January 6, 2022 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Epiphany or Twelfth Day, Three Kings Day, Christian calendar.

2005: Former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was arrested 41 years after three civil rights workers were slain in Mississippi.
(Killen was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison.)  Go to article »

January 6, 2021: Supporters of US President Donald Trump attack the Unite States Capitol to disrupt certification of the 2020 presidential election, resulting in five deaths and evacuation of the US Congress.

Joan of Arc, Saint, b. 1412.
Kahil Gibran, poet, b.1833
Carl Sandburg, poet, b. 1878
Alan Watts, writer, b. 1916

Amazon’s Alexa is going to space on NASA’s Artemis moon mission.  Alexa, do aliens exist?

Lightning around the North Pole increased dramatically in 2021.  Arctic lightning sounds so cool… until you find out the climate crisis caused it.

Exciting art exhibitions around the world this year.  This lineup is so dreamy. Just picture yourself passing time in a classic gallery in Paris or Venice.

What is the Planck time? 

The U.S. has more hospital beds available than Canada does.

You might be able to think yourself to death.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Houses are almost completely submerged under a tide of lava after the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the Canary Island of La Palma. More than 1,300 homes have been destroyed
CREDIT: Desiree Martin/AFP/Getty Images

A Greek Orthodox believer kisses a wooden crucifix thrown into the sea during Epiphany Day celebrations near Athens
CREDIT: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

Visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show admire SK group’s Green Forest pavilion demonstrating the South Korean conglomerate’s efforts to reduce emissions
CREDIT: Yonhap/EPA

Market Closes for January 6^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1933, at least one good thing came out of the Great Crash. For the first time, the New York Stock Exchange began requiring listed companies to have their annual financial statements prepared by an independent auditor.
Canada
By Stefanie Marotta
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities rose as gains in energy and financial stocks offset steep losses in materials and technology as investors weight the potential for rate hikes.
The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.2 percent at 21,072.20 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since rising 0.5 percent on Dec. 29 and follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.9 percent.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 5.1 percent.
Primaris REIT had the largest increase, rising 9.8 percent.
Today, 116 of 241 shares rose, while 124 fell; 6 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index fell 0.7 percent
* The index advanced 18 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 22 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 3.3 percent below its 52-week high on Nov. 16, 2021 and 21.8 percent above its low on Jan. 29, 2021
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 1.3 percent in the past 5 days and rose 1 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.1 on a trailing basis and 15 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$3.37t
* 30-day price volatility little changed to 15.55 percent compared with 15.55 percent in the previous session and the average of 14.84 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Financials | 58.0094| 0.8| 20/8
* Energy | 54.9145| 1.9| 26/6
* Industrials | 15.1183| 0.6| 19/11
* Consumer Staples | 6.4692| 0.8| 9/2
* Real Estate | 3.2853| 0.5| 17/6
* Consumer Discretionary | 0.7197| 0.1| 8/6
* Communication Services | -0.9241| -0.1| 2/5
* Health Care | -2.3687| -1.5| 2/6
* Utilities | -9.4054| -1.0| 3/13
* Information Technology | -29.1714| -1.4| 2/14
* Materials | -64.0943| -2.7| 8/47
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Canadian Natural Resources | 22.9400| 5.1| -37.9| 8.9
* Royal Bank of Canada | 14.5600| 1.1| 10.7| 4.1
* Canadian National | 10.4300| 1.6| -32.0| 0.3
* Franco-Nevada | -7.8280| -3.6| 1.8| -7.9
* Barrick Gold | -9.6360| -3.3| 14.1| -4.8
* Shopify | -20.2500| -1.7| 3.3| -14.6

US
By Vildana Hajric
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks drifted lower after swinging between gains and losses as investors reassessed valuations following the Federal Reserve’s latest signal that it will move
aggressively if prices remain elevated.
The S&P 500 edged downward in late trading after attempting to rebound from a 1.9% drop sparked by Fed meeting minutes that suggested the central bank is ready to raise rates sooner and
higher than previously expected.
The hawkish stance hammered the riskiest of assets, from high-priced software stocks to newly-public companies with limited earnings track records.
Treasuries continued a selloff, although the velocity of the downdraft eased with the 10-year rate near 1.73%.
The dollar was slightly stronger.
The Fed’s overtly hawkish stance has roiled financial markets to start the year, with investors recalibrating how to price assets in an environment of expected high economic growth and rising interest rates.
The removal of crisis-era accommodation marks a shift not seen in at least three years, a time that also saw a spike in volatility and ultimately a major stock rout.
While rising rates makes capital more expensive and can threaten earnings power, they also come into an economy that continues to expand rapidly.
“We knew coming into 2022 that the Fed was going to be a creator of volatility within the market and we’re seeing that right out of the gate at the start of the year,” Lindsey Bell, chief markets and money strategist at Ally, said by phone. “The good news is that today things seem to be stabilizing a little bit after yesterday’s knee-jerk reaction.”
Comments by regional Fed presidents provided some additional insight Thursday as trader attempted to predict a possible schedule for tightening.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, a more hawkish policy maker, said in a speech the central bank could raise its target interest rate as soon as March.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said at a virtual event that trimming the Fed balance sheet would come after normalizing the Fed funds rate.
Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, urged investors to tread “very carefully” the next few days.
“Markets are concerned that we’ve never seen the Federal Reserve both lift interest rates off zero and reduce the size of its balance sheet at the same time.
There was a two-year gap between those two events in the last cycle, so it is a valid concern,” Colas wrote. “We’re not predicting a meltdown, but we get why the market swooned.”
U.S. jobless claims ahead of Friday’s payrolls report did little to change the market mood.
The claims rose to 207,000 last week, the release showed, but stayed within the range of forecasts by 30 economists.
“Labor market strength, coupled with early indications of strong holiday spending, suggests that economic activity has held up reasonably well despite the very rapid spread of the omicron variant,”
Solita Marcelli, UBS chief investment officer for the Americas, said. “The Fed minutes don’t alter our base case expectation that equities will continue to move higher, and for the more cyclical markets to be the relative beneficiaries of above-trend U.S. and global growth.”
Treasuries extended their losses, with the rates between the two-year and 10-year tenors adding at least two basis points each.
Other government bonds also declined.
German 10-year borrowing costs jumped to the highest since May 2019, while their Italian counterparts surged to a June 2020 high.
Likewise, Japan’s benchmark yield climbed to the highest since April and the U.K.’s 10-year yield jumped to an October high.
In Europe, stocks fell, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Tech Index pared back losses to trade higher.
Bitcoin tumbled to $43,200. Crude-oil futures extended gains.
Gold fell.

What to watch this week:
* Fed’s Daly discusses monetary policy on a panel Friday
* ECB’s Schnabel speaks on a panel Saturday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4:01 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 was little changed
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.6%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1288
* The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.3528
* The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 115.92 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 1.73%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to -0.06%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced seven basis points to 1.16%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.1% to $79.49 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 2% to $1,788 an ounce
–With assistance from Emily Graffeo and Srinivasan Sivabalan.

Have a lovely  evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

The more I see the less I know for sure. –John Lennon, 1940-1980.

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