February 23, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve.
February 23, 1886: The Times of London newspaper publishes the world’s first classified advertisement.
1945: Iwo Jima Day
On Feb. 23, 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh. Go to article » 

The 2024 Mercedes E-class will have TikTok feature:  A new Mercedes model has a camera built into the dashboard, allowing passengers to film videos — and post carpool karaoke sessions on TikTok.

Zipline over a waterfall? These hotels invite guests to arrive in style:  CNN Travel hand-picked a few of the most epic hotel arrival experiences across the Asia-Pacific region. Take a look at the gallery here.

Paul McCartney comes together with arch-rivals the Rolling Stones on new album.  If you’re a fan of the Beatles or the Stones — or both — you’ll enjoy this forthcoming collaboration.

A plan to grow food…on the moon.

your actual age. And then there’s this.

Brain surgery was a thing 3,500 years ago.

There’s your actual age. And then there’s this.

‘Muscle memories’ get ‘zipped and unzipped’ in the brain, like computer files:
Tapping into your “muscle memory” to tie your shoes or play an instrument may feel automatic — but to execute these learned motions, the brain erupts into a flurry of activity, rapidly “unzipping” and “zipping” all the key information about the movement being performed, a new study suggests.
The study used a brain scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to collect snapshots of people’s brains as they played simple melodies on a keyboard. Full Story: Live Science (2/23)

COVID-19 linked to 40% increase in autoimmune disease risk in huge study: Catching COVID-19 may raise the risk of developing autoimmune disease by 43% in the months following the infection, according to the largest study of its kind.
“The impact of this study is huge — it’s the strongest evidence so far answering this question of COVID-19 and autoimmune disease risk,” said Anuradhaa Subramanian, a research fellow in health informatics at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study. Full Story: Live Science (2/22

James Webb Telescope spots galaxies from the dawn of time that are so massive they ‘shouldn’t exist’: The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a group of galaxies from the dawn of the universe that are so massive they shouldn’t exist. The six gargantuan galaxies, which contain almost as many stars as the Milky Way despite forming only 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, have been dubbed “universe breakers” by the team of astronomers that spotted them. That’s because, if they’re real, the discovery calls our entire understanding of galaxy formation into question. Full Story: Live Science (2/22)

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Kharkiv, Ukraine
An image taken with slow shutter speed of Ukrainian national flags waving over the graves of fallen Ukrainian soldiers in a military cemetery in Kharkiv. Russian troops launched an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022
Photograph: Pavlo Pakhomenko/EPA

Lake Garda, Italy
People take a selfie in front of the small island of San Biagio, off Manerba in Lake Garda, where the water level dropped to its lowest in 30 years during the winter months due to a lack of snow on the surrounding mountain peaks, the absence of rain, and mild temperatures
Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty Images

London, UK
Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild goes on view as part of an exhibition of modern and contemporary artworks at Sotheby’s
Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s
Market Closes for February 23^rd, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1965: Michael Dell was born. The Texas native would go on to drop out of college and start Dell Computer, which went on to become the dominant seller of PCs and a stock-market darling in the dotcom boom of the late 1990s
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 20,188.19 in Toronto.
Toronto-Dominion Bank contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.0%.
Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. had the largest drop, falling 8.1%.
Today, 112 of 236 shares fell, while 118 rose; 7 of 11 sectors were lower, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index fell 2.8%
* So far this week, the index fell 1.6%, heading for the biggest decline since the week ended Dec. 16
* The index declined 2.7% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index lost 5.7% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 9.1% below its 52-week high on April 5, 2022 and 13% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 2.6% in the past 5 days and fell 2.1% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.1 on a trailing basis and 12.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.22t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 7.94% compared with 8.41% in the previous session and the average of 10.01% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -38.2328| -0.6| 8/20
Materials | -16.6810| -0.7| 18/31
Consumer Discretionary | -4.3349| -0.6| 7/8
Information Technology | -4.3097| -0.3| 4/9
Consumer Staples | -4.0867| -0.5| 6/5
Communication Services | -3.9417| -0.4| 2/4
Utilities | -1.3186| -0.2| 7/9
Real Estate | 1.0467| 0.2| 13/9
Health Care | 3.4344| 4.3| 5/1
Industrials | 13.7553| 0.5| 13/12
Energy | 43.8197| 1.3| 35/4
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
TD Bank | -11.5400| -1.0| -38.0| 3.1
Couche-Tard | -6.7980| -1.9| 24.7| 8.1
RBC | -6.5460| -0.5| -48.4| 6.7
Stantec | 5.0680| 9.3| 487.8| 19.6
Canadian Natural Resources | 8.1140| 1.4| 68.5| 0.5
Suncor Energy | 8.3000| 2.0| 43.8| 5.3
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Tech led stock gains in a jittery session before inflation data that will help shape the views on whether a soft landing is on the table amid the Federal Reserve’s most-aggressive tightening campaign in a generation.
After erasing a rally of almost 1%, the S&P 500 came back higher and halted a four-day selloff.
The index regained its 4,000 support broken earlier in the week in a fight to stay above a key uptrend line from the October low.
The Nasdaq 100 outperformed as huge names like Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. rebounded and a bullish revenue forecast from Nvidia Corp. sent the shares up 14%.
Friday’s personal consumption expenditures index is expected to bring an acceleration in both headline and core inflation.
In the run-up to the numbers, data showed US growth in the fourth quarter was weaker than previously estimated while the Fed’s preferred inflation figures were revised higher.
Separate data highlighted unrelenting labor-market tightness.
To Michael Shaoul at Marketfield Asset Management, investors are caught between welcoming the evidence that the US economy remains on a stable footing and fearing that this resilience will provoke a stern reaction from policymakers.
“Granted things could be worse, the specter of a rapid deterioration of the economic cycle appears to have been banished, with recent economic data and corporate earnings both confirming that although growth has decelerated from the stimulus driven boom, we have not entered a period of obvious weakness,” he added.
Retail traders have retaken a bearish view that dominated their outlook for much of last year after a raucous stock rally hit a wall this month.
Following two weeks of tepid optimism, the bull-bear spread from the American Association of Individual Investors survey flipped to -17 in the week ending Feb. 22, the most pessimistic stance since the start of the year.
Billionaire quant investor Cliff Asness warned that US stocks are vulnerable to a macro shock if inflation doesn’t stage a spirited decline as the market expects.
The co-founder of AQR Capital Management told Bloomberg Television that despite last year’s declines, equities remain expensive versus history, based on a broad assumption that price growth is set to slow.
The US economy has obstacles to overcome, though there’s still a chance for a soft landing, Jamie Dimon said. “The US economy right now is doing quite well — consumers have a lot of money, they’re spending it, jobs are plentiful,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief told CNBC. “Out in front of us there’s some scary stuff.”
In other corporate news, Netflix Inc. tumbled on plans to cut the price of subscriptions in over 100 countries.
Domino’s Pizza Inc. sank the most in more than a decade as delivery woes and softening demand caused fourth-quarter sales to trail Wall Street expectations and led management to cut targets for revenue growth.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin is on pace for its second monthly advance, breaking with stocks and other riskier assets that have slid amid renewed concern about rising interest rates.
The crypto market’s rally recovers only a sliver of the ground lost last year, when prices tumbled and the collapse of the FTX exchange caused a pullback by investors.
Key events this week:
* BOJ governor-nominee Kazuo Ueda appears before Japan’s lower house, Friday
* US PCE deflator, personal spending, new home sales, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hits the one-year mark, Friday
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.5% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.9%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0601
* The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.2022
* The Japanese yen rose 0.1% to 134.66 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 0.6% to $23,948.35
* Ether rose 2.1% to $1,652.78
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined four basis points to 3.87%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined four basis points to 2.48%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 3.59%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.2% to $75.57 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,830.70 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Jessica Menton and Isabelle Lee.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Before strongly desiring anything, we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner. –François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680.

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