February 24, 2015 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

February 24^th, 1955, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, was born.

Be a yardstick of quality.  Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.  ~Steven Jobs.

Steven Grosz, Psychoanalyst:

In my 25 years of practicing psychoanalysis, I can’t recall anyone ever asking me this question.  Patients do ask what’s the point of doing such-and-such or being married to so-and-so.  And I’ve been asked – more than once – “what’s the point of analysis?”

  Typically, the people who come to see me are in pain.  They may be confused, or anxious, or depressed but, more often than not, their complaints are specific.  They might be suffering because their husband has died, their marriage as collapsed, or they can’t find someone to love.  They don’t ask “what’s the point?”  they don’t want to know the meaning of life – they want the suffering to stop so they can live their lives.

  Often, part of the suffering is that they can’t  articulate it.  Pain is resistant to language; it can reduce us to a stage before language – to the confusion and anguish, the cries we had before we had words.  Karen Blixen said, ”All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”  But what if a person can’t tell a story about his sorrows?  Experience has taught me that there are stories that we never found a way to voice, because no one helped us to find the words.  When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us – we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don’t understand.  My job as a psychoanalyst is to help others find a way of telling their story.

  We will probably never know what’s the point, but we can find meaning, and ourselves, through speaking and listening.  We are born into a world of feelings and words; we become who we are by sharing our stories.  We need others to help us make sense of ourselves.  From our first words to our last, we’re story-tellers, but we can’t be story-tellers alone – we need someone to listen.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The glow of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is seen in the horizon in the Kawartha Lakes region, southern Ontario on Monday. The colorful cosmic display of the northern lights is rarely seen in Ontario. Fred Thornhill/Reuters

A view shows the Invalides and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Tuesday. Five drones have been seen flying over sensitive sites of Paris, including the US Embassy, between midnight and six o’clock in the night of Monday to Tuesday, according to French police. French authorities have opened an investigation. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Market Closes for February 24^th, 2015     

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks retreated, after erasing an earlier gain, as energy producers fell and lenders slid amid disappointing earnings from Bank of Montreal.

     Bank of Montreal dropped 2 percent after profit missed analysts’ estimates on a slowdown in investment banking. Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion Bank, among the nation’s largest lenders, fell at least 0.5 percent. Trican Well Service Ltd. and Penn West Petroleum Ltd. dropped more than 4.9 percent to pace declines among energy shares. PrairieSky Royalty Ltd. jumped 6 percent after profit topped estimates. First Quantum Minerals Ltd. gained 8.1 percent as copper rebounded.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 35.29 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,164.97 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, erasing an earlier advance of as much as 0.5 percent. Trading volume was 15 percent below the 30-day average.

     Trican Well Service declined 6.1 percent as energy producers fell 0.3 percent as a group, erasing an earlier gain of as much as 0.9 percent.

     Equities retreated as Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said oil’s decline is an “important setback” to the nation’s economy. The central bank’s surprise interest rate cut in January will give policy makers time to see how the economy responds to the lower prices, Poloz said in the text of a speech Tuesday at Western University in London, Ontario.                           

     The impact of the oil price shock is immediate, while longer-term benefits of falling energy costs will be more gradual in arriving, Poloz said.

     Bank of Montreal dropped 2 percent, the most in more than three weeks. Canada’s fourth-largest lender by assets posted net income of C$1 billion ($792 million), a 5.7 percent decline from year-ago levels. Earnings were hampered by lower insurance earnings due to falling interest rates.

     First Quantum Minerals surged 8.1 percent, the most in five weeks, and Teck Resources Ltd. rallied 2.8 percent as copper jumped the most in more than a week amid speculation global supplies are set to tighten. Raw-materials producers increased 0.3 percent as a group.

US

By Michelle F. Davis

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, sending benchmark gauges to records, after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen indicated an increase in interest rates is unlikely before mid-year as inflation and wage growth remain too low.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.3 percent to a record 2,115.48 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 92.35 points, or 0.5 percent, to 18,209.19, as Home Depot Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. rallied. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.1 percent, climbing for a 10th straight day to bring it within 1.6 percent of its 2000 record. About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 11 percent below the three-month average.

     “We have some more time where rates are not going to change dramatically over the near-term,” Bill Schultz, who oversees $1.2 billion as chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview. “The market’s interpreting it as a continuation of policy until proven otherwise — going to need to see continued evidence, job growth, inflation or economic growth picking up before they’re going to change their forward guidance.”

     The S&P 500 has gained 2.8 percent this year and the Dow has added 2.2 percent. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 5.1 percent in the past 10 days, the longest winning streak since July 2009. Apple Inc., which has the biggest weighting in the Nasdaq Composite, has surged 20 percent this year.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index lost 6 percent to 13.69, the lowest since Dec. 5. The gauge, know as the VIX, is on track for its worst month ever.

     Yellen said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee inflation that wage growth remain too low even as the job market improves, and she signaled that a change in the Fed’s guidance on interest rates won’t lock it into a timetable for tightening.

     She repeated that the Fed’s pledge to be “patient” on beginning to raise the benchmark interest rate means an increase is unlikely for “at least the next couple” of meetings. The central bank adopted the guidance in December and repeated it in January.

     Investors have been seeking clues on the timing of a U.S. interest-rate increase. San Francisco Fed President John Williams said he wouldn’t rule out a move in June, the Nikkei newspaper reported.                         

     The S&P 500 rose last week as minutes from the central bank’s latest meeting showed some policy makers argued for keeping rates low for longer amid risks facing the economy.

     The Federal Open Market Committee pointed to a strengthening dollar, international flash points from Greece to Ukraine, and slow wage growth as weakening the case for the first rate rise since 2006, according to a record of the Jan. 27-28 meeting.

     “The momentum remains to the upside,” Steve Sosnick, equity risk manager at Timber Hill, the market-making unit of Greenwich, Connecticut-based Interactive Brokers Group Inc., said by telephone. “Volumes have not necessarily been impressive but it’s some combination of ‘don’t fight the Fed’ and ‘the trend is your friend.’”

     Among economic reports Tuesday, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index decreased to 96.4 in February from 103.8 a month earlier. The S&P/Case-Shiller index showed home prices in 20 U.S. cities appreciated at a faster pace in the year ended in December, a sign that a limited supply is forcing up property values.

     In Europe, finance ministers approved Greece’s package of new economic measures and paved the way for an extension to the country’s bailout agreement. The agreement came on a conference call Tuesday, according to an official involved in the talks who asked not to be named in line with policy.

     Based on the provisional agreement between Greece and its official creditors on Feb. 20, the approval of the list was a condition for extending the availability of bailout funds for another four months.

     Nine of 10 main groups in the S&P 500 rose, buoyed by utilities, financial and phone stocks. Health-care companies had the only loss, falling after nine straight days of gains.

     Home Depot advanced 4 percent to a record after the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer reported fourth-quarter profit that topped analysts’ estimates as consumers spent more on their homes. The company’s board also approved an $18 billion stock buyback program, replacing its previous authorization, and increased the quarterly dividend.                        

     JPMorgan added 2.5 percent. The largest U.S. bank plans to cut as much as $100 billion of some clients’ excess deposits in its efforts to limit capital required under a new U.S. proposal. The firm’s investment bank is reducing the size of its trading book and eliminating offsetting derivative contracts to cut its need for capital, according to an investor presentation.

     Comcast Corp. gained 1.7 percent after Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts said he still expects the proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc. will close early this year, addressing the growing concerns about the prospects for regulatory approval. Time Warner rose 2.1 percent.

     Coach Inc. rose 3 percent to a nine-month high after Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. analyst Anna Andreeva upgraded the company to outperform from market perform, citing improving profitability and the stabilization of its brand.

     First Solar Inc. rallied 10 percent and SunPower Corp. jumped 18 percent. The two largest U.S. solar-panel manufacturers are planning a joint venture and expect to register for an initial public offering for it.

     Macy’s Inc. dropped 3.2 percent after the largest department-store chain forecast lower-than-estimated annual profit after posting disappointing sales growth during the holiday season.

     Micron Technology slumped 2 percent after a Korea Times report said competitor Samsung Electronics Co. had signed a deal with Apple to supply more than half of that company’s DRAM needs for iPhone 6S, according to Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. analyst Kevin Cassidy.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!
 
 

Order is the very essence of the universe – the order of birth and death and so on.  It is only man that seems to live in disorder, confusion.

He has lived that way since the world began.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

Carolann

The art of communication is the language of leadership.

                                            -James Humes, 1942-

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7