April 22, 2020 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: 50^TH Anniversary,  Earth Day

1937, Jack Nicholson b.
1955: Congress orders all US coins bear the motto “In God We Trust.”

-from today’s New York Times:
Today is Earth Day, the annual event established to raise awareness about the state of our planet. John Schwartz, a Times reporter who covers climate change, spoke about what Earth Day means five decades later.
In broad terms, what has changed since 1970?
The air over the U.S. is much cleaner, and so is the water we drink in most parts of the country. We don’t use DDT or asbestos. But other threats have arisen. The biggest of those — the issue that wasn’t really on the radar for most people in 1970 — is climate change. Scientific evidence has grown and scientific consensus has gelled, and so now we recognize that there are threats that are more fundamental, and ultimately more harmful, than we ever knew 50 years ago.
With the coronavirus crisis dominating our lives, is Earth Day relegated to a second-tier event this year?
It’s anything but second-tier, but it’s virtual. You won’t have millions marching in the streets, but there are activities all around the world. Young climate strikers are speaking out. The modern-day equivalents of the 1970 “teach-ins” are happening online.
How can people celebrate Earth Day from home?
We’ve put together a great package of stories that provide a crash course on climate change, help readers pick out books about climate change, introduce the original organizer of Earth Day and more. And there’s so much going on at earthday.org and on the websites of other climate- and environment-oriented groups that there’s something for everyone.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Icelandic stallions run in their paddock at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany.
CREDIT: MICHAEL PROBST/AP

An arctic fox in snow in Northern Svalbard, Norway. People are being asked to vote for animals they think should be part of a new “Big Five” of the natural world’s top creatures to photograph.
Unlike the old big five, based on the five toughest animals in Africa for colonial hunters to shoot and kill, the new list will be animals to see in the wild and shoot with a camera.
CREDIT: MARCO GAIOTTI/PA WIRE

Startrails are seen during the Lyrids meteor shower over Michaelskapelle in Niederhollabrunn, Austria.
The clear skies created by the New Moon coincide with the Lyrid meteor shower, an annual display caused by the Earth passing through a cloud of debris from a comet called C/186 Thatcher
CREDIT: THOMAS KRONSTEINIER/GETTY IMAGES
Market Closes for April 22nd , 2020 

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
Crude prices stabilized Wednesday after prices fell to levels not seen since late last century. Brent crude futures, the global benchmark for oil markets, edged up 0.1% to $19.35 a barrel, after having slid to their lowest since 1999 in Asian trading hours. West Texas Intermediate futures edged up 0.2% to $11.59 a barrel, after plummeting 43% Tuesday to close at its lowest price in 21 years.

On this day in 1970, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 1.3% to 762.61, and H. Ross Perot suffered the worst one-day personal investment loss then on record. His Electronic Data Systems Corp. dropped from roughly $150 a share to around $80 in chaotic over-the-counter trading, a paper loss of $450 million for Mr. Perot.
Canada
By Aoyon Ashraf
(Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose as a rise in oil and metals prices boosted energy companies and miners.
The S&P/TSX Composite rose 2.5% in Toronto, after falling most in three weeks on Tuesday. Oil recovered from a 21-year low, bucking two days of frenzied selling, but a global supply glut continues to loom over the market.
Gold futures rallied as investors bet on further stimulus from governments around the world amid oil-market turmoil and continued volatility across commodities and equities. Among the industrial metals, copper outperformed the group with rebounds in equities, lowered supply outlook.
Meanwhile, only five of 61 Canadian hedge funds posted gains during the first three months of the year, according to Venator Capital Management Ltd., a Toronto-based investment firm that tracks the industry. The top performer was CC&L Market Neutral Fund, with a 9.8% gain; the worst was Lawrence Park Enhanced Preferred with a 38.5% loss.
On the real estate side, Toronto’s home sales and listings plunged in the first part of April as the Covid-19 pandemic curbed demand in Canada’s largest city.
The Canadian dollar advanced 0.2% to C$1.4185 per U.S. dollar and the 10-year government bond yield rose about 5.8
basis points to 0.613%.
By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 2.5 percent at 14,288.16 in Toronto. The move follows the previous session’s decrease of 3.1 percent.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 6.9 percent. Secure Energy Services Inc. had the largest increase, rising 25.8 percent.
Today, 180 of 230 shares rose, while 46 fell; 10 of 11 sectors were higher, led by materials stocks.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater gain 10 times. The next day, it declined five times for an average 5.7 percent and advanced five times for an average 1.8 percent
* This month, the index rose 6.8 percent
* The index declined 14 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index lost 5.4 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 20.5 percent below its 52-week high on Feb. 20, 2020 and 27.9 percent above its low on March 23, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 2.4 percent in the past 5 days and rose 21 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.2 on a trailing basis and 17.7 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.7 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$2.13t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 84.19 percent compared with 84.98 percent in the previous session and the average of 87.56 percent over the past month
==============================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
==============================================
Materials | 113.0496| 5.8| 45/2
Energy | 58.7343| 3.3| 28/2
Information Technology | 53.0373| 4.7| 9/1
Industrials | 36.6563| 2.2| 23/6
Financials | 24.9052| 0.6| 21/5
Utilities | 20.6394| 2.7| 16/0
Consumer Staples | 17.3224| 2.6| 9/2
Consumer Discretionary | 13.8297| 2.7| 11/4
Communication Services | 11.1861| 1.3| 6/2
Health Care | 0.2857| 0.2| 3/6
Real Estate | -1.5397| -0.4| 9/16
US
By Vildana Hajric and Claire Ballentine
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks halted a two-day slide as investors digested the latest round of corporate earnings and optimism about the eventual reopening of the economy increased.
Oil rose from historic lows.
The S&P 500 Index rebounded from the worst sell-off in three weeks amid quarterly results that sparked speculation a recovery will be sooner than expected. Chipotle Mexican Grill rose on sales that topped estimates, while Texas Instruments advanced on solid results. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he anticipates most of the economy will restart by the end of August. House lawmakers on Thursday are set to pass another
round of aid.
“Until the path becomes clearer, volatility is likely the name of the game as the market weighs the good, bad and ugly of this pandemic,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade Financial.
The oil market continued to hold investor attention. A day after trading negative, futures for West Texas Intermediate crude surged above $13 a barrel after President Donald Trump ordered the Navy to destroy any Iranian gun boats that harass American ships at sea. The biggest oil exchange-traded fund reshuffled the mix of futures it owns to track crude prices for a second day, extending their average expiration amid unprecedented volatility in its markets.
Read more about oil ETF ‘whales’ that roiled market Investors are continuing efforts to assess the pandemic’s damage to the global economy, with the oil market chaos suggesting it will be deeper or longer than anticipated by those who drove the S&P 500 up 28% from its March lows. Governments are devising ways to return people to work even as they discover infections are more extensive than they insisted only weeks ago.
“What I think markets are picking up on is there is light at the end of the tunnel and there’s visibility on what a reopening will look like,” said Michael Reynolds, investment strategy officer at Glenmede Trust Co. “This gives visibility to the next couple of phases and when the clouds can clear.”
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index increased broadly in the wake of Tuesday’s slump. Treasuries fell along with European bonds and
the dollar strengthened.

Meanwhile, European consumer-goods companies from brewers to paint-makers sounded notes of caution on spending. Heineken NV canceled its interim dividend, while Kering said it doesn’t see a recovery in the U.S. or Europe before at least June or July after sales at its flagship brand Gucci tumbled. “There’s no way you can predict earnings right now,” Michael Cuggino, portfolio manager at Pacific Heights Asset Management LLC, said on Bloomberg TV. “It’s virtually impossible until we have more visibility with respect to how to world comes out of the coronavirus on the other side.”
Elsewhere, stocks slipped in Japan but climbed in other major Asian markets. Gold rebounded to $1,700 an ounce.

     These are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
*The S&P 500 Index climbed 2.3% to 2,798.70 as of 4:00 p.m. New York time.
*The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2% to 23,469.58.
*The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 2.8% to 8,495.38.
*The MSCI All-Country World Index gained 1.8% to 468.99.
Currencies
*The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2% to 1,260.67, the highest in two weeks.
*The Japanese yen strengthened 0.1% to 107.70 per dollar.
*The euro dipped 0.4% to $1.0817, the weakest in two weeks.
*The British pound climbed 0.3% to $1.2319.
Bonds
*The yield on two-year Treasuries gained one basis point to 0.21%.
*The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose five basis points to 0.61%, the biggest advance in a week.
*Britain’s 10-year yield rose three basis points to 0.327%.
*Germany’s 10-year yield gained seven basis points to -0.41%, the biggest climb in almost two weeks.
Commodities
*West Texas Intermediate crude jumped 18.6% to $13.69 a barrel, the first advance in more than a week and the largest surge in more than a month.
*Brent crude climbed 7% to $20.54 a barrel, the biggest increase in more than two weeks.
*Gold strengthened 1.8% to $1,718.30 an ounce, the largest rise in more than a week.
Have a great night.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
                               -Arthur Rubinstein, 1887-1982

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