April 14, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.

On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
He died the next day.  Go to article >

April 14, 1828: First Webster’s Dictionary.
1986: The Heaviest hail stones ever recorded hit Bangladesh.  The lumps of ice weighed about 1 kg (2.2 lb) and hit the ground at roughly 90 mph.  A total of 92 people reportedly died as a result.

Mystery of Roman coins discovered on shipwreck island has archaeologists baffled: Archaeologists are baffled but excited by the discovery of two silver coins from the Roman Empire on a remote island in the Baltic Sea, halfway between Sweden and Estonia. Read More

‘The Office’ star catches plane seatmate watching the series.  Imagine watching your favorite show on a plane, and one of its star actors is coincidentally sitting right next to you! Watch the video here.

World’s most expensive license plate sells for $15 million.  A license plate with a single number sold for a world record price at a charity auction in Dubai. See it here.

Stunning 20-meter-deep snow corridor in Japan reopens to visitors.  This incredible tourist attraction through towering snow walls is the result of months of strenuous carving work by snowplow drivers.

Someone paid $27,500 for a VHS tape of the movie Rocky.

Someone else paid a record $15 million for the vanity number plate P7 at an auction in Dubai.

The most elusive black holes in the universe could lurk at the Milky Way’s center:  The most elusive black holes in the universe aren’t the big ones, or the small ones. They’re the medium ones — and a team of astronomers has proposed a new method, using ripples in space-time, to hunt for them.  Read More

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Santa Margarita, US
Wildflowers bloom near Carrizo Plain national monument after an unusually wet winter in California. Record levels of rainfall in some parts of California, amid a barrage of atmospheric river winter storms, have led to a superbloom of wildflowers in parts of the state
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Kathmandu, Nepal
People carry a ceremonial palanquin and torches during the Biska Jatra festival in Thimi, on the outskirts of the capital. Biska Jatra is celebrated in the hope of protection from all natural calamities and support for a good harvest for the coming year
Photograph: Narendra Shrestha/EPA

Egungun Voodoo Society, Benin: Jean-Claude Moschetti, France (third place, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards, 2023).
The Egungun is a secret voodoo society that honours ancestral spirits. These spirits are believed to be in constant watch over their living relatives; they bless, protect and warn them, but can also punish them if they neglect them. The spirits can also protect a community against epidemics, witchcraft and evildoers, and may even be invited to come to earth physically. When they do, the Egungun are the receptacles of these spirits, appearing in the streets leaping, dancing and uttering loud cries.
Market Closes for April 14^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1720, the first secondary offering of stock took place, by the South Sea Co. in London. Ladies pawned jewelry and farmers sold livestock so they could buy shares; the offering was more than 10% oversubscribed.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite advanced slightly to 20,579.91 in Toronto.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.6%.
Onex Corp. had the largest increase, rising 5.0%.
Today, 98 of 232 shares rose, while 131 fell; 6 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index rose 1.9%
* The index declined 5.8% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC  Americas Index lost 6.8% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 6.8% below its 52-week high on April 21, 2022 and 15.1% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.3 on a trailing basis and 13.6 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$3.28t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 12.40% compared with 12.91% in the previous session and the average of 12.15% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 14.4251| 0.2| 19/10
Information Technology | 13.6353| 1.0| 8/4
Energy | 7.8711| 0.2| 25/14
Industrials | 5.8582| 0.2| 9/18
Consumer Discretionary | 4.9913| 0.7| 10/5
Consumer Staples | 4.8690| 0.6| 7/4
Real Estate | -0.3306| -0.1| 6/14
Health Care | -0.8855| -1.4| 0/6
Communication Services | -4.6762| -0.5| 1/4
Utilities | -7.7621| -0.8| 1/15
Materials | -22.5543| -0.8| 12/37
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | 8.3110| 1.6| -25.0| 31.9
Canadian Natural Resources | 7.1580| 1.1| 3.3| 10.2
Canadian National | 6.7530| 1.0| -47.5| 1.7
Brookfield Corp | -4.4670| -1.0| -59.4| 2.0
Wheaton Precious Metals | -5.1210| -2.3| -14.8| 28.6
Barrick Gold | -5.7550| -1.8| -31.9| 13.3
US
By Vildana Hajric and Ritika Gupta
(Bloomberg) — US stocks edged higher while bonds yields surged this week as worries about the banking sector abated and traders upped wagers that at least one more interest rate increase could be in store from the Federal Reserve this year.
The S&P 500 rose 0.8% this week even as policy-sensitive technology names like Microsoft Inc. and Apple Inc. dragged on the benchmark.
The Nasdaq 100 managed to squeeze out a 0.1% gain after the tech-heavy gauge erased some of its Friday losses late in the session after swaps traders upped bets for a rate increase by June, trading suggests a quarter point hike has better than three-in-four odds for May.
Markets were rattled after Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he favored more policy tightening in the central bank’s battle with inflation.
His comments further fueled hawkish bets after a Reuters report indicated Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic was calling for a quarter-point increase at the May meeting followed by a pause.
Treasury yields rose, with the rate-sensitive two-year jumping 13 basis points to trade around 4.1%, a weekly high, after a measure of March retail sales showed core readings declined less than estimated and comments from Fed officials suggested more tightening ahead.
A Bloomberg gauge of the dollar climbed while gold futures tumbled.
Equities have been stuck in a narrow trading range this week and options data suggest they could remain there as the relative price to hedge remains elevated.
Chartists are eying 4,200 as the key level the S&P 500 needs to breakthrough to finally regain some momentum.
“There’s a lot for both bulls and bears to hang their hats on right now,” said Dan Suzuki, deputy chief investment officer at Richard Bernstein Advisors. “Bulls can point to pervasive bearish sentiment, last year’s rerating, declining interest rates, the falling US dollar, lower gas prices, the China reopening, a resilient domestic economy and decent market momentum.”
“On the other hand, bears can points to weakening overall growth, the earnings recession, tightening liquidity, as well as the stubbornly high concentration and valuations in growth stocks,” he added.
A Deutsche Bank team led by Henry Allen pointed to similar concerns. “The problem for many investors right now is that it’s still possible to construct fairly divergent narratives about the economy depending on which series you look at,” they wrote.
“For instance, yield curves have inverted, temporary jobs are declining, and on previous occasions when the Fed have hiked this fast and this quickly, a recession has followed shortly afterwards.”
Yet, the bank’s strategists added, “you could point to unemployment around its lowest in decades, a high level of vacancies by historic standards, financial markets that have mostly shrugged off the SVB-related turmoil by now, along with growing signs that inflation is softening and the Fed are nearing a pause in their rate hikes.”
Financials outperformed Friday with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. leading the charge after earnings.
Assurances about the sector’s health and an increase in deposits following the March failures of three smaller US lenders drove the big banks higher. Regional peers slid.
The sector will remain in the hot seat Monday when Charles Schwab Corp. and State Street Corp. report.
Investors will be looking for signs of health from Schwab, which has plunged roughly 40% this year as rising rates drove a spike in unrealized losses at the brokerage.
Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will report later in the week as will Netflix Inc. and Tesla Inc.
While data earlier this week suggested runaway prices were moderating somewhat, a Friday report suggested Americans are pessimistic.
Inflation expectations jumped in April with consumers seeing prices climbing 4.6% on an annual basis, up from 3.6% in March, according to a University of Michigan survey.
“Inflation in our minds clearly peaked last summer and has continued to improve.  But the caveat is that we’re still a ways away from the Fed target,” Philip Orlando, chief equity market strategist and head of client portfolio management at Federated Hermes said of the central bank’s 2% inflation goal. “The Fed, once they do that last hike, in all likelihood is going to go on pause. And we think a pause is going to last a while, likely into next year.”
A hold on rates could draw investor focus back to the debate over an economic downturn and whether the market has a hard or soft landing in store.
“We started the year off with pretty solid data. Now we’re getting a payback into March,” Ethan Harris, head of global economic research at BofA Securities told Bloomberg Television after the retail sales report. “And so the question is: is this the beginning of that slide into recession? I’m leaning in that direction. I think that there’s some fundamental weakening going on in the economy.”
In commodities, crude logged its fourth week of gains amid signs of a tightening global market while gold slumped.
Bitcoin edged higher, holding above the key $30,000 level which it broke through earlier in the week.
Some of the main moves in the market:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.2% as of 4:01 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.4%
* The euro fell 0.5% to $1.0996
* The British pound fell 0.9% to $1.2415
* The Japanese yen fell 0.9% to 133.78 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 0.1% to $30,315.74
* Ether rose 4% to $2,088.42
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced seven basis points to 3.51%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced seven basis points to 2.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 3.67%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.6% to $82.64 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 1.8% to $2,019.30 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Isabelle Lee, Peyton Forte, Edward Bolingbroke and Michael Mackenzie.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Three things in life are important.  The first is to be kind.  The second is to be kind.  The third is to be kind. –Henry James, 1843-1916.

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com