March 14, 2022 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

It’s Pi Day today. 

Pi Day is an occasion to marvel at circles, long revered as symbols of perfection. (And also to eat pie.) But it is the domestication of infinity that we should be celebrating.
Archimedes first showed how to estimate pi — the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — rigorously. Back then, around 250 B.C., infinity was taboo for mathematicians, but he used it as a workhorse. He approximated curved shapes with an infinity of tiny straight lines, creating gemlike objects that offered fantastic insights about the mathematics of the original shapes.
All around us, we use such complex approximations to stand in for an inherently smooth and analog reality: computer animations, streaming audio, aircraft simulation. That began with pi — aspiring to but never quite reaching perfection.

On March 14, 1900, Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act. Go to article »

Albert Einstein, physicist, b. 1879.
Diane Arbus, photographer, b. 1923.
George Frederick Handel, composer, b.1681.

Melting glaciers reveal 1,700-year-old weapons used by reindeer hunters. 

Elon Musk says he wants to fight Putin.

Russian cops arrested a woman for holding a blank sign.

Russians accidentally got some protest with their evening news.

Uncombable Hair Syndrome is real, spectacular. (h/t Scott Kominers)

Birds might have language.

Brady is back! The legendary quarterback is on the hunt for another Super Bowl ring after spending 40 days in retirement. 

Lee Jung-jae, No. 456 in “Squid Game,” was deemed No. 1 last night, winning best actor in a drama series. Check out more Critics Choice winners here. 

It was a star-studded evening across the pond too. Here are celebs that won at the BAFTAs yesterday.

Climbers hold world’s highest tea party on Mount Everest.  For safe-TEA reasons, that isn’t the best place to have a party. Just saying. 
 
Rare Pokémon card sells for $336,000.  This is your sign to check your garage for those old Pokémon cards from the ’90s. They’ve made a comeback and have sparked a sales frenzy.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The British Academy Film Awards ceremony gets under way at the Royal Albert Hall in London
CREDIT: Guy Levy/Shutterstock for Bafta

The cast of Pose – Indya Moore, Hailie Sahar, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Angelica Ross and Dominique Jackson – onstage during the 27th annual Critics Choice awards at Fairmont Century Plaza
CREDIT: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

A £25m Belgravia mansion belonging to the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who was placed on Britain’s sanctions list last week, is taken over by protesters
CREDIT: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Market Closes for March 14^th, 2022

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada
By Geoffrey Morgan
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities dropped Monday as new Chinese Covid-19 restrictions crimped demand for crude oil, copper and other materials.
The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the second day, dropping 1.3%, or 281.05 to 21,180.78 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.1% on Jan. 21.
Today, energy stocks led the market lower, as 9 of 11 sectors declined; 192 of 238 shares fell, while 45 rose.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 5.3%.
Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Corp. had the largest percentage drop, falling 17.7%.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater loss five times. The next day, it declined three times for an average 0.4% and advanced twice for an average 0.3%
* This quarter, the index was little changed
* The index advanced 12% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 4.1% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 2.8% below its 52-week high on Nov. 16, 2021 and 14.7% above its low on March 25, 2021
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 0.6% in the past 5 days and fell 0.8% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18 on a trailing basis and 13.9 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$3.42t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 13.01% compared with 13.28% in the previous session and the average of 13.63% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Energy | -107.3990| -3.1| 0/32
* Materials | -91.8257| -3.1| 3/50
* Information Technology| -36.5391| -2.8| 2/14
* Industrials | -23.1069| -0.9| 6/24
* Communication Services| -20.4670| -1.9| 3/4
* Utilities | -8.4576| -0.9| 1/15
* Real Estate | -7.5610| -1.2| 3/20
* Health Care | -2.6586| -2.0| 1/7
* Consumer Discretionary| -2.5367| -0.4| 6/8
* Consumer Staples | 0.4943| 0.1| 7/3
* Financials | 18.9963| 0.3| 13/15
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Shopify | -28.8000| -5.3| -20.0| -62.3
* Canadian Natural Resources | -27.6800| -4.4| 187.2| 38.8
* Brookfield Asset Management | -13.6400| -2.0| -22.6| -12.5
* Bank of Montreal | 6.8130| 1.0| -20.8| 9.1
* Royal Bank of Canada | 9.1050| 0.7| 6.2| 3.6
* TD Bank | 11.5200| 0.9| -11.2| 2.1

US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Volatility continued to dominate global markets as investors assessed geopolitical developments, with U.S. stocks failing to hold onto gains that reached 1% earlier in the day.
Oil briefly tumbled below $100 a barrel after a recent surge that spurred inflation fears.
Treasury 10-year yields hit the highest level since 2019.
A morning rally in equities driven by hopes of a new round of talks between Russia and Ukraine sputtered, with the S&P 500 falling into a “death cross” — a technical pattern that has at times presaged further weakness.
The Nasdaq 100 closed in a bear market for the first time since March 2020 as the tech-heavy gauge extended its slide from a record to more than 20% amid higher bond rates.
Apple Inc. slumped after one of its suppliers halted operations at its Shenzhen sites following a Chinese government-imposed lockdown.
A gauge of the Asian nation’s stocks listed in the U.S. sank 12%.
The White House is discussing President Joe Biden making a visit to unspecified destinations in Europe while Russia’s war on Ukraine is ongoing, according to people familiar with the matter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will make a rare wartime address by a foreign leader to both chambers of Congress, pleading with U.S lawmakers by video conference for more aid as Russian bombs reduce his cities to rubble.
Traders have boosted their expectations for the amount of Federal Reserve policy tightening that could occur this year, moving at one stage on Monday to fully price in seven standard quarter-point rate hikes. The last time the market for overnight index swaps linked to Fed meeting dates fully priced that much tightening was on Feb. 11, the day after U.S. consumer-price inflation numbers for January came in hotter than expected.
The Fed will begin this week a multi-month campaign to conquer inflation that could see Chair Jerome Powell moving even more aggressively after Russia’s war on Ukraine fanned prices further.
Already pivoting to tightening monetary policy amid the fastest inflation in four decades, Powell and colleagues now have to deal with the economic fallout of the war, which threatens to deliver the twin blows of weaker growth and even-quicker inflation.
Comments:
* “There aren’t a ton of signs that volatility will ease, at least in the short-term,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. “Looking ahead to the Fed decision, the market has been bracing for a rate increase for quite some time now — so the shock waves may not be too severe. But, there’s no question investors and traders alike will be looking for signs from the Fed on a quickened pace of rate hikes and any change in sentiment.”
* “We are experiencing extraordinary volatility in global equities compounded by wavering market sentiment, and the risk of recession intensifies on spiraling commodity prices,” Louise Dudley, portfolio manager for global equities at Federated Hermes, wrote in a note. “We expect ongoing swings in the short term as geopolitical uncertainty over Russian crude persists.”
* The war “is still in the driving seat,” said Fiona Cincotta, senior financial markets analyst at City Index. “We’ve got, obviously, the Fed’s rate decision this week, which is going to be quite key. Any comments from Powell about the outlook for the U.S. economy, given rising stagflation fears and rising inflation fears, could potentially drive the market quite far as well.”

Here are some key events to watch this week:
* China one-year medium-term lending facility rate, economic activity data, Tuesday
* EIA crude oil inventory report, Wednesday
* FOMC rate decision and Fed Chair Jerome Powell news conference, Wednesday
* Bank of England rate decision, Thursday
* ECB President Christine Lagarde, Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel, Governing Council member Ignazio Visco and Chief Economist Philip Lane speak at a conference, Thursday
* Bank of Japan rate decision, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.7% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.9%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index fell 0.8%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%
* The euro rose 0.3% to $1.0948
* The British pound fell 0.3% to $1.3003
* The Japanese yen fell 0.8% to 118.19 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced 15 basis points to 2.14%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced 12 basis points to 0.37%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 10 basis points to 1.59%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 6.7% to $102.04 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 1.5% to $1,955.70 an ounce
–With assistance from Andreea Papuc, Robert Brand, Jennifer Bissell-Linsk, Vildana Hajric and Isabelle Lee.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist. –David Ben-Gurion, 1886-1973.

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