July 27, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
July 27, 1866~Atlantic telegraph cable laid.

You won’t believe how this beetle walks on water.

Why Peter the Great taxed beards.

The Great Coral Reef is having a decent year.

Largest known comet has been traveling for millions of years.  An interesting journey to ponder next time you’re stuck in a traffic jam. 

Still don’t know what cryptocurrency is? Here’s an explainer.  It’s also OK if you never want to know. This is a judgment-free zone.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

MonoVision Photography Awards 2021 Winners announced /Honourable Single Mention Soccer at Sunset in Landscape category by Marc Apers Belgium
CREDIT: MARC APERS/MONOVISIONS PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS/TNG

MonoVision Photography Awards 2021 Winner. By using nudes to capture trust and vulnerability each winner delivers a strong message towards conserving Africas wildlife and habitat
CREDIT: PAUL GIGGLE/MONOVISIONS PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS/TNG

Check out these mind-blowing pictures of Snow Tunnels in the Scottish Highlands. Gary Hodgson visited and photographed summer snow tunnels in Carn Ban Mor, Glenfeshie, Cairngorms National Park
CREDIT: GARY HODGSON PHOTOGRAPHY / CATERS NEWS

Luke Jerram shows his seven-metre model of Mars in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building Bristol University. Using NASA imagery, the model allows people to see the mountains, valleys and craters of our neighbour the Red Planet
CREDIT: JMF NEWS/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

Market Closes for July 27^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1971, Merrill Lynch went public, becoming the first New York Stock Exchange firm to do its own initial public offering on the NYSE. The brokerage industry had waited nearly 200 years to share its profits with the public, and Merrill Lynch let the public own a piece less than three years before the worst stock market slump since 1929.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks were mixed Tuesday as investors digested corporate earnings. The S&P/TSX Composite Index was mostly unchanged, with real estate and industrials rising, while cannabis and energy lagged. Pot investors will gain some color this week as Tilray is set to report earnings after combining with Aphria. Shopify Inc. has entered the ranks of one of the biggest Canadian companies ever, passing $200 billion in stock market value last week.  It’s a sign of the market’s upbeat view of its prospects — even as its growth rate begins to soften. Bank of Canada officials need to “temper their enthusiasm” that strong inflation readings will be short-lived, according to one former governor.
Commodities:
* Western Canadian Select crude oil traded at a $14.00 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,800.35 an ounce
FX/ Bonds:
* The Canadian dollar fell 0.4% to C$1.2595 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year Canada government bond yield fell 5.5 basis points to 1.167%
By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite advanced slightly to 20,173.35 in Toronto. The move follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.1 percent. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 3.1 percent. Celestica Inc. had the largest increase, rising 16.2 percent.Today, 105 of 230 shares rose, while 124 fell; 5 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.

Insights
* This month, the index was little changed
* The index advanced 25 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 37 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 1 percent below its 52-week high on July 7, 2021 and 30.8 percent above its low on Oct. 30, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1.2 percent in the past 5 days and fell 0.3 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.1 on a trailing basis and 16.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.6 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.17t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 9.30 percent compared with 9.37 percent in the previous session and the average of 7.78 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Financials | 29.9027| 0.5| 12/16
* Industrials | 17.6327| 0.8| 15/14
* Real Estate | 6.3848| 1.0| 25/0
* Utilities | 5.6084| 0.6| 13/3
* Communication Services | 2.8799| 0.3| 4/3
* Consumer Staples | -0.7494| -0.1| 3/10
* Materials | -0.8885| 0.0| 19/34
* Consumer Discretionary | -4.7078| -0.6| 1/12
* Health Care | -7.9355| -3.3| 2/8
* Information Technology | -17.0483| -0.7| 8/4
* Energy | -22.6945| -0.9| 3/20
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Brookfield Asset | | | |
* Management | 20.1300| 3.1| 38.6| 25.7
* Canadian National | 11.3600| 1.8| 4.7| -4.3
* Royal Bank of | | | |
* Canada | 6.7470| 0.5| 19.6| 21.0
* Canadian Natural | | | |
* Resources | -4.5430| -1.3| -36.8| 33.3
* Suncor Energy | -11.5400| -4.1| 36.1| 20.0
* Shopify | -23.1300| -1.5| 81.5| 36.2

US
By Richard Richtmyer, Vildana Hajric and Natalia Kniazhevich
(Bloomberg) — U.S. equities ended a five-day winning streak on Tuesday as megacap technology stocks including Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. tumbled ahead of their earnings reports. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 posted its biggest drop in more than two months as all three of the major American equity indexes fell from all-time highs.  The Hang Seng Index sank the most since May 2020 as speculation swirled that U.S. funds are offloading China and Hong Kong assets. The rout in China is adding to global market unease, with investors already concerned about the economic recovery, given the rise in the Covid-19 delta variant and central-bank talk of tightening policy.  While a strong start to the earnings season has helped U.S. equities, investors have been anticipating further catalysts from this week’s Federal Reserve meeting and the updates due today from Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet Inc., which are among the top five heaviest-weighted stocks in the S&P 500.  Shares of all three were among the biggest drags on the index on Tuesday. “The turmoil in tech stocks in China is finally bleeding into U.S. tech stocks,” said Chris Murphy, Susquehanna International Group’s co-head of derivatives strategy.  “We might also be seeing investors taking profits ahead of the big tech earnings later this week. I am concerned investors will lighten up in general after those earnings this week as we head into a
seasonably weak period for equities.” Shares of Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc., which are set to report earnings later this week, also tumbled.  Nine of the 10 stocks in the NYSE FANG+ index, which includes the biggest U.S.-based tech companies as well as China’s Baidu Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., ended the session lower.
Forecasts indicate that S&P 500 earnings growth should set new highs during the second-quarter season, and so far more than 80% of the companies that have reported their results beat Wall Street’s sales and profit estimates.  That’s helped to offset concern about inflation and the spread of Covid-19.  At the same time, it has some investors thinking this might be as good as it’s going to get for a while. “We probably are at peak earnings,” Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments, said on Bloomberg TV.  “They have easy comps so that’s helping.  Plus they’ve been able to start putting through some of the price increases.” In China, the yuan slid to its lowest since April against the dollar and bonds slumped, indicating mounting worries that Beijing’s crackdown on education, food delivery and property sectors could expand to other industries.  Meanwhile, a slump in U.S.-listed Chinese shares accelerated. Elsewhere in markets, Treasuries rose with the yen amid demand for haven assets. Bitcoin traded around $38,000 after briefly rising above $40,000 overnight.
Here are some key events to watch this week:
* Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Amazon report earnings this week
* Federal Reserve policy meeting concludes Wednesday
* U.S. GDP data are due Thursday Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.1%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.6%
Currencies:
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%
* The euro rose 0.2% to $1.1822
* The British pound rose 0.5% to $1.3885
* The Japanese yen rose 0.6% to 109.71 per dollar
Bonds:
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined six basis points to 1.23%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to -0.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 0.56%
Commodities:
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.1% to $71.83 a barrel
* Gold futures were little changed
–With assistance from Michael Msika, David Wilson and Andreea Papuc.
Have a wonderful evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. -C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963.

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