April 17, 2012 Newsletter

Hello All,

Carolann is away on business in Vancouver today so I will be covering for the newsletter!

Tangents:

Here at the office, we often listen to Seattle’s National Public Radio station. One of the stories they covered yesterday was the announcements of this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners. You could tell there was additional excitement over this year’s winner for poetry. Tracy K. Smith, was the program All Things Considered’s first news poet. She spent a day with NPR in January and wrote a poem based on the news that day. I thought that the poem was really beautiful when they read it out loud on the radio. You can read it below.

“New Road Station”

History is in a hurry. It moves like a woman corralling her children onto a crowded bus. History spits, go, go, go, lurching at the horizon, hammering the driver’s headrest with her fist. Nothing else moves. The flies settle in place, watching with their million eyes, never bored. The crows strike their bargain with the breeze. They cluck and caw at the women in their frenzy, the ones who suck their teeth, whose skirts are bathed in mud.

But history is not a woman, and it is not the crowd forming in a square. It is not the bright swarm of voices chanting, no and now, or even the rapt silence of a room where a film of history is right now being screened. Perhaps history is the bus that will only wait so long before cranking its engine and barreling down the road.

Maybe it is the voice coming in through the radio, like a long distance call, or the child in the crook of his mother’s arm who believes history must sleep inside a tomb or the belly of a bomb.

photos of the day

April 17, 2012

A Kashmiri vegetable vendor holds a basket of bread at a floating market in the interiors of the Dal Lake in Srinagar.

Danish Ismail/Reuters

People visit the Shwedagon Pagoda during Myanmar’s New Year Day in Yangon.

Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

Market Closes for April 17, 2012:

North American Markets

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Joseph Ciolli

April 17 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rallied following a two-day drop as energy producers advanced after the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Canada said economic growth will be faster than they had previously forecast.

Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s largest oil and gas producer, rose 2 percent. Uranium producer Denison Mines Corp. jumped 17 percent after agreeing to sell its U.S. mining assets. Manulife Financial Corp., North America’s third-largest insurer, rose 2.6 percent. Planemaker Bombardier Inc. advanced 3.3 percent after saying its maintenance and spare-parts unit may double revenue in the next five to seven years.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index increased 99.35 points, or 0.8 percent, to 12,136.94 in Toronto.

“The Canadian numbers came out from the Bank of Canada, and they indicate that we’ll see a little inflation, that the economy is a little stronger,” Irwin Michael, a portfolio manager at ABC Funds in Toronto, said in a telephone interview.

Michael’s firm oversees C$1 billion ($1 billion). “It picked up the Canadian dollar. People are maybe a tad too negative and it doesn’t take too much to move things along.”

The S&P/TSX had its seventh straight weekly decline in the five days ending April 13, its longest losing streak since 2008, as weaker-than-forecast U.S. jobs numbers and reports of slowing growth in China raised concern that demand may slip for Canadian commodities. The U.S. is the world’s biggest consumer of oil, while China is the number one user of copper.

The IMF raised its global growth forecast for the first time in a year, estimating a 3.5 percent expansion in 2012, compared with its January projection of 3.3 percent. It estimated the U.S. will grow 2.1 percent this year.

The Canadian central bank kept its main interest rate unchanged at 1 percent for a 13th time, while saying higher borrowing costs “may become appropriate” because economic growth and inflation will be faster than it forecast.

Energy companies rose after oil climbed in New York as Spain raised more than its maximum target at a debt auction, easing concern that Europe’s credit crisis will spread and slow economic growth. Spain sold 3.18 billion euros of bills.

Suncor Energy Inc. climbed 2 percent to C$31.43. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. increased 2.3 percent to C$32.65.

Imperial Oil Ltd., Canada’s second-largest energy company, gained 2 percent to C$45.11.

Financial stocks in the S&P/TSX increased for a second day on the IMF forecast. Manulife Financial Corp. gained 2.6 percent to C$13.28. Toronto-Dominion Bank, the country’s second-largest lender, rose 1 percent to C$83.56.

Bombardier Inc. advanced 3.3 percent to C$4.12 after saying it plans to double revenue for its maintenance and spare-parts unit to $3 billion annually by expanding into emerging markets such as Russia and China.

Denison Mines, the operator of three U.S. uranium mines, surged 17 percent to C$1.65 after Energy Fuels Inc. agreed to acquire the assets for about C$111 million ($112 million) in stock.

Uranium One Inc., a mining company controlled by Moscow- based ARMZ Uranium Holding, climbed 13 percent to C$3 after being rated overweight in new coverage by JPMorgan. The rating means that the firm expects the stock to outperform the average total return of the stocks in the analyst’s coverage universe over the next six to 12 months.

US

By Rita Nazareth

April 17 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, giving benchmark indexes the biggest rallies in a month, as higher forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and gains in Spanish bonds overshadowed declines in housing starts and factory production.

Apple Inc., the most valuable technology company, surged 5.1 percent after yesterday capping its longest losing streak since October. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. added more than 1.4 percent as European lenders jumped after Spain sold more debt than targeted. Coca-Cola Co., rose 2.1 percent as earnings beat estimates. International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp., which gained in anticipation of their results, slumped at least 2.4 percent in extended trading.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1.6 percent to 1,390.78 at 4 p.m. New York time, after falling 1.3 percent in two days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 194.13 points, or 1.5 percent, to 13,115.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 1.8 percent to 3,042.82. About 6 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, or 11 percent below the three-month average.

“The market was able to shrug off disappointing U.S. economic reports,” said Paul Zemsky, the New York-based head of asset allocation for ING Investment Management. His firm oversees $160 billion. “We’ve got data showing the German economy is growing strong, positive earnings surprises in the U.S. and some good news out of Spain. There’s a lot of room for positive surprises given how pessimistic things were.”

Stocks rallied as the IMF raised its 2012 global growth estimate to 3.5 percent, German investor confidence rose and Spanish bonds gained. Expectations that Europe’s crisis is stabilizing overshadowed data showing that production at U.S. factories dropped in March for the first time in four months and builders broke ground on fewer houses than forecast.

Today’s gain extended the 2012 rally for the S&P 500 to 11 percent as investors bought stocks amid better-than-estimated economic and corporate data. While S&P 500 per-share profit growth slowed to 1.7 percent during the first three months of the year, it will accelerate to 8.6 percent during all of 2012, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 advanced as technology, energy and industrial shares had the biggest gains. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index of companies most-tied to economic growth added 1.4 percent as 28 of its 30 stocks gained.

“It’s a broad-based rally,” Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist for Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, which manages about $54 billion, said in a telephone interview. “There’s maybe a bit of ‘risk-on’ trade. Nonetheless, it seems like a healthy advance. Maybe what we’ve seen is the end of the pullback in equities.”

Since reaching an almost four-year high on April 2, the S&P 500 slumped 3.5 percent through yesterday on concern about global economic growth. The index is still down 1.3 percent in April, after capping the best first-quarter rally since 1998.

Apple rose 5.1 percent to $609.70, wiping out yesterday’s drop, amid predictions that quarterly results due next week will underscore buoyant demand for iPhones and iPads, the company’s best-selling products.

The KBW Bank Index added 1.7 percent as all of its 24 stocks gained. Bank of America added 1.5 percent to $8.92. Citigroup increased 3.2 percent to $35.08.

Coca-Cola gained 2.1 percent to $73.95. Chief Executive Officer Muhtar Kent has introduced smaller package sizes to attract price-conscious consumers as part of an effort to spur sales in North America.

Stocks also rose in anticipation of earnings at some of the largest technology companies. IBM, which jumped 2.3 percent to $207.45 in regular trading, tumbled 2.4 percent to $202.50 at

4:55 p.m. New York time. The biggest computer-services provider reported revenue that missed projections.

Intel slumped 2.9 percent to $27.64 in extended trading, after gaining for a second day ahead of its results. The world’s largest semiconductor maker predicted higher second-quarter sales than some analysts had estimated as it ships new personal- computer and server chips and shortages of hard drives abate.

First Solar Inc. surged 10 percent to $22.96. The largest thin-film panel maker will cut 30 percent of its workforce, about 2,000 jobs, as demand in Europe slows faster than the company can expand in emerging markets in Asia.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fell 0.7 percent to $116.86. The fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets reported a 23 percent decline in first-quarter profit. Revenue from trading bonds, currencies and commodities lagged behind JPMorgan Chase & Co. The company also boosted its dividend 31 percent.

Whirlpool Corp. slumped 4.3 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $68. The U.S. International Trade Commission said pricing and subsidies for refrigerators made by LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. didn’t harm the U.S. industry.

Allocations in U.S. stocks almost doubled in April on renewed concern that the euro-area debt crisis will worsen, prompting investors to sell European equities and hoard cash, a Bank of America survey showed.

A net 27 percent of 191 respondents, who together manage $554 billion, said they were overweight U.S. stocks, meaning they hold more than is represented in benchmarks. That’s up from 14 percent last month. Expectations for an appreciation in the dollar hit the third-highest level in more than 10 years.

The U.S. “is a default for investors,” said Gary Baker, BofA’s head of European equity strategy, at a press briefing in London. “If you’re concerned about growth, and not sure how concerned you should be, ultimately the U.S. is still your safest haven.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Kindest Regards,

Ellora Howie

Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8X 3Y7