March 16, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve.
March 16, 1968: General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.

March 16, 1926: Rocket science pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled rocket, in Auburn, Mass. Go to article >

Pilot makes first-ever plane landing on Dubai’s Burj Al Arab helipad.  A stunt pilot successfully brought his aircraft to a stop in just 68 feet on top of a Dubai skyscraper. See the images here.

NASA reveals new spacesuit design.  These spacesuits, developed for NASA by Axiom Space, look quite different than the puffy white outfits you may be envisioning.

Da Vinci’s mother was an enslaved teenager trafficked to Italy, new documents suggest: Leonardo da Vinci’s mother was kidnapped and enslaved as a teenager in the Caucasus and sent to Italy, a new analysis of nearly 600-year-old documents suggests. The documents, discovered by an Italian historian, suggest that da Vinci’s mother, Caterina, was kidnapped and torn from her home by the Black Sea in Circassia before being shipped to Venice.
Full Story: Live Science (3/15)

60,000-mile-tall ‘plasma waterfall’ snapped showering the sun with impossibly fast fire: An Astro photographer has snapped a stunning shot of an enormous wall of plasma falling down toward the solar surface at impossibly fast speeds after being spat out near the sun’s south pole.
Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau, who is based near Rafaela in Argentina, captured the striking image on March 9 using specialized camera equipment. Full Story: Live Science (3/15)
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Chennai, India
People take a sunrise walk along Edward Elliot’s beach
Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/EPA

Spor Etter Jern (Forest of the Finns)
This work draws on historical slash and burn farming methods and shamanistic tradition to investigate what it means to be a Forest Finn today, when agricultural methods have disappeared and the native language is no longer spoken
Photograph: Terje Abusdal

Springing forth
‘Two young beech seedlings wait for spring, sheltered by mother trees and succoured by their mycorrhizal connections. In the foreground, moss and fungi return the substance of a grandmother generation back into the soil. Picture taken on Ranmore Common, Surrey.’
Photograph: Peter Stott
Market Closes for March 16^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1930, Julius H. Barnes, leader of President Herbert Hoover’s National Business Survey Conference, declared that “the spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern,” adding, “American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.” The Depression would last another nine years.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.8% at 19,539.01 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since rising 1.2% on March  3 and follows the previous session’s decrease of 1.6%.
Today, industrials stocks led the market higher, as 10 of 11 sectors gained; 166 of 236 shares rose, while 61 fell.
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 3.0%.
Tilray Brands Inc. had the largest increase, rising 9.9%.
Insights
* This quarter, the index rose 0.8%
* So far this week, the index fell 1.2%
* The index declined 9% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index lost 10% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 12% below its 52-week high on April 5, 2022 and 9.3% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 2.7% in the past 5 days and fell 5.2% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.5 on a trailing basis and 12.6 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.1t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 11.37% compared with 10.93% in the previous session and the average of 8.65% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Industrials | 57.7527| 2.1| 25/1
Financials | 32.4127| 0.5| 26/3
Information Technology | 17.2695| 1.3| 10/4
Energy | 15.2139| 0.5| 30/7
Consumer Discretionary | 9.9991| 1.4| 12/2
Utilities | 9.7966| 1.1| 12/3
Consumer Staples | 6.8599| 0.8| 6/5
Communication Services | 2.1471| 0.2| 3/3
Health Care | 1.9325| 2.7| 5/1
Real Estate | 1.2328| 0.2| 15/7
Materials | -0.1593| 0.0| 22/25
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Pacific | 20.5800| 3.0| 79.3| 8.3
Canadian National | 17.1600| 2.6| -8.8| 1.1
Shopify | 11.5200| 2.3| 8.8| 30.4
Barrick Gold | -2.3210| -0.8| -11.3| 2.8
Nutrien | -2.5170| -0.7| -1.4| 0.8
Wheaton Precious Metals | -3.1250| -1.7| 3.7| 12.5
US
By Carly Wanna and Angel Adegbesan
(Bloomberg) — US stocks ended the day higher after a First Republic Bank rescue package was secured, sparking a rebound in shares of embattled regional lenders.
Treasuries fell after the European Central Bank delivered a rate hike that added to bets the US central bank will also raise next week.
The S&P 500 notched its largest one-day advance since January after the biggest banks in the US agreed to contribute $30 billion in deposits to First Republic.
The regional lender’s shares had tumbled more than 60% before Thursday as investors speculated the bank could be the next to fail after two high-profile demises touched off the crisis last week.
An index of regional banks closed higher, the gauge is still down over 20% this March.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.7%% to a one-month high.
Tech has become more sensitive to interest rates, said Tony Welch, chief investment officer at SignatureFD.
“When economic growth becomes more scarce, you want to look to those industries and sectors that can produce the growth.  Tech is certainly one of those that can potentially be a better grower,” Welch said.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s prepared remarks presented to Capitol Hill Thursday “did a good job of boosting confidence about the banking system,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management.
“They’d like to see the support come from the private sector and that is likely going to be now the first of many larger, more sound banks supporting some of those banks that might have impaired balance sheets,” Hogan said of the big lenders coming to the regional bank’s aid.
The First Republic news comes after a lifeline from Swiss regulators overnight stabilized Credit Suisse Group AG, easing worries that the European lender would lead to a cascading crisis in that region.
The idea of a forced combination with a larger rival, UBS Group AG, was shot down on Thursday and receipts in Credit Suisse ended the session unchanged.
The cost to insure the Swiss bank’s debt has been rising.
“That the market is reacting relatively positively to the fact that we are applying some guardrails here shouldn’t necessarily be a catalyst for markets to move much higher,” said Meera Pandit, JPMorgan Asset Management global market strategist on Bloomberg TV. “There is still some vulnerability here to a correction because we don’t know how this continues to evolve.”
Markets were also digesting a European Central Bank rate hike and comments from the ECB president that inflation is projected to remain too high for too long.
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point next week.
Rising odds for that move sent two-year Treasury yields back above 4%, though they remained lower than they were just a week ago.
Government securities swung in the session with yields eventually climbing.
A measure of Treasury market volatility touched levels last seen in the midst of the global financial crisis this week.
FedEx Corp. shares jumped in afterhours trading following earnings from the delivery company that beat estimates and its outlook for the year was boosted.
United Parcel Service Inc. also climbed.
Quarterly triple witching, where contracts for index futures, equity index options and stock options all expire, could amp up swings in Friday’s trading.
All eyes are now on the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week, with traders debating whether the central bank will increase interest rates.
Market pricing suggests the Fed will soon pivot and will start cutting rates this year.
Data Thursday showed first-time unemployment claims dropped more than analysts’ estimates last week, while housing starts and building permits exceeded expectations, underscoring the economic resilience that’s allowed the Fed to tighten aggressively over the past year.
“Central banks appear to be willing to push through the problems higher rates are causing in order to address inflation,” Louis Navellier, chief investment officer of Navellier & Associates wrote in his daily newsletter.
He views the ECB’s rate increase as a “test run” ahead of the next Fed meeting.
“All else being equal, more restrictive lending increases recession risk,” he said. “Expect lots of volatility in the near term and remain cautious as this banking crisis plays out.”
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 1.8% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 2.7%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2%
* The MSCI World index rose 1.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.3%
* The euro rose 0.3% to $1.0614
* The British pound rose 0.5% to $1.2118
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 133.47 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 2.5% to $25,003.38
* Ether rose 1.8% to $1,683.68
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced 11 basis points to 3.57%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced 16 basis points to 2.29%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 10 basis points to 3.43%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.7% to $68.09 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,924.40 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Emily Graffeo and Isabelle Lee.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.  -R. Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983.

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