September 21, 2020 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Last day of summer today.

From Bloomberg today:
Milk products can now be 3D-printed. (h/t Mike Smedley)

People are booking flights to nowhere. (h/t Ellen Kominers)

Archaeologists unearth 2,500-year-old sarcophagi. (h/t Scott Kominers)

2001 – Congress approved $15 billion to help an airline industry reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Go to article »

The four most promising other worlds for life in the solar system.

When researchers attached cameras to Pacific Northwest orcas, a marvelous underwater world was revealed. Have a look and a listen.–The Seattle Times.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Moonset Behind the Statue of Liberty in New York City, USA.
CREDIT: GARY HERSHORN/GETTY IMAGES

Bear fight it out in the middle of the river over their fish dinner. This hungry beat proves he’s definitely not one to be messed with – punching his rival square on the nose as the pair faced off over a juicy salmon. Photographer Valerio Ferraro was watching the pair scrap over wild salmon in Kamchatka, Russia when two of the brown bears both fancied the same fish for dinner. The two enormous beasts stood up on their back legs and squared off – until one of the bears thew a right hook and claimed victory, before strutting off with salmon in mouth. Valerio said:” It was certainly a bear I didn’t want to mess with.”
CREDIT: VALERIO FERRARO/ CATERS NEWS

Sunset over the Irish Sea in Blackpool, UK.
CREDIT: KARL HOUGHTON/BAV MEDIA

These incredible images show swallows darting through a jagged opening in a farm building in North Tuddenham in Norfolk, UK. The smashed window was their “door” into a shed where they have raised three broods this summer. It will soon be time for them to fly south for the winter with their offspring to Namibia or South Africa, a journey that will take them six weeks.
CREDRT: VINCE BURTON/ SWNS. COM
Market Closes for September 21^st, 2020 

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1931, the day after the Bank of England abandoned the gold standard, U.S. stocks tumbled. The Dow plunged 6.2% to an intraday low of 104.79, and the New York Stock Exchange authorities debated closing the market. But NYSE President Richard Whitney insisted that the market should remain open, and the executives compromised by instituting a temporary ban on short-selling. By day’s end, stocks had recovered almost all their lost ground, with the Dow closing down less than 1%.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks dropped Monday as investors assess a clouded economic outlook amid rising coronavirus cases.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 1.3% to its lowest level since July 14. Nine of 11 sectors retreated, while information technology and consumer staples gained.
Oil dropped as U.S. equities slid to a two-month low on mounting concerns over prolonged coronavirus restrictions while Libya signaled the resumption of some crude exports. Russ Girling, the man who spent a decade battling to build the controversial Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, is stepping down as TC Energy Corp.’s chief executive officer with the project still uncompleted.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to unveil a new plan to try to contain the spread of Covid-19 and recharge Canada’s pandemic-battered economy, according to a senior government official.
Commodities
* Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $10.75 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 2% to $1,912.83 an ounce
FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar fell 0.8% to C$1.3304 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year government bond yield fell 2.8 basis points to 0.549%
By Bloomberg Automation:
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the fourth day, dropping 1.3 percent, or 217.19 to 15,981.77 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 1.4 percent on Sept. 4.
Today, materials stocks led the market lower, as 9 of 11 sectors lost; 193 of 223 shares fell, while 29 rose.
Toronto-Dominion Bank contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 2.1 percent. First Majestic Silver Corp. had the largest drop, falling 9.3 percent.
Insights
* This month, the index fell 3.2 percent
* This quarter, the index rose 3 percent
* This year, the index fell 6.3 percent, heading for the worst year since 2018
* The index declined 5.4 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 9.6 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 11.1 percent below its 52-week high on Feb. 20, 2020 and 43 percent above its low on March 23, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 2.3 percent in the past 5 days and fell 3.2 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.4 on a trailing basis and 23.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.3 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$2.47t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.95 percent compared with 12.47 percent in the previous session and the average of 11.39 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Materials | -80.2481| -3.1| 2/50
Financials | -68.9228| -1.5| 2/24
Energy | -42.9524| -2.3| 1/22
Industrials | -18.1327| -0.9| 5/23
Consumer Discretionary | -14.2101| -2.6| 1/12
Real Estate | -10.6764| -2.1| 1/25
Communication Services | -9.8736| -1.2| 0/7
Utilities | -5.9065| -0.7| 5/11
Health Care | -5.1227| -3.1| 0/10
Consumer Staples | 2.6088| 0.4| 7/4
Information Technology | 36.2429| 2.4| 5/5
US
By Rita Nazareth and Claire Ballentine
(Bloomberg) — Stocks pared losses as a rebound in some tech giants tempered concern over cloudy prospects for economic stimulus and a report about suspicious transactions at global banks. Bonds and the dollar rose.
After approaching the threshold that many investors consider to be a market correction, the S&P 500 came off session lows as the Nasdaq 100 climbed. Commodity and industrial shares still led the benchmark gauge to its lowest in almost two months. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. slumped more than 2%. Carnival Corp. and American Airlines Group Inc. paced losses in travel companies on worries that an increase in coronavirus cases could prompt further lockdown measures.
The eruption of a partisan battle over replacing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg damaged already-slim prospects for another round of fiscal stimulus. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats released a stopgap government funding bill without support from the White House or Senate Republicans.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the economy is improving, but has a long way to go before a full recovery from the pandemic. Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned the U.S. may experience “at least one more cycle” of the virus in the fall and winter.
Meanwhile, a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said some big global banks “kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players” in the past two decades even after the U.S. imposed penalties. “Maybe there are worries we will see another wave of lockdowns. We also have U.S. political risk rising,” according to Jeffrey Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab Corp. “There are some concerns there could be more fines in place on financial-services institutions,” and that could further hit earnings estimates, he said.

These are some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 dipped 1.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index sank 3.2%.
* The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 1%.
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index jumped 0.6%.
* The euro sank 0.7% to $1.1763.
* The Japanese yen weakened 0.1% to 104.72 per dollar.
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries dipped two basis points to 0.67%.
* Germany’s 10-year yield fell five basis points to -0.53%.
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 0.157%.
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 3.6% to $39.64 a barrel.
* Gold depreciated 2.1% to $1,910.78 an ounce.
* Silver sank 8% to $24.63 per ounce.
–With assistance from Adam Haigh, Gregor Stuart Hunter,
Anchalee Worrachate, Lynn Thomasson, Vildana Hajric and Nancy Moran.
Have a great night.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Would that I could discover truth as easily as I can uncover falsehood.
                                        -Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 BCE-43 BCE

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
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com