April 24, 2024, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
April 24, 1898: Spain declares war on U.S.
1800: Library of Congress established.
1962: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal. Go to article >>
April 24^th, 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched into Earth orbit, later delivering some of the most spectacular images of the far reaches of the Universe.

Shirley MacLaine, b. 1934.
Barbra Streisand, b. 1942.

Prince Louis photo released to mark sixth birthday
Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales released a new photo of Prince Louis to mark his sixth birthday. It’s the first image to be released by the royal family since a photo-editing scandal erupted last month.

French recipes that will make you feel like a gourmet chef
Homemade croissants, anyone? These delicious recipes will help satisfy your cravings for French cuisine.

4 solar flares simultaneously erupt from the sun in rare ‘super’ explosion
In the early hours of Tuesday (April 23), quadruple solar flares near-simultaneously exploded from across the sun’s surface, and there’s a good chance that one of these outbursts launched a solar storm toward Earth. Read More.

Massive heat wave and a supercell thunderstorm caused deadly, baseball-sized hailstones to rain down on Spain
A giant-hail event that hit Girona in northwest Spain in 2022 was fueled by climate change, with a marine heatwave helping to intensify the storm that killed a small child. Read More.

Strange ‘minimoon’ orbiting alongside Earth may be a piece of the far side of the moon, new research hints
The near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa, which orbits alongside our planet as a ‘minimoon,’ may have originated from Giordano Bruno crater on the far side of the moon, new research suggests. Read More.

Explosive black hole flare from the center of our galaxy reconstructed from ‘a single flickering pixel’ using AI and Einstein’s equations
An explosive flare from the Milky Way’s central black hole has been translated from ‘a single flickering pixel’ into a detailed 3D model using AI and Einstein’s general relativity equations.  Full Story: Live Science (4/22)

Ancient, 30-foot ancestor of great white shark unearthed in Mexico quarry
“Exceptionally preserved” fossils of an ancient shark that lived alongside the dinosaurs has finally revealed what the predator looked like — and why it may have gone extinct. Read More.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Ankara, Turkey
The sun sets over Tuz Lake, a Unesco-protected area known for its water naturally turning pink because of algae in the summer and for its massive flamingo colony
Photograph: Hakan Nural/Anadolu/Getty Images

Hanover, Germany
A visitor plays paper, scissors, stone with an SVH servo-electric 5 finger gripping hand at a technology fair
Photograph: Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​Lier, Norway
‘There is still a lot of snow on the ground in March in the south-east of the country. But the days when the clouds and mist stay low and swirl around the valley landscape are a real treat to see.’
Photograph: Ann Thomstad
Market Closes for April 24^th, 2024

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1956: In a first, the New York Stock Exchange allowed its opening bell to be rung by an outside guest—Leonard Ross, who won $100,000 on a TV quiz show largely on the strength of his knowledge of stock-market trivia.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.6% at 21,873.72 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 0.7% on April 15 and follows the previous session’s increase of 0.6%.
Today, industrials stocks led the market lower, as 6 of 11 sectors lost; 126 of 224 shares fell, while 92 rose.
Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 6.3%.
Equinox Gold Corp. had the largest drop, falling 7.8%.
Insights
* This month, the index fell 1.3%
* The index advanced 5.8% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 22% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 2.3% below its 52-week high on April 9, 2024 and 17% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1% in the past 5 days and fell 0.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.3 on a trailing basis and 14.9 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.49t
* 30-day price volatility little changed to 8.23% compared with 8.22% in the previous session and the average of 7.97% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Industrials | -89.8631| -2.9| 7/19
Financials | -41.2946| -0.6| 10/17
Information Technology | -21.5722| -1.2| 4/6
Communication Services | -7.6020| -1.1| 0/5
Real Estate | -1.7895| -0.4| 3/18
Health Care | -0.0665| -0.1| 1/2
Consumer Discretionary | 0.6846| 0.1| 6/7
Utilities | 1.4471| 0.2| 9/5
Consumer Staples | 2.4799| 0.3| 7/4
Materials | 6.7375| 0.3| 23/25
Energy | 12.8433| 0.3| 22/18
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Pacific Kansas | -49.1300| -6.3| 160.2| 7.0
Canadian National | -34.0900| -4.8| 91.9| 1.1
Shopify | -17.6500| -2.1| -20.2| -4.0
Brookfield Corp | 3.8990| 0.7| 3.2| 4.5
Agnico Eagle Mines | 4.5230| 1.5| -10.9| 20.1
Enbridge | 6.6860| 0.9| -3.3| 2.4
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Stocks struggled to gain much traction, with Wall Street traders gearing up for economic data that will help shape the views on the Federal Reserve’s next steps.
In late trading, Meta Platforms Inc. tumbled after a disappointing revenue forecast.
Equities fluctuated after their biggest gain in two months.
Mega-caps were mixed, with Tesla Inc. surging after Elon Musk vowed to launch less-expensive vehicles and Nvidia Corp. sliding.
Treasuries remained under pressure after a $70 billion sale of notes failed to assuage concerns about more losses.
For weeks, traders have been scaling back bets on how many rate cuts they expect from the Fed amid a string of resilient US data.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict gross domestic product likely cooled to around 2.5% in the first quarter, while suggesting persistent inflationary pressures.
“Tomorrow’s pivotal GDP report comes as market participants hope for a soft number that would lead to rate cuts sooner rather than later,” said Jose Torres at Interactive Brokers. “We expect a stronger-than-projected figure. It would be great for revenue growth prospects, but bad for the timing and extent of rate cuts.”
The S&P 500 closed slightly above 5,070.
Treasury 10-year yields rose four basis points to 4.64%.
The yen weakened beyond 155 per dollar, fueling intervention jitters.
Buoyed by strong economic data and persistent inflation, traders have sought higher yields for holding government bonds as they revise down their expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, according to Fawad Razaqzada at City Index and Forex.com.
However, higher yields and rates signal the cost of servicing US federal debt is becoming burdensome, he noted.
Interest rates staying elevated longer, along with economic uncertainty and geopolitical turmoil have lessened the appeal of some of the stock market’s cheapest strategies.
Investors this month have pulled some $200 million out of value based exchange-traded funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
In contrast, growth stocks have attracted more than $3 billion in inflows — despite a shaky stock market that’s raised concerns of more downside to come.
That diminished interest in cheap stocks comes on the heels of lackluster performances of common value products.
To Katrina Dudley at Franklin Templeton, valuations are fair — therefore companies need to continue to deliver on earnings growth.
“For the market overall, we’ll be watching guidance,” said Matt Palazzolo at Bernstein Private Wealth Management. “While it’s good to know how companies did from January to March — it’s more important now to have a sense for managements’ expectations for the balance of the year.”
With several high-profile earnings reports this week, Mark Hackett at Nationwide says those figures will further test investors’ comfort.
While the cohort of seven mega-caps has done well in the last two years because of their superior earnings-per-share growth relative to the broader market, this advantage could decrease in 2024 and even more significantly in 2025, Hackett noted.  “The Magnificent Seven are not nearly as powerful as they once were, and this broadening of the market is creating pockets of opportunity for the rest of the S&P 500,” he noted. “We see this as a positive development for investors looking to diversify away from the recent market leaders,” he added.
Meantime, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. indicator is flashing a resounding buy signal in US stocks, after it hit a threshold that typically precedes better-than-average gains.
The bank’s US Tactical Positioning Monitor hit a level that reflects an “attractive set-up” for the S&P 500, according to a team led by Andrew Tyler, JPMorgan’s head of US market intelligence.
The stock gauge has historically gained around 3% in the subsequent 20 days after a similar four-week change in positioning, compared to a roughly 1% gain in all periods, according to the note.

Corporate Highlights:
* International Business Machines Corp. is nearing a deal to acquire software company HashiCorp Inc. for about $35 per share, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
* Boeing Co. Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said the embattled plane-maker is making progress toward turning around its manufacturing and that it will hit its mid-decade cash-flow goal, even after reporting a major outflow in the first three months of the year it slows output
* B. Riley Financial Inc.’s auditors signed off on its annual report, while flagging concerns about weak internal controls.
* Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.’s investments into artificial intelligence startups will get deeper scrutiny from the UK’s antitrust watchdog.
* AT&T Inc. beat analysts’ estimates for profit in the first quarter as it added more wireless phone customers than expected.
* Biogen Inc. reported first-quarter profit that beat expectations as the biotech giant’s new Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi gained traction and cost cuts took hold.
* Visa Inc. reported a quarterly profit that beat Wall Street predictions as US credit-card spending climbed.
* Humana Inc. pulled its guidance for next year amid mounting pressures in its Medicare business.
* Hasbro Inc. reported first-quarter earnings that beat estimates, a promising sign for the company’s turnaround efforts.
* Mattel Inc. reported a smaller-than-expected first-quarter loss, benefiting from fast sales of its Hot Wheels miniature cars and lower costs.
* Citigroup Inc. turned bearish on Molson Coors Beverage Co., expecting sales trends will weaken as benefits from last year’s Bud Light boycott fade.
* SunPower Corp. will eliminate more than 25% of its workforce as the company copes with a prolonged slump in the rooftop solar business.

Key events this week:
* US GDP, wholesale inventories, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Microsoft, Alphabet, Airbus earnings, Thursday
* Japan rate decision, Tokyo CPI, inflation and GDP forecasts, Friday
* US personal income and spending, PCE deflator, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Exxon Mobil, Chevron earnings, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%
* The euro was unchanged at $1.0701
* The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.2464
* The Japanese yen fell 0.3% to 155.30 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 3.6% to $63,938.36
* Ether fell 2.4% to $3,133.35
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.64%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 2.59%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 4.33%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.5% to $82.93 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.1% to $2,319.55 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alexandra Semenova and Carly Wanna.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: The rock and the herbage are of one substance to her. –Walter Savage Landor, 1775-1864.

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