November 30, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: St. Andrew’s Day, Christian calendar.

On Nov. 30, 1995, President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.  Go to article »

Winston Churchill, statesman, b.1874
Mark Twain, author, b.1835
Jonathan Swift, writer, b.1667
Abbie Hoffman, activist, b.1936
Ben Stiller, comic actor, b.1965

First lady Jill Biden unveils her first White House holiday decorations.  Snowflakes! Butterflies! The theme this year: “Gifts from the Heart.”

Pub-goers snowed in for three days at UK’s highest inn.  This the start of either a romantic comedy or a horror film. 

Study suggests the sun is a likely source of the Earth’s water.  

In less than a century, the Arctic will be trading snow for rain.

A normie’s guide to the cryptoverse.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
A wildfire burns along the western ridge of the mountain
CREDIT: Walt Unks/AP
A freight train negotiates Morant’s Curve near Lake Louise
CREDIT: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
Crown Prince Akishino (centre) sits with his son and daughter in the garden of their Akasaka imperial residence
CREDIT: Kazuhiro Nogi/Imperial Household /JI/AFP/Getty Images

Market Closes for November 30^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1999, entrepreneur Marc Ostrofsky of Houston sold the rights to the internet address business.com for $7.5 million, a record price for a domain name. Mr. Ostrofsky paid $150,000 for it in 1996—a price that was then considered absurd.  “Everyone thought I was a fool,” he said. But in three years, he had earned roughly a 470% annualized return on his investment.
Canada
By Stefanie Marotta
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities slumped, following global markets lower as governments consider the potential impact of the omicron variant and Ottawa eyes tightening travel restrictions. The S&P/TSX Composite fell 2.3% to 20,659.99 in Toronto. The move was the biggest since the index fell 2.7% on Oct. 28, 2020. Today, financials stocks led the market lower, as all sectors lost; 206 of 233 shares fell, while 26 rose. Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 3%. Birchcliff Energy Ltd. had the largest drop, falling 7.2%.
Insights
* This year, the index rose 19%, heading for the best year since 2019
* This month, the index fell 1.8%
* The index advanced 20% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 25% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 5.2% below its 52-week high on Nov. 16, 2021 and 20.6% above its low on Nov. 30, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 3.7% in the past 5 days and fell 1.8% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.8 on a trailing basis and 15.8 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.6% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.34t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 13.06% compared with 11.13% in the previous session and the average of 9.74% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Financials | -187.6503| -2.8| 2/26
* Energy | -67.1986| -2.4| 2/21
* Information Technology| -62.2249| -2.5| 2/13
* Industrials | -54.7819| -2.2| 1/29
* Materials | -38.4987| -1.6| 13/42
* Consumer Discretionary| -22.3678| -3.0| 0/13
* Real Estate | -20.2899| -3.1| 1/23
* Consumer Staples | -11.2836| -1.5| 1/12
* Utilities | -10.1118| -1.1| 2/14
* Communication Services| -9.6477| -1.0| 0/7
* Health Care | -4.9578| -2.7| 2/6
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Shopify | -46.2100| -3.0| 117.1| 35.0
* TD Bank | -43.5000| -3.7| 187.2| 25.3
* Royal Bank of Canada | -33.9300| -2.6| 94.0| 20.8
* Osisko Mining | 0.3900| 6.5| 59.9| -15.7
* Centerra Gold | 0.5340| 3.9| 98.8| -36.2
* Nuvei | 1.2780| 2.4| 99.1| 61.7

US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Stocks sank after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell weighed an earlier end to bond tapering, with traders boosting their wagers on the pace of interest-rate hikes. In a wild trading session for markets, the Treasury curve flattened sharply — with the premium of the 30-year rate over the five-year yield tumbling. Powell also told a Senate banking committee that it’s time to stop using the word “transitory” to describe inflation. The S&P 500 slumped almost 2%, while the Cboe Volatility Index extended its biggest monthly surge since February 2020. “Powell just added gasoline to the fire by finally admitting that inflation isn’t going away as fast as anyone would like,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. “A faster tapering is probably coming as a result, and that has markets worried the punch bowl is leaving the party.” Money markets now show 55 basis points of rate tightening – – more than two standard quarter-point increases — priced in by the end of 2022. That’s up from about 50 basis points on Monday.
The first full hike remains priced for July. Fed officials have consistently said they want to wrap up the taper before lifting borrowing costs from near zero — where they’ve been since the pandemic began. Powell, in his opening remarks, said the recent rise in Covid-19 cases and the emergence of the omicron strain pose “downside risks to employment and economic activity and increased uncertainty for inflation.” During the following question-and-answer period, he focused more on the evidence of elevated prices since officials met Nov. 2-3.

More comments:
* “Investors may have expected Powell to run for cover as the omicron variant threatens growth,” said Mike Bailey, director of research at FBB Capital Partners. “However, he did an about-face and signaled faster tapering, spooking markets.”
* “With potential changes in policy on the horizon, market participants should expect additional market volatility in this uncharted territory,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management.
* “We believe the underlying fundamentals of the economy and an upcoming robust vaccine response to the new threats” will allow the market to rebound from the near-term selloff, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.
Concern about the impacts of omicron weighed on markets earlier Tuesday, with Moderna Inc. executives saying the many mutations suggest new shots will be needed.
The current generation of vaccines probably will protect against severe disease in people infected by the variant, according to BioNTech SE’s chief.
The University of Oxford said there’s no evidence existing shots won’t provide some protection against the strain.
U.S. consumer confidence slid to a nine-month low in November as a pickup in Covid-19 cases and accelerating inflation weighed on Americans’ views about the economy.
Final sales for Cyber Monday fell short of estimates as scarce inventory kept shoppers from breaking out their credit cards at the start of the holiday shopping season.
Some corporate highlights:
* Pfizer Inc. had its best monthly advance in 30 years as renewed virus fears revive the market’s focus on vaccine makers.
* AT&T Inc. tumbled after the company’s chief executive officer of communications told investors at a conference he expects customer growth to slow.
* Nasdaq Inc. partnered with Amazon.com Inc. to shift its North American exchanges to the cloud starting in 2022.

Some key events to watch this week:
* China Caixin manufacturing PMI, Wednesday
* Euro zone manufacturing PMI, Wednesday
* U.S. construction spending, ISM Manufacturing, Fed’s Beige Book on Wednesday
* OPEC, allies may re-evaluate plans for reviving oil supplies, Thursday
* U.S. initial jobless claims, Thursday
* U.S. jobs report, factory orders, durable goods on Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.9% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.6%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.8%
* The MSCI World index fell 1.4%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%
* The euro rose 0.4% to $1.1341
* The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.3301
* The Japanese yen rose 0.4% to 113.03 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined six basis points to 1.44%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to -0.35%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined five basis points to 0.81%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 4.9% to $66.55 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 0.7% to $1,773.30 an ounce
–With assistance from Andreea Papuc, Robert Brand, Emily Graffeo, Vildana Hajric, Peyton Forte and Edward Bolingbroke.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

Be careful about reading health books.  You may die of a misprint. –Mark Twain, 1835-1910.

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