February 10, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

FEBRUARY
It is not only sunny days that make for memorable and sometimes unexpected sights when the eye is taken by surprise.   “Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society,” wrote Alfred Austin, author of The Garden that I love.  How I would have enjoyed a conversation with him one morning as I walked round the garden looking for special situations due to the freezing fog which enveloped me and most of the surrounding plants.  Best of all was Miss Willmott’s Ghost (Eryngium giganteum) or rather the skeleton of her ghost (can a ghost have a skeleton?)  looking ravishing with the edges of her remains rimmed with frozen fog – how fortunate that she had not been cut down and consigned to the bonfire in the autumn.  So absorbed die I become in my thoughts of skeletons and ghosts and hoping that Alfred Austin was enjoying himself that I almost expected Miss Ellen Willmott to glide through the mist and joint our conversation.  As I walked on there were more exciting skeletons, a solitary spike of Ligularia clivorum, left there to spread its sees, and several brown stems of the herbaceous Phlomis samia which I like to keep for the tits to swing on as they feed on the seeds.  The tall remains of Crambe cordifolia were there to remind me of summer in this foggy, frosty day when every leaf was edged white with ice.  The white rims of frozen fog round the evergreen berberis looked like the white edge on the wings of a large blue butterfly.  It made me wonder what exactly white is, and I discovered that it is sometimes caused by physical effects.  It can be due to air spaces within tissues where the reflection of light makes an impression of whiteness.  The white or grey of Senecio White Diamond is the reflection from the innumerable hairs which cover the leaves, with air between each.  Snow and frost, made up of colourless ice crystals with air spaces, have the same effect – whiteness.  A solid block of ice is colourless but ice full of air bubbles becomes white. – from a Countrywoman’s Notes by Rosemary Verey.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A golden eagle grabs a flying drone during a military training exercise at Mont-de-Marsan French Air Force base in southwestern France on Friday. Regis Duvignau/Reuters

A couple wearing Japanese traditional kimono pose for a wedding photo by a rapeseed field in Hamarikyu Garden in Tokyo on Friday. The flowers are expected to remain in full bloom until the end of March. Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Volunteers try to keep alive some of the hundreds of stranded pilot whales on Friday in Golden Bay, at the top of New Zealand’s south island, after one of the country’s largest recorded mass whale strandings. Ross Wearing/Reuters
Market Closes for February 10^th, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
Canada
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks climbed for a fourth day to a record as energy shares rallied amid a three-day climb in the price of crude oil.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index added 0.5 percent for the fifth advance in six sessions, bringing the gauge to 15,696.72 at 10:24 a.m. in Toronto — topping the previous high set on Jan. 25. While energy stocks climbed for the third day, it’s health- care companies and raw-materials producers that have led the benchmark gauge this week.
     Shares of energy companies added 0.8 percent for the third straight advance as crude oil climbed 1.6 percent to $53.83 a barrel. All but four companies in the 50-member energy group advanced, with Enerplus Corp. and Crew Energy Inc. leading gains with additions of at least 5 percent.
     Materials stocks rose 0.8 percent and consumer discretionary shares also advanced, adding 0.7 percent. Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and Alimentation Couche-Tard climbed 0.7 percent each.
     Great Canadian Gaming Corp. was the biggest decliner in early trading, down 5.6 percent after Scotiabank cut the stock to sector perform on Thursday and lowered the price target to C$26 from C$29. Alamos Gold Inc. slid 2.3 percent after RBC cut the company to sector perform.
US
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced for the fourth time this week as indexes added to records and investors assessed President Trump’s pledge to overhaul business taxes. A rally in oil and commodity prices sent energy and materials shares higher.
     The S&P 500 Index rose 0.4 percent to a record 2,316 at 4 p.m., while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 97 points to 20,269. The Russell 2000 Index jumped 0.8 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.3 percent as both set new highs.
* Energy stocks up a second day, advancing 0.8%
* Financial shares pared earlier losses, ending 0.2% higher, capping a third week of gains after dropping the first three trading sessions of the week
* Real estate shares reversed losses to close 0.6% higher as consumer staples were the only group in the red for the day
* Volume slipped from the highest level in a week on Thursday, with 6.5 billion shares trading hands Friday, below the 6.7 billion average so far this year
* VIX little changed at 10.8, the lowest in two weeks
* Traders are assessing Trump’s comments that a “phenomenal” plan to overhaul business taxes may be released in the next “two or three weeks”
* With more than half of S&P 500 companies having posted earnings this season, about three-quarters beat profit estimates and roughly half beat sales forecasts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg
* EARNINGS:
** After-market Friday: Knoll (KNL), Emera (EMA)
** Pre-market Monday: First Data (FDC), HCP (HCP), Dentsply Sirona (XRAY)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

When you believe that the truth is living, moving, that it does not have one home or rest in any temple,
mosque, or church, in any religion, master or philosopher – in short, that nothing can lead you to it –
you will see also that you are this living thing in every respect;
it is your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair.
It is the agony and the pain that you live through.  The truth is in the comprehension of all of this;
you cannot comprehend it unless you are determined to see it in your life.
Krishnamurti

As ever,

Carolann

I hadn’t been aware that there were doors closed to me until I started knocking on them.
                                                                              -Gertrude B. Elion, 1918-1999

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