February 17, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

This poem is from “The Traveler’s Vade Mecum,” a new anthology of poetry.  The anthology takes its title from a 19^th-century compendium of 8,466 numbered sentences designed to help travelers compose shorter telegrams; to use this system, the sender and the receiver of the telegram would each have a copy of the book and would communicate such useful messages as “I am onboard a steamer ship bound for Paris” by writing “45 Paris,” or ominous ones like “A sad accident has happened” merely with “461.”  The anthology’s editor, the poet and novelist Helen Klein Ross, chose some of these sentences and assigned them to poets to use as titles.  The result is a wide-ranging, pleasurable overview of many different approaches in American poetry today. –Matthew Zapruder, NY Times.

Poem:
There Was a Great Want of Civility
                           by Julie Suarez

All night in the trees, the whispering, a great disorder, not the way leaves talk among themselves during the day, not the rustle of squirrels and birds among them, but a tossing, shiftless shadow weight of darkness, leaf to leaf.

I dared not close my eyes for fear it would have its way with me

How could anyone sleep?
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Macaws groom each other at Le Cornelle Animal Park in Valbrembo, Italy, on Friday. Antonio Calanni/AP

Athletes compete in the women’s 4 X 6km relay biathlon at the IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, on Friday. Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
Market Closes for February 17^th, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
Number of the Day
$600 million
The losses for the Catalyst Hedged Futures Strategy mutual fund in the week ended Thursday. The firm’s bearish bets in the options market were undone by the S&P 500’s latest run to fresh records.
Canada
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks are poised to end the longest streak in more than 11 months, as raw-material and energy stocks declined with health-care stocks.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 0.2 percent to 15,833.52 at 11:26 a.m. in Toronto after rising 3 percent over an eight- day advance. The index finished 2016 as the best-performing developed stock market and posted its seventh straight monthly increase in January. It’s increased 3 percent so far in February.
     Seven of 11 sectors in the benchmark gauge declined, with consumer discretionary shares leading the gainers. Phone stocks added 0.2 percent and real estate companies were little changed.
     Aimia Inc. fell more than any company in the composite index, slipping from a 52-week high after projecting 2017 gross billings for its core business would be “broadly stable” at C$2.1 billion as it divests a section of its business.
By David Hodges
     (Canadian Press) — TORONTO — The five-day streak of record highs for Canada’s main stock index came to an end Friday while U.S. markets continued hitting new peaks ahead of a holiday weekend for traders on both sides of the border.
     In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index lost 25.54 points at 15,838.63 after a positive session Thursday that marked an eight consecutive day of advances.
     Real estate stocks racked up some of the biggest gains on the TSX, while materials, gold and base metals dragged down the index.
     On Wall Street, stock indices inched ahead to record highs Friday, albeit barely, after a late afternoon push erased losses earlier in the day.
     The Dow Jones industrial average added 4.28 points to 20,624.05 and the Nasdaq composite advanced 23.68 points at 5,838.58. The S&P 500 gained 3.94 points at 2351.16, capping the fourth straight week of gains for the index, its longest such streak since July.
     “Certainly ‘Trumpenomics’ is one of the dominant market themes on the minds of investors today,” said Todd Mattina, a strategist and chief economist at Mackenzie Investments.
     “It really represents a waiting game to get more clarity about the types of policies that Donald Trump will implement in the coming weeks,” he added, describing the U.S. leader’s economic package as a complex mix of helpful and hurtful policies.
     “On the positive side of the ledger you’ve got tax reform, you’ve got deregulation. But on the unhelpful side you have increased economic policy uncertainty.”
     Trump’s performance at a news conference Thursday, filled with jaw-dropping moments in which he aired feelings of personal grievance and referenced the political upside of war, “just reinforced that significant, very elevated degree of uncertainty on economic policy going forward,” Mattina added.
     While Trump remains a dominant market theme, Mattina said overseas considerations also weigh heavily.
     “Other important factors are increased political risk in Europe,” he said, pointing to France’s upcoming presidential election and concerns about the increasing odds of a win for Marine Le Pen, president of the National Front.
     Like Trump, the leader of the far-right party has made her anti-immigrant and anti-European stance clear.
     “There’s also Brexit-related concerns as the U.K. heads toward its so-called ‘cliff edge’ negotiations with the European Union at the end of March,” Mattina said.
     In commodities, the April crude oil contract added three cents at US$53.78 per barrel, while the March contract for natural gas lost two cents at US$2.834 per mmBTU.
     The April gold contract dropped $2.50 to US$1,239.10 an ounce and March copper fell 1.15 cents to US$2.707 per pound.
     The Canadian dollar fell 0.11 of a U.S. cent at 76.34 cents US.
     Stock markets in Toronto and New York will be closed Monday, with the United States marking Presidents Day and Canadians off for various provincial holidays, including Family Day in Ontario.
US
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — U.S stocks advanced Friday to all-time highs after a report on deal activity between T-Mobile Inc. and SoftBank Group Corp. and a speech by President Donald Trump at a Boeing Co. factory in South Carolina.
     The S&P 500 added 0.2 percent to 2,351.16 at 4 p.m., reversing earlier losses of as much as 0.3 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 49 points in the wake of the President’s event, in which he renewed his promise to rebuild the military and suggested that a larger purchase of Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet may be in the offing. The gauge later jumped 18 points in the final minute of trading.
      T-Mobile US Inc. rose as much as 5.3 percent following a report that SoftBank Group Corp. would be willing to give up control of Sprint Corp. in a potential merger of the two mobile- phone carriers.
* SoftBank shares added 3.2%
* Boeing added 1.1% for the seventh straight session of gains
* Financial stocks little changed after dropping as much as 0.9% in early trading
* Energy stocks and materials down as Bloomberg Commodity Index drops 0.4%
* Equity funds globally saw $17.7 billion in net investment inflows in the week to Feb. 15, the most in nine weeks, according to a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch
* VIX ends 2.3% lower to 11.5
* ECONOMY:
** Conference Board leading economic index rose to 125.5 in Jan. vs 124.7 prior month
* EARNINGS:
** Monday: Community Health Systems (CYH)
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added less than 0.1% at the close.
** Erased a drop of as much as 0.6%, boosted by a 13% surge in Unilever after Kraft Heinz Co. said the consumer-goods peer rejected its merger approach.
** Miners and energy shares tracked declines in metal and oil prices

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

Even at the gate of death, in the greatest danger,
in the thick of the battlefield,
at the bottom of the ocean, on the tops of the highest mountains,
in the thickest of the forest, tell yourself,
”I am He, I am He.”
Swami Vivekananda

As ever,
 

Carolann

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.
                                                                   -Judy Garland, 1922-1969

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