January 25, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
Poet Robert Burns AKA Rabbie Burns & The Bard of Ayrshire, was born today in 1759.

The writer Virginia Woolf was also born on this day in 1882.
Virginia Woolf once said that “fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”  One of the 20^th century’s great literary innovators, she  and her sister Vanessa formed the core of the intellectual Bloomsbury group.

In 1917, Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf, bought an old hand press and set two stories on it, one by each of them, which sold out almost immediately.  Hogarth Press, as they called it, continued to publish, preferring young and unknown writers including Katherine Mansfield and T.S. Eliot.

Woolf’s hold on life was not attached at all four corners.  Sexually abused by her stepbrothers, she had her first nervous breakdown at age 13.  She ended her life on March 28, 1941, at age 59, when she filled her pockets with stones and walked into the River Ouse. –Kerry Miller.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. –Virginia Woolf.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A man fishes through an ice hole in the Finnish Gulf in St. Petersburg, Russia on Wednesday, with the new soccer stadium on Krestovsky Island, which will host some of the Confederations Cup 2017 and World Cup 2018 soccer matches in the background. Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

A black Mudi, an ancient Hungarian species of shepherd dogs, helps to drive a herd of 120 buffalo from their summer pasture to their winter habitat on the premises of the Kiskunsag National Park, near Fulopszallas, south of Budapest, Hungary on Wednesday. Sandor Ujvari/MTI/AP
Market Closes for January 25^th, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
Canada
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose as U.S. equities marched to a record high. Tech companies advanced and energy shares climbed for a second day after U.S. President Donald Trump revived discussion over TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index added as much as 0.4 percent to 15,667.94 in Toronto, after jumping 0.8 percent Tuesday. Health- care stocks led the charge with a 1.4 percent rally on the back of a 2.3 percent climb in Valeant Pharmaceuticals International.
* Financial shares also rallied, adding 0.7% as all but four companies in the 27-member index advanced
* Energy shares gained 0.4% even as the price crude oil slid 0.6% for the first decline in five sessions
* Trump has put Canada and Mexico on notice that he’s determined to wring more favorable terms for the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement; his plan to re-negotiate Nafta was received in Mexico with a call to protect tariff-free trading, while in Canada, officials seemed more concerned about avoiding unintentional damage to the economy as the U.S. targets Mexico
* Raw-material stocks and phone shares lagged, down at least 0.8 percent
US
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose Wednesday, carrying forward a global equity rally that’s propelled by expectations of stronger economic growth and government spending by President Donald Trump’s administration.
     The S&P 500 advanced 0.8 percent to 2,298.37 at 4 p.m. in New York after adding 0.7 percent on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has hovered below the 20,000 mark since mid-December without crossing it, broke through the threshold with a 0.8 percent advance to 20,068.51.
* Financial shares lead market, up 1.7% with gains of 3.5% in Wells Fargo and a 2.6% rally in Morgan Stanley
* Tech stocks rose 1.1%, advancing for the fourth straight session as Seagate Technology surged 14% and chip-makers advanced
* In the Dow, Boeing and Caterpillar led an advance that lifted all but seven stocks
* VIX down 2.4% to 10.8, the lowest since July 2014
* The world’s largest economy will expand 2.3% this year, accelerating from 1.6% growth last year, according to economist estimates compiled by Bloomberg
* The surge in shares of raw-material producers Tuesday came as traders unwound hedges in the SPDR Materials Select Sector ETF, which tracks raw-material producers in the S&P 500
** Short interest on the fund sits at 4.7% of shares outstanding, just 2.2 percentage points from its level on Dec. 23, which marked the lowest since August 2014; the measure has seen an average of 9% since the start of the bull market
* March will be a key month for U.S. stocks as it will signal maximum optimism in the market in terms of potential earnings revisions, David Kostin, a strategist at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg TV
* EARNINGS:
** After-market Wednesday: Crown Castle International (CCI), Murphy Oil (MUR), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Varian Medical Systems (VAR), United Rentals (URI), SL Green Realty (SLG), Qualcomm (QCOM), AT&T (T), McKesson (MCK), Xilinx (XLNX), Las Vegas Sands (LVS), ServiceNow (NOW), F5 Networks (FFIV), Lam Research (LRCX), Citrix (CTXS), Western Digital (WDC), eBay (EBAY)
** Pre-market Thursday: Helmerich & Payne (HP) Northrop Grumman (NOC), PulteGroup (PHM), Praxair (PX), Blackstone Group (BX), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), Alliance Data Systems (ADS), L3 Technologies (LLL), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL), Whirlpool (WHR), Caterpillar (CAT), Baker Hughes (BHI), American Electric Power (AEP), Southwest Airlines (LUV), Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Dow Chemical (DOW), Invesco (IVZ), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), Ford Motor (F), Comcast (CMCSA), Lear (LEA), Dover (DOV), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Biogen (BIIB), Raytheon (RTN), T Rowe Price (TROW), Celgene (CELG), Mead Johnson Nutrition (MJN US)

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The Upanishad tells us: Know the soul that is your own.
In other words: Realize the grand unique principle of the whole that is in all men.
Rabindranath Tagore

As ever,

Carolann

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
             -Robert Burns, 1759-1796

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Portfolio Manager &
Senior Vice-President

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