April 10, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:   Happy Monday.
April 10, 1849: Safety pin patented.
April 10, 1912: Titanic sets sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The Titanic has been described as the world’s most luxurious floating hotel, and was only 5 days out when she hit an Iceberg and sank in the Atlantic with the loss of many lives.
April 10, 1992: Financier Charles Keating Jr. was sentenced in Los Angeles to nine years in prison for swindling investors when his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed. (The convictions were later overturned).  Go to article >

Golfer Jon Rahm won a record $3.24 million prize at the Masters.

New details of King Charles’ coronation revealed:  Carriages, crown jewels … and a new emoji. Here’s what you can expect when the new British sovereign is crowned alongside his wife, Camilla.

Why you keep having the same dream over and over again: If the same people, scenarios, or worries keep popping up in your dreams, here’s how you can figure out what may be the cause.

Benin Bronzes were crafted of metal from a completely unexpected place: The Benin Bronzes — 3,000 stunning bronze artworks sculpted by African metalsmiths between the 16th and 19th centuries — were crafted from metal mined from Germany’s Rhineland region, a new study finds.  Researchers had long suspected that the sculptures were made from melted-down brass rings used as a currency during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but confirmation proved elusive.  Full Story: Live Science (4/7)

Hidden Ptolemy text, printed beneath a Latin manuscript, deciphered after 200 years:  Researchers have deciphered an ancient manuscript that they think Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer of Greek descent, penned during the first century A.D.  Written in Greek on parchment, the text was originally discovered in 1819 in a library at Bobbio Abbey in northern Italy.
Full Story: Live Science (4/7)
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Attendorn, Germany
People light the Easter fire with burning torches on a hill. Easter fires with huge crosses are burned on four hills. In addition, burning torches are waved, with which fire circles are painted in the air
Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images

Holloko, Hungary
People wearing traditional clothes attend an Easter celebration
Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters

Normandy, France
Mont Saint-Michel at sunset
Photograph: Stéphane Mahé/Reuters
Market Closes for April 10^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in the year 2000, Jeffrey M. Applegate, chief U.S. investment strategist for Lehman Brothers, was quoted in a BusinessWeek article saying that “technology stocks are the growth stocks of our era, period.” Over the next year, tech stocks lost over half their value as their earnings growth disappeared.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the second day, climbing 0.4%, or 79.13 to 20,275.82 in Toronto.
Nutrien Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 4.8%.
Tilray Brands Inc. had the largest increase, rising 6.3%.
Today, 156 of 232 shares rose, while 72 fell; 9 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* The index declined 7.1% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index lost 9.5% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 8.2% below its 52-week high on April 21, 2022 and 13.4% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.9% in the past 5 days and was unchanged in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.1 on a trailing basis and 13.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.22t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.70% compared with 12.66% in the previous session and the average of 11.86% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 23.4768| 0.4| 21/8
Energy | 22.9473| 0.7| 36/4
Industrials | 11.2751| 0.4| 23/4
Information Technology | 6.5474| 0.5| 9/2
Consumer Discretionary | 6.1111| 0.8| 11/3
Communication Services | 5.5285| 0.6| 4/1
Consumer Staples | 2.3118| 0.3| 7/4
Utilities | 1.9920| 0.2| 12/4
Health Care | 1.7383| 2.7| 6/0
Real Estate | -0.7150| -0.1| 9/12
Materials | -2.0836| -0.1| 18/30
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Nutrien | 16.0500| 4.8| -0.9| -2.8
RBC | 5.9710| 0.5| 23.7| 3.0
Bank of Montreal | 5.0310| 0.9| 11.5| -1.7
Canadian National | -3.2080| -0.5| -33.9| -1.1
Barrick Gold | -3.6730| -1.1| -48.3| 13.3
Teck Resources | -4.7260| -2.6| -53.0| 14.0

US
By Carly Wanna and Angel Adegbesan
(Bloomberg) — US stocks eked out a gain in holiday-thinned trading as investors shrugged off fears of one more Federal Reserve interest-rate hike following Friday’s US jobs data.
The dollar climbed.
The S&P 500 benchmark rose 0.1% into the close after falling as much as 0.8% intraday.
The Nasdaq 100 Index clawed its way back from a 1.5% loss to end the day little changed.
The tech-heavy benchmark has advanced for the past three weeks as investors snapped up mega-cap stocks in the sector.
Yields on the policy-sensitive two-year Treasury hovered around 4%.
Tech stocks were weak on the prospect of another rate hike, while an Apple Inc. report that personal computer shipments fell sharply added to the slide.
Semiconductor names like Micron Technology Inc. helped stem tech losses after rival Samsung Electronics said on Friday that it would cut memory chip production.
Volumes were light for US equities markets with much of Europe shuttered for a holiday.
Trading in S&P 500 companies was more than 20% below the 30-day average at this time of day.
On Friday, a solid US hiring report bolstered bets for another Fed rate increase.
Traders are upping their wagers on a May rate hike ahead of Wednesday’s report on consumer prices, which is expected to show a 0.4% monthly increase in core CPI.
Ian Lyngen, head of US rate strategy at BMO Capital Markets, said that the March employment numbers provide “no hurdle for the Fed” to issue a 25 basis point hike in May, although upcoming data could impact the decision.
“With the employment landscape remaining surprisingly robust despite the cumulative global policy tightening in place, the Fed’s looming rate decision will almost entirely be contingent on the March CPI report,” he wrote in a note.
Treasury yields climbed, rebounding from session lows, amid a revival in investment-grade credit issuance Monday while Goldman Sachs strategists pointed out there was “significant room to correct higher” as expectations for a near-term Fed rate hike grow.
The yield on the 10-year advanced to 3.42%.
Swaps traders have been betting that the Fed will be done with its hiking cycle and lowering its target rate sometime in 2023, but it’s still unclear when the central bank will start to cut rates, according to Matt Diczok, head of fixed-income strategy for Bank of America Corp.
“The market feels fairly certain it’s going to start happening this year, but we need to see that play out more in the inflation data,” he told Bloomberg Television.
Fears of an economic downturn were also top of mind Monday.
“The market’s bad news bears are still being fed a data diet sufficient to prolong their existence.
More broadly, a host of economic data — including JOLTS, ADP private payrolls, and service and manufacturing PMIs — have come in softer than expected, increasing the odds of at least a mild recession,” said Saira Malik, chief investment officer at Nuveen.
Lisa Erickson, head of public markets group at US Bank Wealth Management, remains cautious on the chances of a recession.
“What markets are looking for is really a continued trajectory of hopefully some signs of economic deceleration, but not worse than expected, as well as inflation continuing to come down,” Erickson said by phone. “If that continues to happen, you may have a relatively more resilient equity market this week.”
Later this week, traders will be watching earnings and trying to gauge consumer financial health when Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. kick off reporting for the banking sector Friday.
Members of the C-Suite will look to other companies for clues on how best to communicate during earnings seasons, according to Lori Calvasina at RBC Capital Markets.
“Unfortunately the financials are always on the hot seat early, so they do have to take some of the hits early on before the rest of corporate America can adapt.”
Meanwhile, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda held his first news conference since taking the new role.
The Bank of Japan’s yield curve control and negative interest rates are appropriate amid the current economy, Ueda said, signaling any significant changes to its monetary policy framework may be unlikely for the time being.
In a report Monday, the International Monetary Fund put forward that rates in the US and other industrial countries will revert toward ultra-low levels instead of the 1.5% to 2% real neutral interest rate former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has suggested.
The dollar rose for the third day while the yen fell.
Gold slid, dropping below $2,000 an ounce.
Bitcoin defied a selloff in risky assets to climb as much as 4.2% to $29,306.
After China’s military drills over the weekend increased tensions between the US and China, Peter Tchir, head of macro research at Academy Securities Inc. said on Bloomberg Television investors are not paying attention to geopolitical risks.
“Everywhere we look I think there’s this danger, it’s growing and I’m getting a little bit nervous that a lot of investors pay lip service to geopolitical risk but then kind of push it off,” Tchir said. “We’re being a little bit too complacent on the geopolitical front.”
Key events this week:
* China PPI, CPI, Tuesday
* IMF global financial stability report, Tuesday
* Chicago Fed’s Austan Goolsbee, Minneapolis Fed’s Neel Kashkari and Philadelphia Fed’s Patrick Harker speak at separate events, Tuesday
* Canada rate decision, Wednesday
* US FOMC minutes, CPI, Wednesday
* Richmond Fed’s Thomas Barkin speaks, Wednesday
* China trade, Thursday
* US PPI, initial jobless claim, Thursday
* US retail sales, business inventories, industrial production, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Major US banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup report earnings, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 was little changed
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%
* The MSCI World index was little changed
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.4%
* The euro fell 0.4% to $1.0862
* The British pound fell 0.3% to $1.2383
* The Japanese yen fell 1.1% to 133.59 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 3.8% to $29,210.93
* Ether rose 1.8% to $1,891.31
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 3.42%
* Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.18%
* Britain’s 10-year yield was little changed at 3.43%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.1% to $79.81 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 1% to $2,006.90 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Vildana Hajric, Elizabeth Stanton and Isabelle Lee.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey.  He who blames himself is halfway there.
He who blames no one has arrived. –Chinese Proverb.

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