “will celebrate the joys of cooking & gardening, entertaining, and friendship,” the streaming giant said.

Creating a board game is more complicated than you think
Designers, artists, marketers and publishers of some of the most popular board games tell CNN exactly what it takes to turn an idea into reality.

Taylor Swift’s music is back on TikTok
The pop star’s hit songs are back on TikTok ahead of her latest album’s release. Read about the ongoing dispute with her music distributor, Universal Music Group, over royalties.

Russian hackers steal US government emails with Microsoft
Microsoft has notified “several” US federal agencies that Russian hackers may have stolen emails via a major software breach.

Foxes were once humans’ best friends, study says
Scientists believe this extinct fox species may have been domesticated 1,500 years ago by hunter-gatherers.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Grindavík, Iceland
A volcano that erupted three times between December and February continues to spew lava and emit smoke as the northern lights appear over the town
Photograph: Marco di Marco/AP

A bird perches on an elephant as the larger animal moves through Amboseli national park in Kajiado, Kenya
Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/Reuters

​​​​​​​Geese walk through pear trees in full bloom in a village in Qingdao, Shandong province, China
Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Market Closes for April 12^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	37983.24	-475.84
		-1.24%
S&P 500	5123.41	-75.65
		-1.46%
NASDAQ	16175.06	-267.11
		-1.62%
TSX	21899.99	-210.12
		-0.95%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39523.55	+80.92
		+0.21%
HANG SENG	16721.69	-373.34
		-2.18%
SENSEX	74244.90	-793.25
		-1.06%
FTSE 100*	7995.58	+71.78
		+0.91%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.649	3.730
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.550	3.609
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.5216	4.5865
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.6294	4.6784

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7255	0.7306
US $	1.3784	1.3587

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4693	0.6806
US $	1.0660	0.9381

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2401.50	2345.65
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.66	86.21

Market Commentary:
📈 On April 13, 1989, American Continental filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and regulators seized its main subsidiary, Lincoln Savings & Loan Association, after discussions to sell the ailing thrift collapsed. American Continental Chairman Charles Keating would later face charges over the bank’s demise, which came to symbolize the broader savings-and-loan crisis.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the third day, dropping 1%, or 210.12 to 21,899.99 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.3% on Feb. 13.
Royal Bank of Canada contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.2%.
MTY Food Group Inc. had the largest drop, falling 9.9%.
Today, 192 of 224 shares fell, while 30 rose; all sectors were lower, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index fell 1.6%, heading for the biggest decline since the week ended Oct. 27
* The index advanced 7.1% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 25% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 2.1% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 17.2% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.4 on a trailing basis and 15.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.51t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 7.98% compared with 7.71% in the previous session and the average of 9.33% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -61.1547| -0.9| 3/24
Energy | -39.0904| -1.0| 7/33
Information Technology | -32.0299| -1.7| 0/10
Materials | -27.0312| -1.0| 6/44
Utilities | -10.7763| -1.4| 2/13
Industrials | -10.1413| -0.3| 4/23
Communication Services | -9.8779| -1.4| 1/4
Consumer Discretionary | -9.8128| -1.3| 1/12
Consumer Staples | -4.8879| -0.6| 3/8
Real Estate | -4.2573| -0.9| 2/18
Health Care | -1.0558| -1.6| 1/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
RBC | -15.6400| -1.2| 9.6| 1.2
Constellation Software | -15.2400| -3.0| -29.7| 9.0
Canadian Natural Resources | -14.4000| -1.7| -5.9| 25.6
Whitecap Resources | 0.6690| 1.5| 18.9| 19.8
Agnico Eagle Mines | 0.9390| 0.3| 16.9| 16.5
Waste Connections | 1.9270| 0.5| -35.1| 16.4
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The financial world was roiled by a flare-up in geopolitical risks that sent stocks sliding — while spurring a flight to the safest corners of the market such as bonds and the dollar.
Oil rose.
Equities saw their worst day since January after a news report that Israel was bracing for an attack by Iran on government targets.
Approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanese territory, some of which were intercepted, the Israel Defense Forces wrote in a post on X.
US President Joe Biden said he expects Iran will attack Israel sooner rather than later — and his message to Iran is “don’t” do it.
Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — the VIX — spiked to levels last seen in October.
To Matt Maley at Miller Tabak, investors have been much too complacent about geopolitical issues.
“Since gold and oil markets have been pricing in a meaningful impact on the marketplace from this crisis, it’s not out of the question that the stock market will follow those other markets and see an outsized reaction before long,” Maley
noted.
The S&P 500 fell 1.5% Friday, with banks and chipmakers leading losses.
The gauge posted its biggest weekly drop in 2024.
Treasury 10-year yields sank seven basis points to 4.52%.
Andrew Brenner at NatAlliance Securities also cited “massive short covering” and rate locking before an expected flurry of debt issuance by banks after earnings.
The dollar notched its best week since September 2022.
Brent oil settled above $90.
Gold topped the $2,400-an-ounce mark before erasing gains.
Treasuries rallied sharply, following the market’s worst two days since February, in which yields reached year-to-date highs after inflation readings savaged expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts this year.
Two-year yields — which briefly topped 5% this week — plunged on Friday.
“Risk was off the menu on Friday,” said Fawad Razaqzada at City Index and Forex.com. “Investors were lighting up on risk exposure ahead of the weekend, fearing risk assets could gap lower should something happen.”
A direct confrontation between Israel and Iran would mean a significant escalation of the Middle East conflict and would lead to a significant rise in oil prices, according to Commerzbank analysts including Carsten Fritsch.
Escalating geopolitical tensions — most recently in the Middle East, but also including attacks on Russian energy infrastructure by Ukraine — have spurred bullish activity in the oil options market.
There’s been elevated buying of call options — which profit when prices rise — in recent days, with implied volatility jumping.
Jose Torres at Interactive Brokers says the latest developments illustrate how investor sentiment and high equity valuations are vulnerable to geopolitical conflicts, persistent inflation and oil prices.
“Investors have pushed back their expectations for the start of the Fed’s easing cycle — with geopolitics possibly replacing the Fed as one of the market’s top volatility influencers,” he noted.
As Wall Street’s earnings season kicked off, big banks’ results offered the latest window into how the US economy is faring amid an interest-rate trajectory muddied by persistent inflation.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. both reported net interest income — the earnings they generate from lending — that missed estimates amid increasing funding costs.
Citigroup Inc.’s profit topped analysts’ estimates as corporations tapped markets for financing and consumers leaned on credit cards — signs that a prolonged period of elevated interest rates will benefit big banks.
“Many economic indicators continue to be favorable.  However, looking ahead, we remain alert to a number of significant uncertain forces,” JPMorgan’s Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said.
He cited the wars, growing geopolitical tensions, persistent inflationary pressures and the effects of quantitative tightening.
Meantime, the latest economic data did little to alter the reduced risk appetite on Friday — with consumer sentiment down as inflation expectations rose.
BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said he expects the Fed to cut rates twice at the most this year, and that it will be difficult for the central bank to curb inflation.
Fink told CNBC he would “call it a day and a win” if the inflation rate gets to between 2.8% and 3%, which is above the Fed’s 2% target.
Pacific Investment Management Co. warned that the Fed could pivot back toward interest rate hikes if US inflation moves higher — with the asset manager preferring to buy bonds in other markets.
“If inflation starts to re-emerge then there’s a possibility that the Fed hikes instead of delivering any cuts,” Mohit Mittal, chief investment officer for core strategies at Pimco, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Traders also kept an eye on the latest Fed speak.
A slew of officials emphasized Friday that there is no urgency to lower interest rates, pointing to still-elevated inflation and a robust labor market.
That included comments from both the Boston Fed’s Susan Collins as well as San Francisco’s Mary Daly.
Atlanta’s Raphael Bostic repeated his view for one rate cut toward the end of the year, and Kansas City’s Jeffrey Schmid noted he prefers a “patient” approach to reductions.
While shifting expectations around the timing and pace of the first cuts are likely to create further yield volatility in the near term, UBS’s Chief Investment Office thinks the more important point is that the US central bank remains set to start easing this year.
With a low probability of the Fed needing to hike rates further, CIO maintains their positive outlook on quality bonds.
“We continue to favor quality bonds in our global portfolios and recommend investors lock in attractive yields before rates fall this year,” said Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management. “We like those with 1–10-year duration, as
well as sustainable bonds.”  “We also think investors should consider an active exposure to fixed income to improve diversification,” she concluded.

Corporate Highlights:
* United States Steel Corp. shareholders voted in favor of a $14.1 billion takeover offer by Nippon Steel Corp., leaving the fate of the deal for the iconic American steelmaker to the realm of US regulators and politics.
* BlackRock Inc.’s long-term investment funds took in $76 billion of net inflows in the first quarter, helping to push the world’s largest money manager to a record $10.5 trillion of client assets.
* Exxon Mobil Corp. formally approved its sixth Guyanese oil development that will make the Latin American nation a bigger crude producer than OPEC member Venezuela.
* Beijing has ordered telecom carriers like China Mobile Ltd. to replace foreign chips in their core networks by 2027, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
* Activist investor Barington Capital Group L.P. is calling on Paramount Global to end exclusive talks with media mogul David Ellison and consider rival proposals, including one from Apollo Global Management Inc.

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.5% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.7%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 1.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.7%
* The euro fell 0.8% to $1.0637
* The British pound fell 0.8% to $1.2447
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 153.26 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 5.2% to $66,823.88
* Ether fell 8.8% to $3,214.92
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined seven basis points to 4.52%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined 10 basis points to 2.36%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 4.14%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.6% to $85.54 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 1.3% to $2,342.74 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alex Longley, Jack Wittels, Julia Fanzeres, Jack Ryan, Sybilla Gross, Caleb Mutua, Carter Johnson and Michael Mackenzie.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.  The best is the enemy of the good. –Voltaire, 1694-1778.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve.
April 11, 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France and was banished to the island of Elba.  Go to article >>.
1945: Liberation of Buchenwald.
1968: US Civil Rights Act passed into law.
April 11, 1976: The Apple I computer, created by Steve Wozniak is released.

Viking Age women with cone-shaped skulls likely learned head-binding practice from far-flung region
The skull modifications were found on the skeletons of three women buried on Gotland almost 1,000 years ago. Read More.

Total solar eclipse reveals tiny new comet moments before it was destroyed by the sun
On April 8, just a few hours before the solar eclipse, an amateur astronomer discovered a small “sungrazer” comet in close proximity to our home star. The newfound object was photographed during totality before disintegrating into nothingness later the same day. Read More.

Superfast drone fitted with new ‘rotating detonation rocket engine’ approaches the speed of sound
Engineers have successfully flown a drone at near-supersonic speeds thanks to a new type of engine that burns like a rocket and could one day lead to hypersonic
Mach 9 commercial flights. Read More.

German museum worker fired after hanging his own art in gallery
An aspiring artist landed in big trouble with his employer — and the police — after hanging his own artwork in a famous museum.

A graffiti ‘takeover’ roils downtown Los Angeles
CNN spoke with a man who said his graffiti crew was involved in tagging the famous Oceanwide Plaza complex in downtown Los Angeles. Read how he hopes to redefine public perception of the medium.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

London, UK
A visitor at the press preview of Suspended States, an exhibition by the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare at Serpentine South.
Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock

Frankfurt, Germany
Hares run on a field in the city’s outskirts
Photograph: Michael Probst/AP

​​​​​​​London, UK
‘I have been taking pictures from this location for many years, and this is the latest view from the East India DLR station.’
Photograph: Colin Page
Market Closes for April 11^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38459.08	-2.43
		-0.01%
S&P 500	5199.06	+38.42
		+0.74%
NASDAQ	16442.20	+271.84
		+1.68%
TSX	22110.11	-89.02
		-0.40%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39442.63	-139.18
		-0.35%
HANG SENG	17095.03	-44.14
		-0.26%
SENSEX	75038.15	+354.45
		+0.47%
FTSE 100*	7923.80	-37.41
		-0.47%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.730	3.695
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.609	3.547
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.5865	4.5435
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.6784	4.6223

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7306	0.7307
US $	1.3587	1.3586

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4683	0.6811
US $	1.0728	0.9321

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2345.65	2356.10
Oil
WTI Crude Future	86.21	86.21

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1792, New York investor Henrietta Colden summed up the aftermath of March’s stock-market crash as follows: “The depravity of the human mind was exhibited in its worst stage; the speculators were daily boxing in the streets, cursing and abusing each other like pick pockets, and trying every fraud to prey on each others distresses.”
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the second day, dropping 0.4%, or 89.02 to 22,110.11 in Toronto.
Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.6%.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. had the largest drop, falling 5.7%.
Today, 124 of 224 shares fell, while 97 rose; 8 of 11 sectors were lower, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index fell 0.7%, heading for the biggest decline since the week ended Nov. 10
* The index advanced 8.3% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 26% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 1.2% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 18.3% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.3% in the past 5 days and rose 1.6% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.5 on a trailing basis and 15.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.52t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 7.71% compared with 7.64% in the previous session and the average of 9.51% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | -44.1781| -1.1| 13/27
Industrials | -27.0336| -0.9| 11/16
Financials | -26.2064| -0.4| 6/21
Utilities | -3.9032| -0.5| 6/9
Consumer Staples | -1.3109| -0.1| 3/8
Real Estate | -1.2117| -0.2| 10/10
Communication Services | -0.7949| -0.1| 2/3
Health Care | -0.4861| -0.7| 3/1
Consumer Discretionary | 2.0634| 0.3| 5/8
Information Technology | 6.0244| 0.3| 7/3
Materials | 8.0036| 0.3| 31/18
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Pacific Kansas | -12.3800| -1.6| -29.3| 13.1
Canadian Natural Resources | -12.3800| -1.5| -13.9| 27.8
Suncor Energy | -11.6400| -2.4| -28.2| 23.6
Wheaton Precious Metals | 5.8590| 2.6| -22.3| 10.2
Brookfield Corp | 7.5980| 1.4| -47.8| 2.2
Constellation Software | 8.5880| 1.7| 12.0| 12.4
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s largest technology companies drove a rebound in stocks, with traders bracing for a deluge of results from Corporate America that will test this year’s $4 trillion rally.
Earnings season kicks into full swing Friday, with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. reporting.
A solid economy is expected to fuel a rise in profit growth for S&P 500 companies — and strong margins from big tech will be key.
Also helping sentiment was an inflation report that trailed estimates a day after a hot price reading curbed bets on Federal Reserve rate cuts.
“It’s not going to be Fed rate cuts that drive the market going forward, rather it’s going to be earnings,” said George Ball, chairman of Sanders Morris. “Corporate earnings are much stronger than people have anticipated even in this elevated interest-rate environment.”
The S&P 500 hovered near 5,200, while the Nasdaq 100 added 1.6%.
Alphabet Inc. got closer to the $2 trillion mark, Amazon.com Inc. hit a record high and Apple Inc. jumped on news it plans to overhaul its Mac line.
Financial shares came under pressure, with Morgan Stanley tumbling on a news report regulators are probing its wealth arm.
Globe Life Inc. sank after a short-seller call.
Treasury 10-year yields rose two basis points to 4.57%.
A sale of 30-year bonds garnered lackluster demand.
The euro dropped after the European Central Bank signaled cooling inflation will soon allow it to cut rates.
Wall Street projects S&P 500 members will show 3.8% annual growth in earnings per share for the first-quarter reporting period, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show.
That performance could at the very least offer support for a struggling and still-pricey market, assuming companies deliver as projected.
Profits for the so-called Magnificent Seven companies in the S&P 500 — Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Nvidia Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc. — are on course to rise 38% in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
“The next challenge is earnings season, with the reaction to news likely to pave the path forward for equities,” said Mark Hackett at Nationwide.
Indeed, earnings will be watched closely to see whether growth can justify an S&P 500 price-earnings ratio that’s roughly 20% above its 10-year average.
At 21 times profits, that translates to an earnings yield of 4.8% — a multiple that looks increasingly unfavorable with 10-year Treasury yields rising to 4.5%.
In fact, the valuation edge by stocks now sits near the smallest in two decades.
“We find ourselves in an environment where stocks appear fully valued, market interest rates are climbing and the consensus expectation for Federal Reserve rate cuts is dwindling,” said John Lynch at Comerica Wealth Management. “It
is therefore imperative, in our opinion, that corporate profits continue to expand to justify current levels of equity valuation and investor sentiment.”
On Friday, Wall Street will be closely watching banks’ outlook and commentary around key profit drivers like net interest income and investment banking.
Fewer interest rate cuts could bolster net interest income prospects for many large-cap banks and lead to upward guidance revisions.
Since hitting a trough in October, the group has soared past the broader market’s gains.
“Investors will be looking towards bank CEO comments for continued signs of a resilient economy and confirmation of a soft landing in 2024,” said Christine Short at Wall Street Horizon.
The same headwinds and tailwinds are in play for banks this year as in 2023, she noted.
“High interest rates still help banks maintain healthy levels of net interest income, but on the flipside have negative implications when they lead to loan defaults from borrowers that can no longer contend with higher costs,” Short added. “The promise of lower interest rates had fueled a rally in the banks this year, but with a tight labor market and stubbornly high inflation readings, that expectation has sputtered.”
Traders also kept a close eye on the latest economic data.
US producer prices increased in March from a year earlier by the most in 11 months, though certain categories that feed into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge were more muted.
While the latest PPI reading was constructive, investors should be prepared for fewer rate cuts this year — one or two — and for a first potential move not until the July meeting, according to Larry Tentarelli at Blue Chip Daily Trend Report.
“Although we understand the relief with which this report will be received, there is nothing very encouraging contained within it — and the best that can be said is that there was ‘no new bad news’ either,” said Michael Shaoul at Marketfield Asset Management.
Fed Bank of New York President John Williams said the central bank has made “tremendous progress” toward better balance on its inflation and employment goals, but added there’s no need to cut in the “very near term.”
His Richmond counterpart Thomas Barkin said the US central bank still has work to do to contain price pressures and can take its time before cutting interest rates.
Fed Bank of Boston President Susan Collins said it may take more time than previously thought to gain the confidence to begin easing policy, possibly warranting fewer rate reductions this year.

* Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is set to visit India and meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sparking speculation about the US company’s investments in the South Asian nation just ahead of the start of national elections.
* Ford Motor Co. slashed prices of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck by as much as 7.5% as the automaker prepares to resume deliveries this month following a halt earlier this year over an undisclosed quality issue.
* Nike Inc. was raised to buy at Bank of America Corp., which said consensus estimates “finally look achievable” after projections for fiscal 2025 dropped 35% over the past two years.
* CarMax Inc. reported profits that missed Wall Street’s expectations as high monthly payments scare off would-be used-car buyers.
* Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to buy Alpine Immune Sciences Inc. for a total equity value of about $4.9 billion, adding the biotech company’s immune treatments in its biggest acquisition ever.
* Dish Network Corp., the satellite-TV provider saddled with more than $20 billion in debt and losing customers, has received financing offers from private credit firms, according to people with knowledge of the matter

Key events this week:
* China trade, Friday
* US University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo due to report results, Friday.
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.7% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.6%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index rose 0.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro fell 0.1% to $1.0729
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2560
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 153.21 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 1% to $70,482.01
* Ether rose 0.1% to $3,518.39
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 4.57%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 2.46%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 4.20%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.7% to $85.62 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 1.7% to $2,372.98 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Jessica Menton, Carly Wanna, Denitsa Tsekova, Lu Wang, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Alexandra Semenova and Bre Bradham.
Have a  lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. –Tony Robbins, b.1960.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

April 10, 1947:  Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals, paving the way for Robinson to become the first black to play in the major leagues. Go to article >>
April 10, 2001: Mercy killings become legal in the Netherlands, legalizing euthanasia for patients with unbearable, terminal illness.

1849: Safety pin patented.
1942: Bataan Death March.

Eclipse from space: See the moon’s shadow race across North America at 1,500 mph in epic satellite footage
Satellite images show the moon’s gigantic shadow sweeping across North America during the April 8 total solar eclipse. Astronauts on board the ISS also captured stunning shots of the enormous dark patch. Read More.

Part of the San Andreas fault may be gearing up for an earthquake
The Parkfield section of the San Andreas fault is sending mixed messages before a time of expected increased seismic risk. Read More.

77,000 baby salmon survive truck crash in Oregon by leaping into nearby creek
A truck that was transporting 102,000 spring Chinook salmon to the Imnaha River in northeastern Oregon crashed in a road bend, spilling most of its cargo into a nearby creek. Read More.

5 desserts for celebrating Eid al-Fitr
Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the monthlong Ramadan fast. Here are a few delicious dishes to include in the festivities.

The world’s oldest tattoos
Ötzi the Iceman, whose 5,300-year-old body was found by hikers in the Tyrolean Alps, has 61 tattoos. Scientists now think they understand the technique behind them.

Jay Leno granted conservatorship of wife Mavis Leno’s estate
A judge granted Jay Leno’s request for a conservatorship of his wife’s estate, saying the move is “necessary and appropriate” as she battles dementia.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Dorset, UK
An aerial view of a large cliff fall at Hive Beach in Burton Bradstock
Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Paris, France
Anouk Garnier climbs up a rope under the Eiffel Tower during an attempt to beat a rope climb record
Photograph: Laurent Cipriani/AP

​​​​​​​Lapland, Finland
‘-20C outside, thigh-deep in snow and with the last gasps of a battery in a soon-to-be-frozen camera – I got the shot.’
Photograph: Steven Hyde
Market Closes for April 10^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38461.51	-422.16
		-1.09%
S&P 500	5160.64	-49.27
		-0.95%
NASDAQ	16170.36	-136.28
		-0.84%
TSX	22199.13	-162.65
		-0.73%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39581.81	-191.32
		-0.48%
HANG SENG	17139.17	+311.10
		+1.85%
SENSEX	75038.15	+354.45
		+0.47%
FTSE 100*	7961.21	+26.42
		+0.33%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.695	3.556
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.547	3.472
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.5435	4.3616
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.6223	4.4964

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7307	0.7367
US $	1.3586	1.3574

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4703	0.6801
US $	1.0742	0.9309

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2356.10	2356.10
Oil
WTI Crude Future	86.21	85.23

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1792, the New York legislature enacted a law banning public stock auctions, the first known securities law in American history, following a stock-market crash a month earlier.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.7% at 22,199.13 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.3% on Feb. 13 and follows the previous session’s increase of 0.5%.
Today, financials stocks led the market lower, as 10 of 11 sectors lost; 155 of 224 shares fell, while 66 rose.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 3.1%.
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP had the largest drop, falling 4.4%.
Insights
* The index advanced 9.5% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 25% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.8% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 18.8% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.4% in the past 5 days and rose 2.1% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.5 on a trailing basis and 15.2 times estimated earnings of
its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.54t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 7.64% compared with 7.31% in the previous session and the average of 9.59% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -105.6657| -1.5| 7/20
Information Technology| -38.0849| -2.0| 1/9
Utilities | -15.0351| -1.8| 1/14
Real Estate | -12.2215| -2.4| 1/20
Consumer Discretionary| -7.1695| -0.9| 2/9
Communication Services| -5.4890| -0.8| 0/5
Materials | -4.6016| -0.2| 14/36
Consumer Staples | -4.4559| -0.5| 2/9
Industrials | -1.6917| -0.1| 6/21
Health Care | -1.5097| -2.2| 0/4
Energy | 33.2709| 0.8| 32/8
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -26.9400| -3.1| 17.6| -4.6
Brookfield Corp | -22.1000| -4.0| 10.6| 0.8
TD Bank | -17.6200| -1.8| 18.5| -8.0
Canadian National | 6.9480| 1.0| 4.0| 7.8
Suncor Energy | 10.5600| 2.2| -36.3| 26.6
Canadian Natural Resources | 12.1500| 1.5| -42.9| 29.7
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street traders sent stocks and bonds sliding after another hot inflation report signaled the Federal Reserve will be in no rush to cut rates this year.
Oil climbed as geopolitical jitters resurfaced.
Equities extended their April losses, with the S&P 500 down about 1% as the consumer price index beat forecasts for a third month.
In a hawkish reprice of the Treasury curve, 10-year yields topped 4.5% and Fed swaps are now showing bets on only two rate cuts for 2024.
A sharp reversal in oil also weighed on sentiment, with Bloomberg News reporting the US and its allies believe major missile or drone strikes by Iran or its proxies on Israel are imminent.
As the Fed rides the “last mile” toward its 2% inflation goal, the concern is that price pressures may not be just a “bump in the road” — with the higher-for-longer rate narrative taking hold.
Minutes of the last Fed meeting showed “almost all” officials judged it would be appropriate to pivot “at some point” this year.
But inflation since then has upended market bets.
“It’s often said that the Fed takes the escalator up and the elevator down when setting rates,” said Richard Flynn at Charles Schwab. “But for the path downwards in this cycle, it looks like they will opt for the stairs.”
The Fed minutes also showed policymakers “generally favored” slowing the pace at which they’re shrinking the asset portfolio by roughly half.
The S&P 500 dropped to around 5,160.
Treasury two-year yields surged 23 basis points to 4.97%.
The dollar saw its biggest advance since January.
A weak $39 billion sale of 10-year bonds also boosted yields.
Brent crude climbed back above $90.
The March core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy costs, increased 0.4% from February, according to government data out Wednesday.
From a year ago, it advanced 3.8%, holding steady from the prior month.
These inflation figures — alongside the jobs report released last week — complicate the timing of the Fed’s rate cuts, according to Tiffany Wilding at Pacific Investment Management Co.
Not only there’s now a strong case to push out the timing of the first reduction past mid-year, it also strengthens the odds that the US will ease policy at a more gradual rate than its developed-market counterparts, she noted.
“Inflation right now is like the ‘stubborn child’ that refuses to heed the parent’s call to leave the playground,” said Jason Pride at Glenmede. “As a result, investors should be prepared for a higher-for-longer monetary regime.”
That doesn’t mean rates are going higher — but the distance to a rate cut is another quarter, according to Jamie Cox at Harris Financial Group.
“You can kiss a June interest-rate cut goodbye,” said Greg McBride at Bankrate. “There is no improvement here, we’re moving in the wrong direction.”
To Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research, Fed officials are still cutting this year — but they won’t be starting in June.
“I think July is probable, which means two cuts remain a reasonable baseline,” Dutta said. “If the Fed does not get a cut off in July, however, investors will need to worry about path dependency. As an example, would September be too close to the election? If not June, then July. If not July, then December.”
At the start of the year, the amount of easing priced in for 2024 exceeded 150 basis points.
That expectation was based on the view that the US economy would slow in response to the Fed’s 11 rate hikes over the past two years.
Rather, growth data has broadly exceeded expectations.
While Fed Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly stressed that financial conditions are weighing on the economy, many market-based measures suggest otherwise.
Stocks have added $12 trillion in value since October alone, contributing to readings in a gauge of financial conditions tracked by Bloomberg that are looser now than before the Fed began tightening.
“Easy financial conditions continue to provide a significant tailwind to growth and inflation. As a result, the Fed is not done fighting inflation and rates will stay higher for longer,” said Torsten Slok at Apollo Global Management. “We
are sticking to our view that the Fed will not cut rates in 2024.”
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers went a step further to say that one would have to “take seriously the possibility that the next rate move will be upwards rather than downwards.”
Such a likelihood is somewhere in the 15% to 25% range, he told Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin.
Despite early evidence of a re-heating economy, the bar for Fed hikes at this stage is quite high, according to Lauren Goodwin at New York Life Investments.
“A signal that interest rates could move higher would likely be met with a rapid tightening in market financial conditions,” she noted. “We believe there is enough evidence of gradually expanding cracks in the economy to keep further
tightening off the table unless inflation accelerates meaningfully.”
Another hot CPI reading may have been “the final nail in the coffin” for a June rate cut, but it remains to be seen whether 2024 will turn out to be a two-cut year, or something less, according to Chris Larkin at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley.
To Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance, the Fed still has a bias to cut rates and is likely to do so in either July or September.
Still, if inflation remains sticky, that may be the only rate cut we get this year.
“Goldilocks has left the building,” he added. “Inflation isn’t coming down anymore and rate-cut hopes are going to be pushed off even further into the future.”
Traders and policymakers alike risk reading too much into the hotter-than-expected US inflation print that jolted markets and called into question the central bank’s interest-rate cutting cycle, according to a top macro strategist at Citadel.
“It was never going to be a steady path. We’re seeing bumps, and the bumps are just part of the game,” Angel Ubide at Citadel told Bloomberg Television. “Unless there’s a policy mistake — and I’m not saying that there will be — we should see inflation converging gradually towards 2%,” he said.
As the hot inflation print all but removed the possibility of rate cuts in the near future, that leaves earnings as a last leg of support for the resilient stock market rally that began last year.
“The reaction to the CPI report adds further fuel to the belief that equity markets are in for a period of sluggishness,” said Mark Hackett at Nationwide. “As the focus shifts to earnings season, investors may watch with a different lens, with strong results potentially further adjusting rate cut assumptions, returning us to a ‘good news is bad news’ posture.”
To Jose Torres at Interactive Brokers, risk assets are approaching a fork in the road.
“If the Fed implicitly accepts price pressures between 3% and 4%, the inflation put has been born, providing another stabilizing force on top of the traditional Fed and dividend puts,” Torres said. “But if the central bank remains committed to 2%, hell or high water, then a meaningful equities correction will occur. This correction could be significant, with equity valuations expanding mainly due to expectations that the Fed will make significant rate cuts this year.”
Torres said that would help sustain corporate earnings while reducing the likelihood of the economy entering a recession.
“We find ourselves in an environment where stocks appear fully valued, market interest rates are climbing and the consensus expectation for Federal Reserve rate cuts is dwindling,” said John Lynch at Comerica Wealth Management. “It
is therefore imperative, in our opinion, that corporate profits continue to expand to justify current levels of equity valuation and investor sentiment.”
With banks slated to unofficially kick off first-quarter earnings this week, their results will be watched closely to see whether growth can justify an S&P 500 price-earnings ratio that’s roughly 20% above its 10-year average.
At 21 times profits, that translates to an earnings yield of 4.8%, a multiple that looks increasingly unfavorable with 10-year Treasury yields rising to 4.5%.

Wall Street’s Reaction to CPI Data:
* David Kelly at JPMorgan Asset Management:
That’s the sound of the door slamming shut on a June rate cut.

* Quincy Krosby at LPL Financial:
The Fed’s last mile just got longer and bumpier. The Fed may still be able to cut in June, but the narrative is getting increasingly difficult. 

* Matthew Weller at Forex.com and City Index:
No matter how you slice the data, it’s hard to argue that inflation is falling. For a central bank that was looking for any sign that inflation was continuing to fall toward its target, this report will be a big disappointment for the Federal
Reserve.

* Jeff Schulze at ClearBridge Investments:
This inflation release effectively takes June off the table for the first rate cut and should push the odds out further with a coin toss in July or September.

* John Leiper at Titan Asset Management:
This reinforces our view that the market remains too optimistic on rate cuts this year given the underlying strength of the US economy.

* Charles Hepworth at GAM Investments:
For the June rate cut optimists, this reading is a bit of blow. Markets have been wrestling with the likelihood of the Federal Reserve delivering on three rate cuts this year, but on these numbers, two rate cuts may now be the more likely outcome.

* Neil Birrell at Premier Miton Diversified Funds:
The US economy is running along at quite a pace and a June rate cut looks less and less likely – July or September is the call now. The Fed has got some head scratching to do and if
other central banks were waiting for the Fed to move, they have
got a conundrum on their hands now.
* Lindsay Rosner at Goldman Sachs Asset Management:
The rates market needs to seriously consider the likelihood of higher-for-longer at minimum lasting through the Summer and potentially through the end of the year. This number did not eclipse the Fed’s confidence, it did, however, cast a shadow on it.

* Seema Shah at Principal Asset Management:
This marks the third consecutive strong reading and means that the stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip. In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient
caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch.

Corporate Highlights:
* President Joe Biden reiterated his support for US workers opposed to a Japanese company’s bid to acquire United States Steel Corp., while stopping short of calling again for continued domestic ownership. .
* Meta Platforms Inc. is deploying a new homegrown chip to help power its artificial intelligence services, aiming to decrease its reliance on semiconductors from Nvidia Corp. and other outside companies.
* Delta Air Lines Inc. expects earnings to exceed Wall Street’s projections for the second quarter as the carrier benefits from a step-up in corporate travel and steady leisure demand heading into summer.
* Macy’s Inc. named two new directors nominated by activist investor Arkhouse Management Co., which agreed to end its effort to seek majority board representation as it attempts to acquire the department-store operator.
* Apple Inc. assembled $14 billion of iPhones in India last fiscal year, doubling production in a sign it’s accelerating a push to diversify beyond China.
* Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s quarterly revenue grew at its fastest pace in more than a year, shoring up expectations that a global boom in AI development is fueling demand for high-end chips and servers.
* UBS Group AG faces a “substantial” increase in regulatory capital requirements under reforms that the Swiss government is advocating for in the wake of the collapse of Credit Suisse.

Key events this week:
* China PPI, CPI, Thursday
* Eurozone ECB rate decision, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, PPI, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Thursday
* Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaks, Thursday
* China trade, Friday
* US University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo due to report results, Friday.
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.9% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.9%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.9%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.8%
* The euro fell 1.1% to $1.0743
* The British pound fell 1.1% to $1.2540
* The Japanese yen fell 0.8% to 152.95 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 1.3% to $69,997.81
* Ether rose 0.3% to $3,521.72
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced 18 basis points to 4.55%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 2.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 12 basis points to 4.15%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3% to $86.31 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.9% to $2,331.31 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Liz Capo McCormick, Jessica Menton, Carly Wanna, Natalia Kniazhevich, Denitsa Tsekova, Lu Wang, Ryan Vlastelica, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Alexandra Semenova, Carter Johnson and Felice Maranz.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin  again, this time more intelligently. –Henry Ford, 1863-1947.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
April 9, 1860: The world’s first recording of the human voice is created.  French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville used his phonautograph, the earliest known sound recording device.
1865: U.S. Civil War ends.
1866: Civil Rights Bill passed.
April 9, 2001: American Airlines’ parent company acquired bankrupt Trans World Airlines.  Go to article >>

Charles Baudelaire, writer, b.1821.

The best photos and videos of the April 8 total solar eclipse over North America
Millions of viewers across Mexico and North America witnessed a historic total solar eclipse on April 8. Here are some of the best photos from the day. Read More.

8,200-year-old campsite of ‘Paleo-Archaic’ peoples discovered on US Air Force base in New Mexico
Military personnel on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico discovered artifacts, hearths and charcoal dating to the Archaic period that pinpoint the site of an early encampment. Read More.

When is the next total solar eclipse in North America?
After the total solar eclipse on April 8, North America will have to wait exactly eight years, 11 months and 22 days for its next glimpse of the sun’s corona. Read More

Thousands of hidden meteorites could be lost forever as they sink in Antarctic ice, taking their cosmic secrets with them
A new study warns that 5,000 meteorites could be sinking beneath Antarctica’s icy surface every year as a result of climate change, depriving scientists of vital information about our solar system. Read More.

Toss it or wash it: Household items that love to harbor bacteria
You may be shocked to learn the not-so-long shelf life of common items in your home. Here are some things you should regularly replace or clean ASAP.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Moshav Mattat, Israel
A fox and a calf approach each other in a forest in the the Upper Galilee
Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

Grindavík, Iceland
The volcano has erupted three times in recent months, sending lava towards a nearby community
Photograph: Marco di Marco/AP

​​​​​​​A view of the eroded type of iceberg
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Market Closes for April 9^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38883.67	-9.13
		-0.02%
S&P 500	5209.91	+7.52
		+0.14%
NASDAQ	16306.64	+52.68
		+0.32%
TSX	22361.78	+101.48
		+0.46%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39773.13	+426.09
		+1.08%
HANG SENG	16828.07	+95.22
		+0.57%
SENSEX	74683.70	-58.80
		-0.08%
FTSE 100*	7934.79	-8.68
		-0.11%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.556	3.625
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.472	3.536
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3616	4.4198
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4964	4.5499

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7367	0.7368
US $	1.3574	1.3572

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4739	0.6785
US $	1.0859	0.9209

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2356.10	2320.25
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.23	86.43

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1867, the U.S. Senate ratified the Alaska Purchase, negotiated by Secretary of State William H. Seward with Russia’s government. For $7.2 million, the U.S. became the new owner of 586,412 square miles of what the public cynically called “Seward’s Icebox.”
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.5% at 22,361.78 in Toronto.
The move follows the previous session’s little change.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.2%.
BlackBerry Ltd. had the largest increase, rising 7.4%.
Today, 159 of 224 shares rose, while 61 fell; 8 of 11 sectors were higher, led by materials stocks.
Insights
* The index advanced 11% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 27% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 19.6% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1.3% in the past 5 days and rose 2.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.6 on a trailing basis and 15.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.53t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 7.31% compared with 7.28% in the previous session and the average of 9.69% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Materials | 54.2513| 2.1| 46/3
Industrials | 13.7933| 0.4| 18/8
Information Technology | 8.8599| 0.5| 9/1
Communication Services | 8.4556| 1.2| 5/0
Financials | 7.9793| 0.1| 19/7
Real Estate | 6.7263| 1.4| 18/2
Energy | 6.7029| 0.2| 16/25
Utilities | 0.7011| 0.1| 11/4
Consumer Staples | -0.5827| -0.1| 7/4
Consumer Discretionary | -1.2514| -0.2| 8/5
Health Care | -4.1626| -5.7| 2/2
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Natural Resources | 9.9780| 1.2| -55.6| 27.9
Teck Resources | 9.3970| 4.6| 0.4| 19.1
Brookfield Corp | 7.5990| 1.4| -41.2| 5.0
Cameco | -3.6120| -1.8| -22.4| 13.8
Tilray Brands | -3.6870| -20.3| 65.2| -8.8
RBC | -4.6230| -0.3| -32.7| 4.1
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest bond market rebounded and stocks closed higher, with traders positioning for key inflation data that will help shape the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s next steps.
Treasuries climbed, with 10-year yields dropping from the highest levels in 2024.
Equities erased losses in the final stretch of New York trading, with Tesla Inc. leading gains in mega-caps.
Nvidia Corp. sank as Intel Corp. unveiled a new version of its artificial-intelligence chip.
Boeing Co. slid on a news report the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whistleblower claims about safety issues with the 787 Dreamliner.
With no relevant economic data on schedule, traders positioned for Wednesday’s consumer price index.
Markets have been tempering bets on Fed cuts as US economic data remains strong, with officials pushing back against the need for easing.
“Investors are increasingly calling a June pivot into question, given the resiliency of the economy,” said Marta Norton, chief investment officer Americas at Morningstar Wealth.
“A delay is within the range of possible outcomes, particularly if we see March inflation data surprise to the upside.”
The S&P 500 finished above 5,200. US 10-year yields fell six basis points to 4.36%.
Oil dropped as traders assessed diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.
Gold rose to a fresh record.
The loonie underperformed ahead of the Bank of Canada decision on rates amid bets policymakers will turn more dovish.
“CPI is the critical number this week,” said Andrew Brenner at NatAlliance Securities. “The fear is that CPI has continued to be a thorn in the side of the Fed. But positioning is strongly bearish, and to quote some of the old traders we worked with in the past, ‘whatever hurts the most traders, when they are strongly positioned, is what happens’.”
The US inflation prints for March and April will play an outsized role in determining whether the Fed proceeds to cut rates in June, according to Krishna Guha at Evercore.
“We think the hurdle is not crazy severe and the odds are the data will come in good enough to go ahead,” Guha noted.
The swaps market late Tuesday was pricing in around 65 basis points of Fed rate cuts by the end of this year.
A survey conducted by 22V Research shows that 53% of the investors think the reaction to CPI Wednesday will be “risk-on.”
“Fifty percent of our survey respondents think inflation is ‘not’ on a Fed-friendly glide path back to target,” said Dennis DeBusschere at 22V. “In February, the majority thought it was.  The ‘yeses’ have been diminishing. Investors are not worried about Wednesday, but are concerned longer-term.”
To Mohamed El-Erian, the Fed’s longer-run inflation expectations should be revised higher as macro conditions — like supply chains and productivity — evolve.
“Inflation will be sticky,” the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist told Bloomberg Television. “But that shouldn’t stop the Fed, because the 2% inflation target is too tight for a global economy going through a major rewiring.”
Former Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told Bloomberg Television he’s expecting three rate cuts this year as inflation moves toward the central bank’s target while the economy remains resilient.
“Cut timing hinges on inflation data,” according to Meghan Swiber at Bank of America Corp. “The market will be closely watching core goods and shelter for a read on the forward inflation trajectory.”
While bond yields are likely to remain volatile in the near term as markets shift views on the Fed’s path, UBS’s Chief Investment Office continues to see an attractive risk-reward outlook for quality bonds, including government and investment-grade corporate debt.
“We continue to favor quality bonds in our global portfolios and recommend investors lock in currently attractive bond yields,” said Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management. “We prefer those with maturities in the 1–10-year
bracket and see value in sustainable bonds.”
“Valuations are so stretched right now that anything less than perfection from economic data or any geopolitical noise can create substantial and quick selloffs,” said David Bahnsen at the Bahnsen Group.
Following the recent reset in rate-cut expectations, the setback in stock markets should prove temporary and is a buying opportunity, according to HSBC strategists led by Max Kettner.
“Risk assets certainly got a scare last week,” they wrote.  “We don’t think this will last, though.”
BofA clients were net sellers of US equities last week, with health-care shares logging their biggest outflow in the firm’s data going back to 2008 during the period.
Clients pulled $3.4 billion from US stocks in the week ended April 5, with single stocks seeing their largest exit since July, quantitative strategists led by Jill Carey Hall wrote in a note to clients.
To Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler, a more tactical approach toward equities is prudent as we move into the second quarter.
“Although the market has shown some signs of broadening recently, we don’t have enough technical evidence to be convinced that a new leg higher can be sustained,” he noted.
“The combination of high interest rates, sticky inflation, a short-term extended equity market, and mediocre breadth makes the S&P 500 vulnerable to a 5%-10% pullback/correction in upcoming weeks/months.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Boeing Co. deliveries in the first quarter were the lowest since mid-2021, highlighting how far the plane-maker has to go on its road to recovery from a near-catastrophic accident early in January.
* Pfizer Inc.’s RSV shot produced immune reactions in young adults at higher risk of severe illness just as well as in older people, spurring the company’s plans to apply for wider US approval.
* Cisco Systems Inc. was resumed at overweight by Morgan Stanley, which said the maker of computer networking equipment’s  valuation discount is “too harsh.”
* Google unveiled a host of updates to its artificial intelligence offerings for cloud computing customers, emphasizing that the technology is safe and ready for use in the corporate realm, despite recent stumbles in consumer-facing
tools.
* Best Buy Co. is tapping artificial intelligence to speed up and reduce the number of in-home visits, part of the company’s efforts to use the technology to streamline operations.
* A hydro-power plant owned by Enel SpA’s renewable arm Enel Green Power in Northern Italy was rocked by a deadly explosion.

Key events this week:
* Japan PPI, Wednesday
* Canada rate decision, Wednesday
* US CPI, Fed minutes, Wednesday
* Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks, Wednesday
* China PPI, CPI, Thursday
* Eurozone ECB rate decision, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, PPI, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Thursday
* Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaks, Thursday
* China trade, Friday
* US University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo due to report results,  Friday.
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.4%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index rose 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0856
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2675
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 151.75 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 3.8% to $68,994.26
* Ether fell 4.7% to $3,514.03
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined six basis points to 4.36%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 2.37%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 4.03%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.3% to $85.34 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.5% to $2,351.04 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences.  If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences. –Ayn Rand, 1905-1982.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Monday.  Today’s the day – total solar eclipse.

April 8, 1232: First occasion gunpowder used in a major engagement – Mongol army under General Subedei begins the siege of Chinese Jin capital of Kaifeng.
April 8, 2009: Somali pirates hijacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. (The crew retook the cargo ship, and Navy sharpshooters killed two pirates holding the ship’s American captain.)   Go to article >>

Buddha’s Birthday, SIDDHARTHA “the enlightened one”.

How and where to watch today’s solar eclipse online for free
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible across North America and you can watch all the action live from your own home. Read More.

Rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rocks Northeast, including greater New York area
Magnitude 4.8 and 4.0 earthquakes struck New Jersey and rocked the Northeast last Friday (April 5). Read More.

NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround. Read More.

March Madness: All eyes on college basketball championship games
The South Carolina Gamecocks won the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball national championship Sunday and prevented Caitlin Clark from having the perfect end to her college career. On the men’s side, Purdue and UConn will face off in the championship game later today.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The eclipse over Montreal, Canada.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Handan, China
People walk under crabapple blossoms in Handan in Hebei province in the north
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​Chuao, Venezuela
Cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris) are pictured off the coast of Aragua state. Fishers are worried by the proliferation of jellyfishes in the waters of Aragua
Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images
Market Closes for April 8^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38892.80	-11.24
		-0.03%
S&P 500	5202.39	-1.95
		-0.04%
NASDAQ	16253.96	+5.44
		+0.03%
TSX	22260.30	-4.08
		-0.02%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39347.04	+354.96
		+0.91%
HANG SENG	16732.85	+8.93
		+0.05%
SENSEX	74742.50	+494.28
		+0.67%
FTSE 100*	7943.47	+32.31
		+0.41%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.625	3.593
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.536	3.520
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.4198	4.4016
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.5499	4.5528

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7368	0.7360
US $	1.3572	1.3586

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4740	0.6784
US $	1.0861	0.9207

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2320.25	2293.50
Oil
WTI Crude Future	86.43	86.91

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1935, Congress made a bid to pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression by creating the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. It went on to employ more than 8 million people.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 22,260.30 in Toronto.
The move follows the previous session’s increase of 1%.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.3%.
Bausch Health Cos. had the largest drop, falling 6.9%.
Today, 102 of 224 shares fell, while 116 rose; 5 of 11 sectors were lower, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* The index advanced 10% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 26% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.3% below its 52-week high on April 5, 2024 and 19.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.3% in the past 5 days and rose 2.4% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.6 on a trailing basis and 15.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.53t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 7.28% compared with 7.46% in the previous session and the average of 9.91% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | -15.2158| -0.4| 18/22
Materials | -14.4324| -0.6| 18/28
Information Technology | -12.0042| -0.6| 4/6
Consumer Discretionary | -6.2338| -0.8| 5/8
Health Care | -2.0462| -2.7| 2/2
Communication Services | 1.3108| 0.2| 3/2
Real Estate | 2.2185| 0.4| 19/2
Consumer Staples | 2.4966| 0.3| 7/4
Utilities | 5.4633| 0.7| 7/8
Industrials | 14.2825| 0.5| 14/13
Financials | 20.0764| 0.3| 19/7
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -10.8900| -1.3| -42.3| -2.1
Dollarama | -5.8400| -2.6| 1.6| 16.8
Canadian Natural Resources | -4.9510| -0.6| -46.7| 26.3
Bank of Montreal | 5.2230| 0.8| 8.5| 1.5
Canadian Pacific Kansas | 7.5600| 1.0| -66.3| 14.5
RBC | 8.2620| 0.6| 75.5| 4.4
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest bond market kicked off the week on the back foot as geopolitical pressures abated and traders positioned for this week’s key inflation data.
Treasury 10-year yields rose to the highest since November and came within a striking distance of the 4.5% level that some investors are watching as a threshold that could determine whether rates will revisit the 2023 highs.
Traders’ conviction on three quarter-point rate cuts from the Federal Reserve this year is quickly dissipating, with markets now favoring just two reductions.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast Wednesday’s consumer price index will show some easing of inflation pressures.
Yet the core gauge, which excludes food and energy costs, would be up 3.7% from a year earlier — above the Fed’s 2% target.
“After Monday’s solar eclipse, US core inflation will determine if the shadow that markets increasingly price over a June rate cut will grow larger or pass by,” said Morgan Stanley strategists including Matthew Hornbach.
Benchmark 10-year yields rose two basis points to 4.42% — after hitting 4.46% earlier Monday.
The S&P 500 hovered near 5,200.
Mega-caps were mixed, with Nvidia Corp. down and Tesla Inc. up almost 5%.
Oil fell as Israel said it would remove some troops from Gaza.
Bitcoin topped $71,000.
With some Fed members questioning the wisdom of cutting rates if inflation remains in a “sticky” holding pattern, this week’s inflation figures may have a lot riding on them, according to Chris Larkin at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley.
“While the Fed was hesitant to read too much into back-to-back months of higher-than-expected inflation data, a third month may lead them to change their tune,” he noted.
Economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. led by Michael Feroli pushed back their forecast for the first Fed rate cut of the cycle after a strong March jobs report.
They now expect the US central bank to start easing monetary policy in July instead of June.
“While investors seem to be anxiously awaiting easing monetary policy, the current environment does not quite scream ‘rate cuts!’” said Jason Pride at Glenmede. “With a strong labor market, expanding manufacturing and climbing commodity prices, the Fed will likely be in no rush to cut rates.”
Swap contracts imply around 60 basis points of US monetary easing this year, which means two cuts is the most likely outcome with the first expected by September, according to Bloomberg pricing.
On Friday, the chance of a third cut was still above 50%.
A rise in bond yields might be driven by “the wrong reasons” and will put stocks under pressure, according to JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka.
The team expects US 10-year yields to drop amid elevated geopolitical risks, while noting the risk of inflation staying too hot.
Given the potential for inflation overshoot, stocks with high financing costs could stay under pressure, the strategists wrote.
The rally in stock markets is likely to pause going into the earnings season as buybacks taper out through blackout periods and equity inflows turn flat due to seasonality, according to Deutsche Bank AG strategists led by Parag Thatte
and Binky Chadha.
Wall Street is expecting a subdued earnings season from Corporate America despite the first-quarter’s stock market fireworks.
Strategists predict that S&P 500 companies will post their smallest year-over-year profit growth since 2019, just 3.9%, in the first quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
But in this case the market may be onto something, because those forecasts could very well turn out to be overly gloomy — like they were in the fourth quarter, when expectations were for around 1% growth and the actual results turned out to be over 8%.
“The recent resiliency of inflation reduces the immediacy of rate cuts, which puts more pressure on earnings to drive future market gains,” said Richard Saperstein at Treasury Partners. “Given the elevated market multiples and rising bond yields, we remain cautious on stocks until earnings season delivers clear evidence of earnings growth.”
Wells Fargo Securities’ Christopher Harvey just put Wall Street’s highest target on the S&P 500 Index for 2024 based on his expectation that the US equity rally will power on through the year.
Harvey lifted his year-end forecast on the benchmark to 5,535 from 4,625 previously, making him the biggest bull among strategists tracked by Bloomberg.
The growth potential from artificial intelligence technology and an improved earnings outlook are among the upside catalysts he sees, along with longer time horizons and higher valuation thresholds from investors, Harvey told clients in a note on Monday.

Corporate Highlights:
* Tesla Inc. plans to unveil its long-promised robo-taxi later this year as the carmaker struggles with weak sales and competition from cheap Chinese electric vehicles.
* 99 Cents Only Stores LLC has filed for bankruptcy after announcing plans in April to wind down its business operations.
* The stocks of apartment landlords staged a rally after Blackstone Inc., the world’s largest commercial real estate owner, stepped up its bet on the industry.
* United Airlines Holdings Inc. is delaying two new routes due to growth restrictions imposed while US aviation authorities carry out a safety review of the carrier.
* Spirit Airlines Inc. announced an extensive cost-cutting program, less than three months after its proposed combination with JetBlue Airways Corp. fell through because of antitrust concerns.
* The US plans to award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. $6.6 billion in grants and as much as $5 billion in loans to help the world’s top chipmaker build factories in Arizona, expanding President Joe Biden’s effort to boost domestic production of critical technology.
* Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is cutting prices for cloud customers from the US to Singapore by as much as 59%, mirroring deep discounts at home as the once high-flying division struggles to fend off rivals and revive growth.

Key events this week:
* China aggregate financing, money supply, new yuan loans, Tuesday
* Japan PPI, Wednesday
* Canada rate decision, Wednesday
* US CPI, Fed minutes, Wednesday
* Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks, Wednesday
* China PPI, CPI, Thursday
* Eurozone ECB rate decision, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, PPI, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Thursday
* Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaks, Thursday
* China trade, Friday
* US University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo due to report results, Friday.
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 was little changed
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index rose 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%
* The euro rose 0.2% to $1.0857
* The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.2655
* The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 151.84 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 3.6% to $71,783.07
* Ether rose 8.9% to $3,705.8
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 4.42%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to 2.43%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.09%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.4% to $86.53 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.4% to $2,338.53 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Isabelle Lee, Jessica Menton, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Carter Johnson, Alexandra Semenova and Stephen Kirkland.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Be polite, write diplomatically; even in declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness. –Otto von Bismark, 1815-1898.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday!
Carolann is away from the office for a conference, I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

April 5^th, 1722: Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen is the first European to discover Easter Island / Rapa Nui in the southeastern Pacific
April 5^th, 1792: George Washington exercises the first presidential veto in United States history, rejecting a congressional bill concerning apportionment.
Read more.

The longest-living animals on Earth
The longest-living animals can survive for centuries and millennia, even pausing the aging process altogether. Here are the longest-living animals in the world.

NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround.

10 weird things that happen during a solar eclipse
Eclipses can be strange. Here are some of the weird things you can expect to experience during the April 8 total eclipse.

How and where to watch the April 8 solar eclipse online for free
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible across North America and you can watch all the action live from your own home.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Sichuan, China
The giant panda Fu Bao at the Wolong national nature reserve in Sichuan. A chartered flight carrying the panda landed in Chengdu this week. Fu Bao was the first giant panda to be born in South Korea to Le Bao and Ai Bao, two pandas leased by China to the country in 2016. The panda is currently under quarantine upon returning to China
Photograph: Li Chuanyou/Xinhua/EPA

Tokyo, Japan
People admire illuminated cherry trees in bloom at Chidorigafuchi Moat at night. Japan’s Meteorological Agency confirmed yesterday that the flowers on a sample Someiyoshino cherry tree in the Yasukuni Shrine were in full bloom 13 days later than average
Photograph: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

​​​​​​​Montreal, Canada
A pedestrian makes their way across an icy road as a spring storm brings more than 20cm of snow
Photograph: Canadian Press/Rex/Shutterstock
Market Closes for April 5^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38904.04	+307.06
		+0.80%
S&P 500	5204.34	+57.13
		+1.11%
NASDAQ	16248.52	+199.44
		+1.24%
TSX	22264.38	+212.59
		+0.96%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38992.08	-781.06
		-1.96%
HANG SENG	16723.92	-1.18
		-0.01%
SENSEX	74248.22	+20.59
		+0.03%
FTSE 100*	7911.16	-64.73
		-0.81%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.593	3.548
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.520	3.460
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.4016	4.3094
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.5528	4.4757

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7360	0.7384
US $	1.3586	1.3543

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4731	0.6788
US $	1.0843	0.9223

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2293.50	2280.15
Oil
WTI Crude Future	86.91	85.43

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1990, the estimated cost of bailing out failed savings & loan companies—pegged just one year earlier at $158 billion—was revised by government forecasters to $285 billion to $350 billion. “We all erred dramatically on the side of underestimating the problem,” said U.S. Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah).
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 1% at 22,264.38 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since rising 1.6% on Feb. 15 and follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.3%.
Royal Bank of Canada contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.7%.
OceanaGold Corp. had the largest increase, rising 8.8%.
Today, 171 of 224 shares rose, while 51 fell; all sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater gain 18 times. The next day, it advanced 12 times for an average 0.8% and declined six times for an average 0.5%
* So far this week, the index rose 0.4%
* The index advanced 10% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 27% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 19.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.6 on a trailing basis and 15.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.5t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 7.46% compared with 7.08% in the previous session and the average of 10.29% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 52.5148| 0.8| 24/3
Materials | 50.7810| 2.0| 40/10
Energy | 29.2818| 0.7| 31/9
Information Technology | 24.9497| 1.4| 9/1
Industrials | 23.6284| 0.8| 18/9
Consumer Staples | 13.9626| 1.6| 10/1
Consumer Discretionary | 8.9476| 1.2| 10/3
Real Estate | 4.5709| 0.9| 18/3
Communication Services | 2.3624| 0.3| 3/2
Health Care | 1.2147| 1.6| 3/1
Utilities | 0.3874| 0.0| 5/9
================================================================
| | |Volume VS | YTD
| Index | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
RBC | 23.0200| 1.7| 39.6| 3.8
Canadian Natural Resources | 13.4300| 1.7| -20.8| 27.1
Constellation Software | 12.8300| 2.6| -35.1| 10.8
Enbridge | -3.5670| -0.5| -26.3| 0.7
TC Energy | -4.3520| -1.1| -44.8| 0.3
TD Bank | -5.2110| -0.5| 90.5| -5.8
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The stock market ended the week on a positive note after a blowout jobs report signaled the US economy will continue to power Corporate America — even if that means the potential for still elevated interest rates.
All major groups in the S&P 500 gained, with the gauge rising more than 1%. Wall Street decided to look at the glass half full on Friday based on the premise that if the economy is still so strong, there would be no real urgency for the Federal Reserve to start easing policy.
That triggered another hawkish reprice in the bond market.
Treasury yields climbed, with traders dialing back their projections for Fed cuts in 2024 to about 65 basis points — or less than what the central bank forecast last month.
US payrolls swelled by 303,000 in March, topping all estimates.
The unemployment rate edged lower to 3.8%, wages grew at a solid clip, and workforce participation rose, underscoring the strength of a labor market that’s driving the economy.
“Bang! Employment up, rate cuts need to come out,” said George Mateyo at Key Wealth. “The Fed will likely need to reconsider its current stance of three rate cuts this year.  But, the reason for this likely change in posture is bullish – the economy is doing well.”
The S&P 500 topped 5,200, though Friday’s advance didn’t prevent the gauge from notching its worst week since January.
Meta Platforms Inc. led gains in megacaps.
Tesla Inc. closed away from session lows as Elon Musk denied a report saying the carmaker had called off plans for a less-expensive vehicle.
Treasury 10-year yields rose nine basis points to 4.40%.
Brent oil held above $90 amid geopolitical tensions.
“It’s hard to find anything wrong with the March Jobs report,” said Steve Wyett at BOK Financial. “The only people who might be disappointed in today’s report are those looking for relief from Fed rate cuts. We still expect the next move from the Fed to be to lower rates, but there is little sense of urgency at the moment.”
To the extent that consumer spending and corporate profits are more important to investors than how soon — and how many times — the Fed will cut rates, then stocks can move higher, according to Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance.
“The number of rate cuts and whether they begin in June or July isn’t as important as whether the Fed is in rate-cutting mode or not,” he note. “To put it another way, 4 or 3 or 2 rate cuts in 2024 are all equally good for the stock market. But if we went to zero rate cuts or a rate hike, then all bets are off and that would be categorically bad.”
Friday’s jobs report indicates that the economy remains resilient even in the face of fading expectations of Fed cuts, says Glen Smith at GDS Wealth Management.
“The fact that the labor market is so strong shows that companies and the economy are adapting to high interest rates,” he noted.
Mohamed El-Erian still expects Fed officials to cut interest rates twice this year, even as a solid jobs report pushes traders to rethink the timing.
“If this Fed is continuously overly data dependent, then maybe we don’t get cuts,” El-Erian, the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, said on Bloomberg Television. “But I am hoping that they will see through the backward-looking data and look forward.”
Traders ceased fully pricing in a Fed rate cut before September after the March employment report.
Swap contracts that predict the central bank’s rate decisions trimmed the probability of rate cut in June to about 52%.
For July, the probability dropped below 100%.
Fed Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan said it’s too soon to consider cutting rates, citing recent high inflation readings and signs that borrowing costs may not be holding back the economy as much as previously thought. Governor Michelle Bowman also expressed her concern about potential upside risks to inflation, reiterating it’s “still not yet” time to lower rates.
Jerome Powell has said strong hiring on its own isn’t enough to delay policy easing, but Friday’s jobs report — especially when paired with a pickup in key inflation numbers at the start of 2024 — raise the possibility of later or fewer cuts this year.
“There is no weakness in the job market which would impel the Fed to quickly cut, but no tightness which would prohibit a cut either,” said Preston Caldwell at Morningstar. “Fed decisions in upcoming meetings will hinge mainly on the inflation data.”
Officials will see fresh figures on consumer and producer prices next week, followed by the March reading of their preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures price index — before their April 30-May 1 meeting.
“Our base case remains that the Fed will cut rates in June with a total of three cuts by the end of 2024, but some softening of both the labor market data and the inflation data is likely required for that to happen,” said Brian Rose at UBS Global Wealth Management. “Next week, markets are likely to focus on the CPI data for March — which we expect to show a smaller monthly increase than in the prior two months.”
The evolution of consumer price inflation remains the key determinant of easing in the short term — which raises the stakes for next week’s CPI report, according to Oscar Munoz and Gennadiy Goldberg at TD Securities.
“We remain of the view that the June meeting remains live in terms of when the Fed could begin to cut rates.” To David Russell at TradeStation, while a June rate cut might be at risk, next week’s CPI number will probably be a “bigger litmus test” for the Fed. “The bears haven’t won yet,” he said.

Corporate Highlights:
* United Airlines Holdings Inc. is calling off an investor meeting scheduled for early next month because it would “send the wrong message” to celebrate its performance in the wake of a series of headline-grabbing safety incidents.
* Johnson & Johnson agreed to acquire Shockwave Medical Inc. for about $13.1 billion to bolster its expansion into making medical devices to treat heart disease.
* Meta Platforms Inc. asked a judge to dismiss the US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up the company, saying the agency can’t prove consumers would be better off without its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
* Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s $7.4 billion takeover of Southwestern Energy Co. has been delayed until the second half of the year after antitrust regulators demanded more details from the natural gas explorers.

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve!
Carolann is away from the office for a conference, I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

April 4^th, 1975: Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.
April 4^th, 1973: World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building, opens in New York (110 stories). Later destroyed in 9/11 terrorist attacks.
April 4^th, 1968: US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 4^th, 1887: Susanna Madora Salter elected 1st US woman mayor in Argonia, Kansas.
April 4^th, 1850: City of Los Angeles incorporated.
Read more.

Some stars may be ‘infected’ with black holes that destroy them from within, new study hints
Could dark matter be made of mini black holes that formed in the early universe? One way to find out is to look for missing stars, destroyed by primordial black holes, a new study suggests.

NASA to create a new time zone for the moon by 2026
The moon’s lower gravity means that time runs slower on its surface. With more moon missions planned, NASA has now been tasked by the White House to create a lunar time zone by 2026.

Error-corrected qubits 800 times more reliable after breakthrough, paving the way for ‘next level’ of quantum computing
Scientists have created a set of “logical qubits” that have error rates 800 times lower than physical qubits — paving the way for useful, fault-tolerant quantum computers in the near future.

Underwater robot in Siberia’s Lake Baikal reveals hidden mud volcanoes — and an active fault
Video cameras mounted on an autonomous underwater robot captured footage of cracks associated with mud volcanism close to a potentially active fault on the shores of Lake Baikal.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Lehde, Germany
Andrea Bunar, a postal worker, delivers mail via canal in the Spree Forest region
Photograph: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images

Iran’s Chabahar Mountains
This region is also known in Iran as the Martian mountains. The dramatically lit peaks are captured here by Chee
Photograph: Callie Chee

​​​​​​​Dog Sleds in Greenland
Inuit hunters in north-west Greenland still travel by dog sled on sea ice in winter. Itkonen, a photographer from Finland, has been documenting Greenland and its inhabitants for 30 years, and captures here a moment of rest for the dogs on their arduous journey
Photograph: Tiina Itkonen
Market Closes for April 4^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38596.98	-530.16
		-1.36%
S&P 500	5147.21	-64.28
		-1.23%
NASDAQ	16049.08	-228.38
		-1.40%
TSX	22051.79	-60.67
		-0.27%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39773.14	+321.29
		+0.81%
HANG SENG	Market Closed	N.A
SENSEX	74227.63	+350.81
		+0.47%
FTSE 100*	7975.89	+38.45
		+0.48%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.548	3.593
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.460	3.503
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3094	4.3472
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4757	4.5072

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7384	0.7392
US $	1.3543	1.3528

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4679	0.6812
US $	1.0839	0.9226

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2280.15	2264.50
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.43	85.15

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1877, the world’s first regular telephone line went into service. It connected Charles Williams’ metalworking shop in Boston with his home. Within weeks Alexander Graham Bell began signing up his first paying customers.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.3% at 22,051.79 in Toronto.
The index dropped to the lowest closing level since March 26 after the previous session’s increase of 0.2%.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.0%.
Novagold Resources Inc. had the largest drop, falling 8.4%.
Today, 141 of 224 shares fell, while 78 rose; 8 of 11 sectors were lower, led by information technology stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index fell 0.5%, heading for the biggest decline since the week ended Dec. 8
* The index advanced 8.8% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 25% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 18% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 0.3% in the past 5 days and rose 2.4% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.6 on a trailing basis and 15.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.51t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 7.08% compared with 7.17% in the previous session and the average of 10.48% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology | -20.8776| -1.1| 2/8
Materials | -18.8174| -0.7| 10/39
Industrials | -12.3870| -0.4| 8/19
Consumer Staples | -9.9212| -1.1| 3/8
Financials | -8.0151| -0.1| 7/20
Utilities | -3.0788| -0.4| 8/6
Real Estate | -1.1902| -0.2| 12/7
Health Care | -1.0462| -1.4| 2/2
Communication Services | 1.5935| 0.2| 3/2
Energy | 2.2702| 0.1| 21/19
Consumer Discretionary | 10.8013| 1.4| 2/11
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -8.4450| -1.0| -29.2| -1.7
Brookfield Corp | -7.8990| -1.4| -51.9| 2.3
Canadian National | -7.6350| -1.1| -2.5| 5.0
Canadian Natural Resources | 8.2520| 1.0| 28.0| 25.0
RBC | 10.6200| 0.8| 39.9| 2.1
Dollarama | 19.6800| 10.0| 219.4| 15.6
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Stocks fell ahead of Friday’s jobs report as a rally in oil amid geopolitical tensions triggered a flight to the safest corners of the market.
Treasuries climbed and the dollar ended near session highs.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.2%, erasing gains.
Brent crude topped $90 a barrel as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a security cabinet meeting his country will operate against Iran and its proxies and will hurt those who seek to harm it.
President Joe Biden told Netanyahu on a call that US support for his war would depend on new steps to protect civilians.
“The real issue lies in the reason WHY oil is rising again,” said Matt Maley at Miller Tabak + Co. “If we get a direct conflict between Israel and Iran, that’s something that will likely restrict the supply of oil coming from the Middle
East. That has not been an issue up until now, but it could become one very quickly.”
Bond yields dropped across the US curve — even after Federal Reserve Bank Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said rate cuts may not be needed this year if progress on inflation stalls.
He was among the more than a half-dozen central bank officials speaking ahead of the release of the March jobs data.
Healthy US employment gains likely continued in March while wage growth moderated, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Payrolls are seen increasing by at least 200,000 for a fourth straight month.
Average hourly earnings are projected to climb 4.1% from the same month last year, the smallest annual advance since mid-2021.
“As always, the monthly jobs report will have the final say,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley.
“Investors will be looking for a ‘Goldilocks’ number that won’t give the Fed any reason to delay rate cuts, but also doesn’t suggest the labor market is taking a serious downturn.”
A survey conducted by 22V Research shows there’s no clear consensus on the market reaction to Friday’s jobs report.
Among the investors surveyed, 29% think the response will be “risk- on,” 32% said “risk-off,” and 39% are betting on a “mixed/negligible” reaction.
“Average hourly earnings has supplanted payrolls as the most important labor indicator,” said Dennis DeBusschere at 22V. “That’s consistent with inflation being investors’ biggest concern. But investors are also watching labor data the closest.”
Bond investors are strongly inclined to buy Treasuries on any selloff resulting from the March employment data, according to a survey conducted by Vail Hartman and Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets.
They found that 57% of respondents would buy if Treasuries fall after the release.
If bonds rally following the report, around two-thirds of investors said they’d do nothing.

Corporate Highlights:
* The US Federal Trade Commission warned hundreds of companies including Pfizer Inc., Baxter International Inc. and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. that it could challenge their acquisitions even after the deadline for the agency’s antitrust review had passed.
* Alphabet Inc. is talking with financial advisers about potentially making an offer for HubSpot Inc., an online marketing software company valued at about $34 billion, Reuters reported on Thursday.
* Ford Motor Co. is delaying the rollout of an electric three- row sport utility vehicle by two years, extending the layoff of 2,700 workers in Canada who were set to begin building it in 2025.
* Boeing Co.’s latest 737 Max crisis has worsened an airline shortage of popular narrowbody aircraft, sending the cost of used-jet rentals to the highest level in years.
* Levi Strauss & Co. jumped after cost-cutting measures boosted profitability and a bet on baggy jeans and denim skirts drove higher-than-expected sales.
* Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. will pull its drug for a progressive, fatal nerve disease from the market after a trial showed that patients taking it fared no better than those getting a placebo on a variety of measures.

Key events this week:
* Eurozone retail sales, Friday
* US unemployment, nonfarm payrolls, Friday
* Fed’s Michelle Bowman, Thomas Barkin and Lorie Logan speak, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.5%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.6%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0835
* The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.2639
* The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 151.25 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 4.3% to $68,560.51
* Ether rose 1.9% to $3,370.09
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined five basis points to 4.30%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 2.36%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined four basis points to 4.02%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.4% to $86.64 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.6% to $2,285.89 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Isabelle Lee, Craig Stirling, Vince Golle, Edward Bolingbroke, Carter Johnson, Julia Fanzeres, Felice Maranz and Liz Capo McCormick.

Have a wonderful evening everyone!

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Shabnam
” The more I study, the more insatiable do I feel my genius for it to be.” — Ada Lovelace

Shabnam Mohammadpourmarzbali
Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff
Queensbury Securities Inc.

340A – 730 View Street
Victoria BC  V8W 3Y7
Tel: 778-430-5851
Fax: 778-430-5828

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
Carolann is away from the office for a conference, I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

April 3,1973: 1st mobile phone call is made in downtown Manhattan, NYC by Motorola employee Martin Cooper to the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey

Early humans lived on ‘Persian plateau’ for 20,000 years after leaving Africa, study suggests
A study proposes that Homo sapiens outside of Africa made their home on the Persian plateau during that mysterious period.

1,700-year-old Roman fort discovered in Germany was built to keep out barbarians
Archaeologists have unearthed the ruins of a Roman fortress in Germany that once protected against barbarian intruders.

New mRNA therapy shows promise in treating ‘ultrarare’ inherited disease
A new treatment may be able to treat a life-threatening disorder that predominantly affects children, initial findings from a pioneering clinical trial suggest.

Group of 60 ultra-faint stars orbiting the Milky Way could be new type of galaxy never seen before
A new satellite galaxy discovered orbiting the Milky Way is either an incredibly ancient, soon-to-fragment clump of stars or the most dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy ever found.

Stars, planets and more will be visible during the total solar eclipse on April 8. Here’s what to look for, and where.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Arese, Italy
A visitor takes a photo at Tulipani Italiani, a pick-your-own tulips field with more than 500,000 tulips planted by Edwin Koeman and Nitsuje Wolanios, a Dutch couple
Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu/Getty Images

Vantaa, Finland
Candles and flowers are placed on a square in front of Viertola school to pay tribute to victims of a shooting
Photograph: Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva/AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​Tui De Roy: Blue-footed Booby
There’s no mistaking the blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii), captured here in the Galápagos, Ecuador, by De Roy, a wildlife photographer and author based on the islands
Market Closes for April 3^rd, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	39127.14	-43.10
		-0.11%
S&P 500	5211.49	+5.68
		+0.11%
NASDAQ	16277.46	+37.01
		+0.23%
TSX	22112.46	+37.36
		+0.17%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39451.85	-387.06
		-0.97%
HANG SENG	16725.10	-206.42
		-1.22%
SENSEX	73876.82	-27.09
		-0.04%
FTSE 100*	7937.44	+2.35
		+0.03%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.593	3.608
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.503	3.503
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3472	4.3491
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.5072	4.4953

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7392	0.7372
US $	1.3528	1.3565

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4660	0.6821
US $	1.0837	0.9228

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2264.50	2264.50
Oil
WTI Crude Future	85.15	83.71

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1948: U.S. Congress passed the Marshall Plan to finance the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II, laying the groundwork for the global economic boom of the 1950s.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.2% at 22,112.46 in Toronto.
The move follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.5%.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.2%.
Tilray Brands Inc. had the largest increase, rising 16.7%.
Today, 131 of 224 shares rose, while 91 fell; 4 of 11 sectors were higher, led by materials stocks.
Insights
* The index advanced 9% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 26% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.5% below its 52-week high on March 28, 2024 and 18.3% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.9% in the past 5 days and rose 2.6% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.5 on a trailing basis and 15.2 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.5t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 7.17% compared with 7.25% in the previous session and the average of 10.63% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Materials | 46.9178| 1.9| 43/7
Energy | 32.9963| 0.8| 33/8
Financials | 15.9771| 0.2| 17/10
Health Care | 2.3234| 3.2| 2/2
Consumer Staples | -1.1499| -0.1| 5/6
Communication Services | -1.6237| -0.2| 0/4
Real Estate | -4.1340| -0.8| 3/18
Utilities | -4.4450| -0.5| 5/9
Consumer Discretionary | -8.4295| -1.1| 3/10
Industrials | -9.3671| -0.3| 16/11
Information Technology | -31.7214| -1.7| 4/6
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Natural Resources | 9.9020| 1.2| -38.7| 23.8
Cameco | 8.3780| 4.3| 5.7| 18.1
Wheaton Precious Metals | 7.5390| 3.6| 11.8| 5.8
TC Energy | -8.2690| -2.1| 1.8| 2.7
WSP Global | -10.4500| -5.4| 243.9| 12.2
Shopify | -30.7400| -3.4| 7.3| -0.8
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The bond market rebounded from session lows, with Jerome Powell only reiterating the Federal Reserve’s wait-and-see approach before policymakers decide to embark on interest-rate cuts.
While the Fed chief didn’t break any major new ground, Wall Street got some relief from his views that recent inflation figures did not “materially change” the overall picture.
Powell also reaffirmed that it will likely be appropriate to begin lowering rates “at some point this year.”
Equities edged up after a two-day slide, but struggled to pick up much traction amid a drop in a pair of blue chips — Intel Corp. and Walt Disney Co.
In recent days, traders had scaled back their rate-cut expectations amid signs of economic resilience and a more cautious tone from a drumbeat of Fed officials.
That has led to skepticism on whether Powell and his colleagues would be able to deliver on the central bank’s projection of three rate reductions this year.
“Powell says recent data has not materially changed the picture,” said Krishna Guha at Evercore. “We read this as confirming that the spasm of concern in markets that the economy might be too strong for the Fed to cut in June was overdone —and the base case remains June and three cuts this year.”
Treasury 10-year yields were little changed at 4.35% after climbing about eight basis points earlier Wednesday.
The S&P 500 finished with a mere gain of 0.1%.
Intel fell over 8% on a disappointing outlook for its factory operations.
Disney dropped more than 3% as shareholders rejected dissident investor Nelson Peltz’s bid for a board seat.
“The Fed is unquestionably in wait-and-see mode,” said Ian Lyngen and Vail Hartman at BMO Capital Markets. “All waiting and no seeing has been the hallmark of this cycle’s first rate cut and nothing learned from today’s session will change that.”
To Peter Williams at 22V Research, Powell seems to want to get some cuts done, but with growth and the labor market holding up, the spot incentive to do so is relatively minimal.
“Instead, the inflation data will have to give the Fed permission to start cuts,” Williams noted. “I continue to think that the odds they are able to cut in June are around or just a bit above 50%, but that cumulative cuts in 2024 lean more
towards 2x than 3x at this point.”
The Fed could risk losing its credibility if it cuts rates too soon, according to Eric Veiel at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. “Jerome Powell said very early on he is a student of what happened in the seventies,” he told Bloomberg Television —
before Powell’s remarks. “If they go ahead and start cutting now, I think they are in danger of making the same mistake.”
In the 1970s, the central bank was too quick off the mark in easing policy before inflation was truly vanquished.
That’s an error that Paul Volcker committed in 1980 as the economy weakened, only to reverse course later and drive the US into a deeper downturn.
Amid a backdrop of mixed data and a question on how long the Fed intends to pause, “expect some churning in the market,” says Victoria Fernandez at Crossmark Global Investments.
“We expect more of a market consolidation instead of a correction,” said Yung-Yu Ma at BMO Wealth Management. “The stock market doesn’t need Fed rate cuts or even falling inflation, but it’s also not in a robust position to quickly
digest risks that could arise from accelerating inflation, increasing geopolitical shocks to oil prices, or rising long- term interest rates.”
Despite a “solid” outlook for a US soft landing, stock investors’ expectations have gotten stretched.
Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm says that’s reason to seek opportunities outside the S&P 500, according to a note from the bank’s global investment committee.
The US equity benchmark’s rally was driven by multiples expansion, with investors expecting improving profits despite cooling growth, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Lisa Shalett wrote this week.
Investors appear to be showing “persistent” demand for US stocks, according to Citigroup Inc. strategists, suggesting there’s room for the rally to resume after the recent pullback.
More than $16 billion in net long positions was added to S&P 500 futures last week, while exchange-traded funds showed net inflows, strategists led by Chris Montagu wrote this week.

Corporate Highlights:
* Apple Inc. has teams investigating a push into personal robotics, a field with the potential to become one of the company’s ever-shifting “next big things,” according to people familiar with the situation.
* Ulta Beauty Inc. sank after executives signaled cooling consumer demand for beauty products, which weighed on the shares of industry peers as well.
* Ford Motor Co.’s US auto sales rose 7% in the first quarter on strong demand for gas-electric hybrids, despite a laborious launch of a redesigned F-150 pickup truck.
* Cal-Maine Foods Inc. reported earnings per share and net sales that topped consensus expectations. It touted strong demand for eggs, noting that total sales volumes, or dozens sold, hit a company record.
* Eli Lilly & Co.’s weight-loss drug Zepbound is officially in shortage in the US, after mounting complaints by patients, doctors and pharmacists who are having trouble finding the drug.
* Dave Calhoun, who plans to step down as chief executive officer of beleaguered Boeing Co. later this year, will also depart from the board of machinery manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.
* Mastercard Inc. plans to increase certain credit card fees beginning April 15, just days after the company and Visa Inc. trumpeted a $30 billion settlement over separate swipe fees designed to provide relief to retail businesses.
* Spotify Technology SA plans to raise the price of its popular audio service in several key markets for the second time in a year, a crucial step toward reaching long-term profitability.

Key events this week:
* Eurozone S&P Global Services PMI, PPI, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, Challenger job cuts, Thursday
* Fed’s Loretta Mester, Alberto Musalem, Thomas Barkin, Patrick Harker, Austan Goolsbee speak, Thursday
* European Central Bank publishes account of March rate decision, Thursday
* Eurozone retail sales, Friday
* US unemployment, nonfarm payrolls, Friday
* Fed’s Michelle Bowman, Thomas Barkin and Lorie Logan speak, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.3%
* The euro rose 0.6% to $1.0833
* The British pound rose 0.6% to $1.2649
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 151.68 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 0.2% to $65,856.04
* Ether rose 1.3% to $3,315.95
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.35%
* Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.40%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 4.06%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.5% to $85.57 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.7% to $2,297.60 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Farah Elbahrawy and Rheaa Rao.

Have a wonderful evening everyone!

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Shabnam
“To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage.”– Georgia O’Keeffe

Shabnam Mohammadpourmarzbali
Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff
Queensbury Securities Inc.

340A – 730 View Street
Victoria BC  V8W 3Y7
Tel: 778-430-5851
Fax: 778-430-5828