January 7, 2013 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Are you planning on taking a trip sometime in the upcoming year? If so, here are the top 10 travel destinations according to the Globe and Mail:

1)The View from The Shard, London: The city’s highest and most vertiginous views become accessible to the public on Feb. 1. The View from the Shard is an observation area that spans levels 68 to 72 of the Shard, the pointy 310-metre high Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper, the tallest building in Western Europe.

2)Fogo Island, Nfld: The community’s cultural heritage is drawing interest from travellers who never would have considered the tiny floating speck in northeast Newfoundland. Established in 2006, her Shorefast Foundation has been hard at work supporting local entrepreneurs through micro-loans, funding artists and developing an inn that is set to open this year.

3)Amsterdam: It’s the year of milestones in Amsterdam and the city plans to whoop it up. This month, join in the fun by skating along the postcard perfect, UNESCO-listed canal ring that was constructed 400 years ago.

4)Colombia: Is evolving into a safer, more refined tourist destination. It offers everything from beach getaways to colonial city stays. Bogota couple Santiago and Camilla traded in city life to open up Hacienda Bambusa (haciendabambusa.com) near Armenia, a peaceful hideaway surrounded by coffee plantations, sleepy villages and lush rain forests.

5)Hobart, Tasmania: Australia’s rugged island outpost has a new sophisticated side. The year-old Museum of Old and New Art (MONA for short) is the unlikely epicentre; a vast subterranean space carved out of an ancient sandstone cliff to display multimillionaire David Walsh’s private art collection. This month’s main event is MONA FOMA, a seven-day festival that showcases international musicians (David Byrne and St. Vincent, Bickram Ghosh, Elvis Costello, and more).

6)Pienza, Italy: The Tuscan hills are awash with upmarket holiday villas, but there are few modern boutique hotels that put you in the thick of village life. Pienza itself is a charming Renaissance village, within an hour’s drive to Siena and Cortona, and only a half hour to southern Tuscany’s famed wine capitals, Montalcino and Montepulciano.

7)Bahia, Brazil: Brazil is priming for an epic close-up. Bahia, in northern Brazil, is the place to find barefoot eco-friendly beach luxury at its best. The seaside village of Trancoso is home to Uxua Casa Hotel (uxua.com), a stylish nine-villa bolthole that was built mostly by hand from recycled wood and designed by the creative director of Italian fashion brand Diesel.

8)Stockholm, Sweden: On May 7, after a four-year delay, the new ABBA museum opens on the leafy Stockholm island Djurgarden. It will be a permanent exhibition within the new Swedish Music Hall of Fame, and perhaps the ultimate homage to the seventies-era band whose tunes can still be heard blasting in the bars and clubs of Sweden’s capital.

9)East Africa: Hoteliers in East Africa are unveiling new accommodations for the well-heeled traveller. Opening in March, Hemingways Nairobi (hemingways-nairobi.com) is the first five-star hotel in the Kenyan capital and delivers such luxe amenities as personal butlers and running coaches who have trained with Olympian sprinters.

10)Quito, Ecuador: Much needed infrastructure improvements will make it a lot more pleasant to travel to (and through) Quito. If you have the time, spend at least two nights in Quito’s cobblestone colonial quarter which has a few notable boutique hotels (La Casona de la Ronda Hotel, Casa Gangotena) and an emerging arts scene.

“ There is only one happiness in life — to love and to be loved” – George Sand

On this day in…

1904 – The distress signal “CQD” was established. Two years later “SOS” became the radio distress signal because it was quicker to send by wireless radio.

1927 – Transatlantic telephone service Service began between New York and London. 31 calls were made on this first day.

1927 – In Hinckley IL, the Harlem Globetrotters played their first game.

1929 – The debut of “Buck Rogers 2429 A.D.” occurred in newspapers around the U.S. The title of the comic strip was later changed to “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

1935 – French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini signed the Italo-French agreements.

1942 – The World War II siege of Bataan began.

1949 – The announcement of the first photograph of genes was shown at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

1953 – U.S. President Harry Truman announced the development of the hydrogen bomb.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” – Confucius

Photos of the day January 7th, 2013

A boy in traditional attire plays his drum during an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Record at a field in Titabar town in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Sunday. A total of 14,833 Assamese people attempted to enter the Guinness Book of World Record by playing the drums for 15 minutes non stop.

Photo: Utpal Baruah/Reuters

An actor portraying the Holly Man arrives by rowboat at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on the South Bank of the Thames River, during Twelfth Night celebrations in London, Sunday.

Photo: Chris Helgren/Reuters

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall” – Confucius

Market Closes for January 7th, 2013:

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Ari Altstedter

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Canadian Dollar rose for a second day against its U.S. counterpart after a measure of business activity expanded more than forecast in December, adding to signals of faster economic growth.

The currency strengthened after Canada’s Ivey purchasing managers’ index was 52.8 in December, following a November reading of 47.5, according to a statement on the website of Western University’s business school. Canada’s dollar posted its biggest gain versus the greenback in almost five months last week as employers in December added almost twice the number of jobs forecast.

“It’s a sign that the recovery that’s burgeoning in the U.S. is starting to spill over the border, or at least optimism over the U.S. recovery is encouraging factories to ramp up production or hiring,” Adam Button, a currency analyst at Forexlive.com, said by phone from Montreal. “Everywhere you look, it seems you find good news in terms of the U.S. and Canadian economy.”

The loonie, as the Canadian dollar is known for the image of the aquatic bird on the C$1 coin, rose 0.1 percent against its U.S. counterpart to 98.59 cents per U.S. dollar at 5:03 p.m. in Toronto. One Canadian dollar buys $1.0143.

Crude oil, Canada’s largest export, rose 0.2 percent to $93.30 per barrel. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 0.3 percent.

A gauge of volatility hovered at almost the lowest in two weeks. Implied volatility for three-month options on the U.S. dollar versus the loonie touched 5.46 percent, the lowest since Dec. 21.

The country’s 10-year bond yield was little changed at 1.94 percent. The 2.75 percent security due in June 2022 traded at C$106.94.

The Bank of Canada said it will sell C$3.4 billion ($3.5 billion) of five-year notes on Jan. 9. The 1.25 percent securities will mature in March 2018. It will announce further details of a two-year note sale on Jan. 10.

Canada’s Ivey index rose for the first time in five months Economists had forecast a reading of 49.8. Readings of more than 50 indicate purchasing by governments and companies advanced.

“It was a pleasant surprise, it did put Canada back into expansionary territory,” said Camilla Sutton head of currency strategy at Bank of Nova Scotia by phone from Toronto. “What we’ve seen out of PMIs this round has been most of North America, Asia and Latin America have been expansionary, with Europe and Japan still contracting, and much of it contracting at faster rates. Today’s Ivey sort of falls in line with that.”

Employers added 39,800 workers to payrolls in December, lowering the unemployment rate to 7.1 percent from 7.2 percent the previous month, Statistics Canada said Jan. 4 in Ottawa.

The loonie traded close to a level reached Jan. 2, when it gained the most in more than three months, after lawmakers in the U.S. avoided automatic austerity measures by agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthy and putting off decisions on spending cuts.

“You’re waiting for the next shoe to fall,” David Tulk, chief macro strategist at Toronto-Dominion Bank’s TD Securities unit, said by phone from Toronto. “A lot of the fiscal-cliff information has already been absorbed into the market and we’re not quite out of the woods yet there either — negotiations on the spending side are ongoing.”

Canada’s currency has gained 0.9 percent during the past 12 months versus nine developed-nation peers tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The greenback has dropped 3.7 percent.

US

By Stephen Kirkland and Rita Nazareth

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — Stocks slipped before the start of earnings season, pulling the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index down from a five-year high, and the Dollar Index fell for the first time in four days. European banks rose as regulators eased liquidity rules while Italian bonds slid.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.3 percent to 1,461.78 at 3:24 p.m. in New York and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index, which last week reached its highest level since February 2011, closed 0.4 percent lower.

BNP Paribas SA and Barclays Plc paced bank gains in Europe. The yen advanced against 14 of 16 major peers, adding 0.5 percent versus the U.S. currency, while the Dollar Index retreated 0.3 percent from the highest level since November. Treasuries were little changed while commodities rose.

Alcoa Inc. will unofficially start the U.S. earnings reporting season after the market closes tomorrow, with analysts predicting 2.9 percent growth in quarterly profit for S&P 500 companies. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s Governing Council will meet Jan. 10 to focus on nursing the euro region back to economic health.

“We’ve come a long way in a very short time,” said Tom Wirth, who helps manage $1.6 billion as senior investment officer for Chemung Canal Trust Co., in Elmira, New York, in a phone interview. “I’m expecting better-than-anticipated earnings. Yet we need to see some consolidation first.”

Utilities, energy and consumer-staples companies led losses in eight of the 10 main industry groups in the S&P 500 today.

Illumina Inc. tumbled 6.9 percent after Roche Holding AG Chairman Franz Humer told a Swiss newspaper that a deal to buy the U.S. genetics company is off the table. Applied Materials Inc., the world’s largest producer of chipmaking equipment, lost 2.4 percent after being downgraded at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Boeing Co. tumbled 2.1 percent after a 787 Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines Co. caught fire on the ground this morning at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets, was little changed after agreeing to pay Fannie Mae $3.6 billion to resolve home-loan repurchase claims. The lender will also pay $6.75 billion to repurchase residential mortgages sold to Fannie Mae. The deal will “substantially resolve outstanding claims for compensatory fees” between the two companies, according to the statement.

The KBW Bank Index slipped 0.4 percent. Ten of the largest U.S. mortgage servicers will pay a combined $8.5 billion under an agreement that will end case-by-case reviews of foreclosure- abuse claims stemming from a 2011 deal with regulators.

Companies including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America and Citigroup Inc. must provide $5.2 billion in mortgage assistance and $3.3 billion in direct payments to wronged borrowers, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve said in a statement today.

Earnings at banks and diversified financial companies are forecast by analysts to have grown 28 percent and 71 percent, respectively. Earnings at insurance companies fared the worst among 24 groups, decreasing 48 percent amid claims from Superstorm Sandy, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Stocks surged last week, sending the S&P 500 up 4.6 percent for its biggest gain in 13 months, after U.S. President Barack Obama and lawmakers reached a compromise that averted the package of spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff.

Have a great evening everyone!!!

Be Magnificent!

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” – Mahatma Gandhi

Karen Parnham

Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff

Queensbury Securities Inc.

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8X 3Y7

Tel: 778-430-5808