September 15, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Everyone.
1940: Battle of Britain Day.
1890: Agatha Christie was born.
1971: Greenpeace founded.
On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the civil rights era.
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The Poem:

Starlings
     -by Michael Longley

Sitting up against a sea wall
Eating fish and chips, we count
The starlings, a dozen or so
Swaggering opportunists
Unexpected on the shingle.
Shall we throw them leftover,
Dear brother?  Greasy fingers.
Spangled iridescences.
Is this Bangor or Ballyholme?
A blink and they attract thousands
And thousands more starlings, a shape-
Shifting bird-cloud, shitlegs
Sky-dancing.  No collisions.
Wherever you are, Peter,
Can you spot on your radar
Angels?  They’re starlings really,
Heavenly riffraff flocking
Before they flap down to roost.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

After four years trying, a part time photographer has finally captured his dream shot of a Jaguar in a cave. Jamen Percy, 35, who works in digital advertising and design has been trying to snap a rare shot of a Jaguar lurking in Mayan cave since 2013. After years of calamities including a flood destroying his camera, Jamen finally did it.
CREDIT: CATERS NEWS AGENCY

Stunning images show the vast and empty stillness of flooded rice fields. They are sectioned off in blocks with a network of streams perfectly flooding each area with the right amount of water. Unusually these photos were not taken in China or Japan or even Asia, where people normally associate rice fields, but in Corum, Turkey.  Photographer Fikret Dilek Uyar, 41, from Ankara, Turkey, waited days for the rain to stop so he could capture the beauty of the rice fields.
CREDIT: FIKRET DILET UYAR/SOLENT NEWS

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gets out of an Audi Aicon autonomous electric concept car at the 2017 IAA Frankfurt Auto Show in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
The Frankfurt Auto Show is taking place during a turbulent period for the auto industry.
Leading companies have been rocked by the self-inflicted diesel emissions scandal. At the same time the industry is on the verge of a new era as automakers commit themselves more and more to a future that will one day be dominated by electric cars.
CREDIT: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
Market Closes for September 15^th, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 2008, Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection.
Canada
By Kristine Owram
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks posted their biggest weekly gain since February as oil prices rose the most in seven weeks, boosting energy shares.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index was little changed Friday, up less than one point to 15,173.03 despite a spike in volatility near the close amid index rebalancing. Its gain for the week was 1.3 percent, the most in seven months.
     The materials and energy sectors both fell Friday, down 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, while consumer discretionary shares were the biggest gainer, up 0.8 percent. The sector was led by a 9.8 percent jump in shares of online poker company Stars Group Inc., which raised its 2017 guidance.
     In other moves:

                                 Stocks
* Empire Co. Ltd. rose 9.8 percent, adding to Thursday’s 14 percent gain. Several analysts upgraded the stock as the grocery retailer’s turnaround gained steam
* Organigram Holdings Inc. jumped 17 percent. The pot producer signed a memorandum of understanding to distribute recreational marijuana in New Brunswick
* Oceanagold Corp. lost 5.5 percent as the spot price of gold fell 1.9 percent on the week, its biggest weekly loss since early July 
                            Commodities
* Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $12.25 discount to WTI, unchanged from Thursday
* Aeco natural gas traded at a $1.56 discount to Henry Hub, 22 percent wider than Thursday
* Gold fell 0.3 percent to $1,325.20 an ounce
                            FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar weakened 0.2 percent to C$1.2184 per U.S. dollar
* The Canada 10-year government bond yield gained three basis points to 2.09 percent, the highest in three years.
US
By Brendan Walsh and Dani Burger
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks capped the best week since January, with the S&P 500 Index climbing above 2,500 for the first time, as investors showed resilience in the face of a North Korean missile test. The dollar weakened after an unexpected decline in August retail sales raised concern over the economy’s strength.
     Investors largely shrugged off the latest rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula and a terrorist attack in London, with haven assets from the yen to gold declining. The S&P 500 took the round-number milestone in the final minutes of trading to end the week with a 1.6 percent advance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed at a record. The greenback pared its biggest weekly gain since February as the Bank of England’s hawkish shift bolstered the pound. Oil ended near $50 a barrel to cap its best week since July. Yields on 10-year Treasuries topped 2.2 percent.
     With economic themes back in the foreground, markets are showing signs of becoming conditioned to provocative actions from North Korea, which has launched more than a dozen missiles this year and tested a nuclear device. The August decline in sales and downward revisions to the prior months make it more likely that consumption, the biggest part of the economy, will be hard-pressed to match the 3.3 percent growth pace of the prior quarter.
     “Retail sales were weak but some of that is built in because you caught a piece of the hurricanes,” said Andrew Brenner, the head of international fixed income at Natalliance Securities. “Central banks trump everything else right now. They’re going to become much more important in the next wave of where markets move.”
     Volume was unusually high Friday because of a quarterly event known as quadruple witching, when futures and options contracts on indexes and individual stocks expire.

                                  Stocks
* The S&P 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 2,500.22 as of 4 p.m. New York time.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.3 percent at the close.
* The MSCI All-Country World Index climbed 0.2 percent.
* The MSCI Emerging Market Index gained 0.2 percent.
* The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index sank 1.1 percent.
                                Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2 percent.
* The euro climbed 0.2 percent to $1.1941.
* The British pound gained 1.3 percent to $1.3568, the strongest in almost 15 months.
* The Japanese yen dipped 0.6 percent to 110.92 per dollar.
                                 Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose one basis point to 2.2 percent, a three-week high.
* Germany’s 10-year yield increased two basis points to 0.43 percent, hitting the highest in almost four weeks.
* Britain’s 10-year yield rose seven basis points to 1.3 percent.
                                Commodities
* Gold fell 0.6 percent to $1,321.69 an ounce.
* West Texas Intermediate rose 0.1 percent to $49.93 a barrel. Prices rose almost 5 percent in the week, buoyed by higher demand forecasts.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Be magnificent!

If I change, will the world have any value?
That is a wrong question, if ne may point.  It is wrong because you are the rest of humanity.
Krishnamurti

As ever,

Carolann

People need dreams, there’s as much nourishment in ‘em as food. -Dorothy Graham, 1923-2012

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com