June 7, 2013 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Given the time of year, when so many of us are spending weekends in our gardens, I thought you might enjoy this: Horticultural History ~ How some heritage fruits and vegetables were first described in literature.

-from Heritage Fruits and Vegetables by Toby Musgrave and Clay Perry, Thames & Hudson

Asparagus

The first shootes or heads of Asparagus are a Sallet of as much esteeme with all sorts of persons, as any other whatsoever, being boyled tender, and eaten with butter, vinegar, and pepper, or oyle and vinegar, or as every ones manner doth please. –John Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, 1629.

Carrot

The roote is round and long, thicke above and small below, eyther red or yellow, eyther shorter or longer. –John Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole ParadisusTerrestris, 1629.

Pea

Pease are of divers kinds….the meaner sort of them have been long acquainted with our English Air and Soil; but the sweet and delicate sorts of them have been introduced into our Gardens only in this latter age. – John Worlidge, Systema Horticulurae, 1683, 2^nd ed.

Radish

I do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of a  cheese-paring; when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. –William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II, Act 3, Scene 2

Mulberry

In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a vinous flavor, and the fruit assumes three different colours, being at first white, then red, and ripe when black….It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least improvement of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has been increased. –Pliny, Natural History, 1^st century AD.

Birthday: Paul Gauguin, painter, b. June 7, 1848.

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. –Paul Gauguin

Photos of the Day –June 7^th, 2013

A NASA Black Brant XII suborbital rocket streaks into the night sky following its launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia on June 5, 2013. The rocket carried the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER). Scientists are studying when the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe and how brightly they burned their nuclear fuel. Jamie Adkins/NASA/Reuters

Water is seen splashing off of Belmont Stakes hopeful Orb during his bath after morning workouts at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. The 145th Belmont Stakes, the final leg of racing’s Triple Crown, will be held at Belmont Park on June 8. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Market Closes for June 7^th, 2013

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 7 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a sixth day, giving the benchmark equity gauge the longest losing streak in a year, as metals prices tumbled after jobs data from Canada and the U.S. topped estimates.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. dropped more than 5.6 percent.  as the price of gold slumped the most in seven weeks. Silver Standard Resources Inc. and Endeavour Silver Corp. retreated at least 6.6 percent as the price of the metal sank. Catamaran Corp. jumped 3.4 percent after announcing it had made a prepayment on one of its loans. Athabasca Oil Corp. and Trilogy Energy Corp. rallied the most among oil and gas stocks as crude reached a two-week high.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 36.03 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,373.30 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has tumbled 2.9 percent in the past six days, the longest slump since May 2012.

“Canada’s just the bad boy of the global markets here, it can’t catch a break,” said Ian Nakamoto, director of research with MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier Inc. in Toronto. The firm manages $4 billion. “Canada has got to come back by commodity prices coming back, and I don’t see that. The pressure on gold stocks has been going on for some time now.”

Canadian employment rose by 95,000 in May, the most since August 2002, and the jobless rate fell to 7.1 percent from 7.2 percent even as more Canadians joined the workforce, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa.

U.S. payrolls rose 175,000 last month after a revised 149,000 increase in April that was smaller than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent.

Raw-materials producers sank 3.4 percent as a group, pacing losses in the S&P/TSX. Seven of 10 industries in the benchmark equity gauge advanced, led by health-care and technology stocks.

Trading volume was 10 percent lower than the 30-day average.

Kirkland Lake Gold tumbled 5.6 percent to C$5.38 and Agnico Eagle Mines retreated 7.4 percent to C$31.65. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of gold, lost 4.9 percent to C$20.60 as all 29 members of the S&P/TSX Gold Index declined.

Gold futures for August delivery fell 2.3 percent to settle at $1,383 an ounce, as the jobs data boosted concern the Federal Reserve may scale back monetary stimulus. Silver lost 4.2 percent, as both metals slid the most since April 15.

Silver Standard Resources fell 8.3 percent to C$7.53 and Endeavour Silver retreated 6.6 percent to C$4.22.

Telus Corp. decreased 0.7 percent to C$34.67. The wireless carrier has slumped 3.2 percent in the past three days, after the Canadian government blocked the Vancouver-based company’s bid to acquire smaller competitor Mobilicity in a C$380 million deal.

Athabasca Oil surged 5.2 percent to C$7.48 and Trilogy Energy gained 4.7 percent to C$32.43 as the price of crude rallied 1.3 percent to $96.03 a barrel to settle at the highest since May 21.

Catamaran increased 3.4 percent to C$51.25, the biggest advance in three weeks. The provider of pharmacy benefits management services said in a filing today it made a $100 million prepayment on a term loan on June 3. The company now owes $1 billion in the loan.

US

By Nikolaj Gammeltoft

June 7 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, giving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index its best two-day rally since January, after better-than-forecast growth in employment indicated the economy continues to expand.

Boeing Co., Walt Disney Co. and American Express Co. added more than 2.4 percent, pacing gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a gauge of cyclical stocks rallied. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. added 0.9 percent after approving a new buyback program.

Gap Inc. rose 2.7 percent after reporting same-store sales for May that beat analyst estimates. Iron Mountain Inc. tumbled 16 percent after saying its conversion to a real estate investment trust is being scrutinized by tax regulators.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.3 percent to 1,643.38 at 4 p.m. in New York. The index rallied 2.1 percent in the past two days to finish the week 0.8 percent higher. The Dow jumped 207.50 points, or 1.4 percent, to 15,248.12. More than 6.4 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, in line with the three-month average.

“This report’s in the sweet spot,” Brian Jacobsen, who helps oversee $221.2 billion as chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said by telephone. “It shows investors that the economy is growing but not fast enough for them to be concerned that the Fed is going to start tapering its asset purchase program.”

Federal Reserve stimulus and better-than-expected earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 143 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The index has dropped 1.5 percent since closing at a record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S.

Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85 billion monthly bond purchases if the job market improved in a “real and sustainable way.”

Stocks surged after a Labor Department report showed payrolls rose 175,000 last month from a revised 149,000 increase in April that was smaller than first estimated. The jobless rate climbed from a four-year low as more Americans entered the labor force. Data yesterday showed jobless claims decreased by 11,000 to 346,000.

The improvement in the labor market is a sign companies are looking beyond fiscal restraint this quarter and are optimistic enough about the prospects for demand in the second half of the year. At the same time, bigger job and wage gains are needed to move Fed policy makers closer to scaling back record monetary stimulus.

Bernanke needs to see four months of job growth averaging at least 200,000 to justify reducing the pace of asset purchases, according to Vincent Reinhart, a former director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs. About 194,000 jobs were added on average over the past six months.

“The jobs report provided a sense of relief for a lot of investors,” Robert Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management LLC, said in a phone interview. His firm manages about $250 billion in assets. “Many people had feared it was going to be worse than the estimates, but we remain stuck in the middle. It’s not so weak that you say ’Oh my goodness, the economy,’ and it’s not so strong that you expect the Fed is going to start scaling back bond buying in September.”

Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview that the Fed is unlikely to reduce its asset purchases after the unemployment rate climbed.

Economists estimate the Fed will scale back bond buying to $65 billion at the Oct. 29-30 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey this week. In a similar survey before the Fed’s last meeting, economists forecast the central bank to taper to $50 billion in the fourth quarter. The FOMC next meets June 18-19.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, lost 9 percent to 15.14. The benchmark gauge for American stock options, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, fell for the second day after briefly erasing its loss for the year yesterday. The index has dropped 16 percent this year.

Nine of 10 industries in the S&P 500 advanced, with consumer discretionary and industrial stocks rising more than 1.7 percent to pace gains. Boeing, the world’s largest plane maker, added 2.7 percent to $102.49, the stock’s highest since 2007.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index rose 1.6 percent as companies whose earnings are most tied to economic swings rallied after the jobs data. Disney, the world’s largest theme park operator, added 2.7 percent to $64.85, and American Express, the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, gained 2.4 percent to $78.04. Morgan Stanley, the biggest financial brokerage, surged 6.3 percent to $27, the most in the S&P 500.

“We’re seeing a rotation into cyclicals and a belief that the economy is on stable footing,” Darrell Cronk, the New York- based regional chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank, which oversees $170 billion, said by phone. “We’re still in a buy-the-dips mentality and people continue to look at the value that equities pose.”

Wal-Mart Stores climbed 0.9 percent to $76.33. The new $15 billion buyback program was effective yesterday and replaces the previous $15 billion authorization, which had about $712 million remaining, the world’s largest retailer said in a statement.

Gap advanced 2.7 percent to $42.09 after the largest U.S. specialty-apparel retailer reported a 7 percent increase in total comparable sales for last month. Analysts had projected a 3.7 percent gain, on average, according to researcher Retail Metrics Inc.

Yum! Brands Inc. climbed 3.4 percent to $73.52. UBS AG raised its recommendation for the owner of KFC to buy from neutral and added the company to its U.S. “key call” list, saying sales and profitability in China will start to improve from the impact of recent health scares in the country.

GameStop Corp. rose 6.2 percent to $36.75 for the second- biggest gain in the S&P 500. The world’s largest video-game retailer rose after Microsoft Corp., responding to concerns about trade-in rights on its new Xbox One console, said users may sell titles back to retailers or give them to friends provided they have approval from the publisher.

TiVo Inc. dropped 19 percent to $11.10. The developer of digital-video recorders settled a patent dispute with Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility unit, Cisco Systems Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. for $490 million — less than estimated.

Iron Mountain tumbled 16 percent to $28.95 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500, and Equinix Inc. slumped 5.5 percent to $192.57. The two technology companies said the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is scrutinizing their eligibility to convert to real estate investment trusts.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

Beauty lies in the total abandonment of the observer and the observed,

and there can be self-abandonment only when  there is total austerity.

There is no ladder to climb; there is only the first step

and the first step is the everlasting step.

Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

Carolann

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom

through failure.

-William Saroyan, 1908-1981

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7