June 24, 2020 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
1509: Henry VIII is crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.
1950: Korean War begins.

Georg Orwell, author, b. 1903.
In Barcelona, an opera house held its first concert in over three months — to a live audience of nearly 2,300 plants. –The New York Times.

That Big Vacation You Scrapped Is Already Selling Out for Next Summer: There’s already competition to reserve major international trips in 2021 as people who canceled because of coronavirus look to roll over the money they already spent. -The Wall Street Journal.

This weird thing fell from the sky. –Bloomberg.

On June 24, 1997, the Air Force released a report on the so-called “Roswell Incident,” suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies. Go to article »
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

This stunning pictures shows a rare “flying saucer’ cloud hovering over the River Exe.
CREDIT: STUART WOOLGER/SWNS

Swiss acrobat Ramon Kathriner performs on a pole during the Airshow, marking the reopening of facilities after the coronavirus disease lockdown in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
CREDIT: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS

A visitor is seen at the Musee d’Orsay as the museum reopens to the public in Paris, France
CREDIT: XINHUA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Cotswold Lavender Farm opens to the public despite fears the overseas tourist numbers will be down Kiara Ebanks ages four runs through the field.
CREDIT: MIKAL LUDLOW PHOTOGRAPH
Market Closes for June 24^th, 2020 

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1964, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson inaugurated the Picturephone, speaking from the National Geographic Building in Washington and appearing on a 4 3/8″-by-5 3/4″ screen in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. AT&T ended up spending roughly $500 million to develop and market the Picturephone, and a Bell Labs official predicted that “before the turn of the century, Picturephone will displace today’s means of communication.” Fortunately, he didn’t specify which century.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian shares dropped Wednesday as investors grew anxious about the resurgence in coronavirus cases.New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will require visitors from virus hot spots to quarantine for 14 days. The announcement comes as Florida and California both set daily records for new cases, while Houston said its intensive-care unit beds are almost full.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 1.7%, the most since June 11. Ten of eleven sectors declined, with consumer staples the only group to gain.
Oil futures in New York slid 5.9% to the lowest in a week on Wednesday. The decline comes as U.S. crude inventories rose for a third week to a fresh record, placing added pressure on a market already weighed down by fears that a resurgence of the virus could force states to resume lockdowns that were only recently lifted.
Canada’s long-term foreign currency debt rating was downgraded by Fitch Ratings, which cited the deterioration in its public finances resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Commodities
* Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $9.00 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,766 an ounce
FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar weakened 0.6% to $1.3627 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year government bond yield was flat around 0.546%
By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 1.7 percent at 15,294.38 in Toronto. The move was the biggest since falling 4.1 percent on June 11 and follows the previous session’s increase of 0.3 percent.
Toronto-Dominion Bank contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 2.3 percent. Vermilion Energy Inc. had the largest drop, falling 8.2 percent.
Today, 202 of 222 shares fell, while 20 rose; 10 of 11 sectors were lower, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater loss 19 times. The next day, it advanced 11 times for an average 3.8 percent and declined eight times for an average 4.1 percent
* This quarter, the index rose 14 percent, heading for the biggest advance in at least 10 years
* This month, the index rose 0.7 percent
* The index declined 7.4 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 2.7 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 14.9 percent below its 52-week high on Feb. 20, 2020 and 36.9 percent above its low on March 23, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 0.9 percent in the past 5 days and rose 2.6 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.2 on a trailing basis and 24.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.4 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$2.37t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 19.26 percent compared with 20.16 percent in the previous session and the average of 21.36 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -85.5324| -1.9| 1/24
Energy | -62.7134| -3.2| 0/24
Materials | -36.2359| -1.6| 3/48
Industrials | -32.5491| -1.8| 4/24
Information Technology | -17.3237| -1.1| 1/9
Utilities | -10.7658| -1.4| 1/15
Communication Services | -8.8498| -1.0| 0/8
Real Estate | -8.5961| -1.7| 2/25
Consumer Discretionary | -8.5594| -1.6| 1/12
Health Care | -4.7662| -2.7| 1/8
Consumer Staples | 5.5131| 0.8| 6/5
US
By Vildana Hajric and Amena Saad
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks slumped 2.6% as investors grew anxious that the resurgence in virus cases in multiple states will hamper the economic recovery. Yields on Treasuries fell and the dollar strengthened.
All 11 sectors in the S&P 500 sank at least 0.9%, with energy, financials and industrials down more than 3% after data showed Florida and California set daily records for new cases, while Houston said its intensive-care unit beds are at 97% capacity. Travel stocks and other companies that had been climbing amid reopening optimism got hammered with New York, New Jersey and Connecticut requiring visitors from virus hot spots to self-quarantine. Even the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell for the first session in nine.
“As we see these cases continue to spread, we’re seeing micro contractions in those states and the market’s basically looking forward and saying, ‘This looks like it’s gaining momentum again and there’s nothing that indicates any path to slowing that momentum’,” said Peter Mallouk, president and chief executive officer of Creative Planning. “And so we’re seeing this rotation back, away from what we would normally see do really well in a market recovery to the things that hold up through a market contraction.”
Market sentiment is rapidly turning more negative on concern that the spreading coronavirus could force policy makers to slow the pace or reverse business re-openings. At the same time, there’s the potential for trade tensions to resurface between the European Union and the U.S.
The White House is weighing new tariffs on $3.1 billion of exports from France, Germany, Spain and the U.K. The American Trade Representative wants to impose new tariffs on European exports like olives, beer, gin and trucks, while increasing duties on products including aircrafts, cheese and yogurt, according to a notice published late Tuesday evening. The EU is also debating whether to keep the door shut to American travelers this summer.
Elsewhere, the International Monetary Fund downgraded its outlook for the world economy, projecting a significantly deeper recession and slower recovery than it anticipated just two months ago. “you have a situation in which, you know, you could argue that the market is fairly valued, or stretched, however you want to put it, but it’s overbought,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial Inc. “Under these conditions, with a market that’s done so well, it typically is prudent to take some profit to allow the market to burn off some froth, consolidate, and then get ready for the next move.”
Here are some key events coming up:
* U.S. jobless claims, durable goods and GDP data are due Thursday.
* A rebalance of Russell indexes is due on Friday.

These are some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 Index declined 2.6% to 3,050.33 as of 4:16 p.m. New York time, the lowest in more than a week on the largest drop in almost two weeks.
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 2.7% to 25,445.94, the lowest in almost two weeks on the biggest drop in almost two weeks.
* The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 2.2% to 9,909.17, hitting the lowest in more than a week with the first retreat in almost two weeks.
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0.6% to 1,217.89, the biggest rise in almost two weeks.
* The euro declined 0.5% to $1.1253, the largest fall in more than a week.
* The Japanese yen depreciated 0.5% to 107.06 per dollar, the weakest in more than a week on the biggest dip in more than three weeks.
Bonds
* The yield on two-year Treasuries declined less than one basis point to 0.18%, the lowest in two weeks.
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell three basis points to 0.68%, the lowest in almost two weeks on the biggest drop in almost two weeks.
* Britain’s 10-year yield fell two basis points to 0.189%, the lowest in almost four weeks.
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude declined 5.5% to $38.16 a barrel, the lowest in more than a week on the biggest drop in almost two weeks.
* Gold weakened 0.2% to $1,765.64 an ounce.
–With assistance from Katherine Greifeld.

Have a great night.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Each moment is a place you’ve never been.
                      -Mark Strand, 1934-2014

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

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