August 13, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.

1961~Berlin Wall erected.

On Aug. 13, 1961, Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city’s eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. Go to article »
Alfred Hitchcock, director, b.1899
Fidel Castro, Cuban President, b. 1926

It’s Friday the 13th. Why is it considered so unlucky?   The best Friday the 13ths are the ones when you don’t realize it’s Friday the 13th until they’re almost over. (Sorry about that.)

58 million: That’s about how many people in the US this weekend are under excessive heat warnings, considered the highest-level heat alert. This includes major cities like New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Kansas City, Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

from The Late Night Hosts:
Meyers and Stephen Colbert largely focused on Lindell, the MyPillow C.E.O., whose reaction to the news was caught on camera.
“Watching someone get bad news, in real time, at their own symposium is my new kink.” — SETH MEYERS

“This week, he held a livestreamed cybersymposium, for which he hired a cyberexpert ‘red team’ and gave them what he said was 37 terabytes of irrefutable evidence that hackers broke into election systems using intercepted ‘packet captures.’ ‘Packet captures,’ of course, is a technical term that you might know by their street name, ‘pillow cases.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“Honestly, poor cyberexperts. You go to school to get a degree in computer science, spend your whole career mastering a highly specialized skill that would be actually very helpful in today’s high-tech economy, and then a psycho pillow magnate hands you what I’m guessing is a garbage bag full of dry cleaning slips and CVS receipts and said, ‘I need you to switch who the president is.’” — SETH MEYERS

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A man watches the Perseid meteor shower on the Pamir Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.
CREDIT: VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES

A man paints his face in preparation for an event to mark the day before of the 500th Anniversary of the Fall of Tenochtitlan in Mexico
CREDIT: REUTERS/GUSTAVO GRAF

People cool off in Crown Fountain in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois, USA. As temperatures climb across the nation, nearly 200 million Americans are under some level of heat advisory.
CREDIT: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAHES

Animals eat frozen fruits at the Bioparc in Valencia, Spain, to help them cope with the ongoing heatwave
CREDIT: JUAN CARLOS CARDENAS/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Burryman Andrew Taylor parades through the town of South Queensferry, near Edinburgh, encased in burrs. The parade takes place on the second Friday of August each year and although the exact meaning of this tradition has been lost, it is believed to bring good luck to the towns people if they give him whisky offered through a straw or a donation of money.
CREDIT: JANE BARLOW/PA|

Market Closes for August 13^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, the biggest tax cut in American history. It streamlined the federal income tax brackets, lowered the top rate to 36% and created the universally deductible individual retirement account.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities rose for a fourth week after a wide range of companies jumped on second-quarter earnings results. Nuvei Corp. and Stelco Holdings Inc. were among standouts. The S&P/TSX Composite Index was flat Friday, with materials leading the way while health care and energy lagged. Gold headed for a third straight gain as a falling dollar and a plunge in U.S. consumer confidence bolstered demand for the haven metal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government said it will make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for airline and rail passengers, transportation workers and federal employees, in one of its final announcements before the start of a Canadian election campaign.
Commodities:
* Western Canadian Select crude oil traded at a $12.75 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold rose 1.5% to $1,778.60 an ounce
FX/Bonds:
* The Canadian dollar rose 0.1% to C$1.2518 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year Canada government bond yield fell 6.3 basis points to 1.192%

By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 20,518.07 in Toronto. Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 0.4 percent.  Village Farms International Inc. had the largest drop, falling 6.5 percent. Today, 103 of 229 shares fell, while 121 rose; 6 of 11 sectors were lower, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index was little changed
* The index advanced 24 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 33 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.2 percent below its 52-week high on Aug. 13, 2021 and 33.1 percent above its low on Oct. 30, 2020
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.7 on a trailing basis and 16.4 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.5 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.23t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 8.86 percent compared with 8.89 percent in the previous session and the average of 8.68 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Energy | -16.0881| -0.7| 3/19
* Industrials | -10.0034| -0.4| 13/17
* Financials | -7.9983| -0.1| 11/16
* Consumer Discretionary | -4.7749| -0.6| 3/10
* Health Care | -2.6019| -1.2| 5/4
* Information Technology | -1.9424| -0.1| 7/5
* Real Estate | 0.5926| 0.1| 7/15
* Consumer Staples | 1.5310| 0.2| 8/5
* Communication Services | 2.5409| 0.3| 5/2
* Utilities | 4.0176| 0.4| 13/3
* Materials | 32.2012| 1.4| 46/7
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Shopify | -5.3970| -0.4| -67.2| 30.4
* Canadian National | -5.2380| -0.8| -47.2| -3.9
* Suncor Energy | -4.4080| -1.7| -14.1| 12.5
* Kirkland Lake | 3.4620| 3.8| 14.6| -3.7
* Barrick Gold | 3.5950| 1.2| -30.7| -12.0
* Wheaton Precious | | | |
* Metals | 5.6150| 3.3| 10.5| 4.6

US
By Vildana Hajric and Kamaron Leach
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks eked out another all-time high and Treasury yields declined after a report showed consumer sentiment fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade. The dollar weakened and crude oil slumped. The S&P 500 closed at a record for fourth consecutive session while trading within a 0.2% range Friday. The consumer staples and real estate sectors led gains, while energy and financial shares declined. The benchmark index has almost doubled since the pandemic lows reached in March 2020, with the energy sector the biggest gainer during that period. Walt Disney rose after its streaming subscriptions beat estimates. European stocks posted the longest winning streak since 1999.   “It’s just a quiet summer Friday,” said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co. “Most of the earnings season is behind us. Therefore, people are just taking a breath after a nice rally.”  The U.S. equity rally slowed Friday after data showed the University of Michigan’s preliminary sentiment index fell by 11 points to 70.2, the lowest since December 2011.
The slump in confidence risks a more pronounced slowing in economic growth in coming months should consumers rein in spending. The recent deterioration in sentiment highlights how rising prices and concerns about the delta variant’s potential impact on the economy are weighing on Americans. The easing in the energy sector rally has also raised concern. On Tuesday, the energy sector capped a 19-day streak in which no member of the index traded above its 50-day moving average, the second-longest span since the late-1950s, data compiled by SentimenTrader show. That’s something that hasn’t happened since the summer of 2001 when Enron and its ensuing bankruptcy was pressuring the energy complex. Crude oil futures eased in New York. The latest Covid-19 wave is leading to tighter curbs on movement across the globe, though there are mixed assessments on its impact. The International Energy Agency reduced its demand forecasts for the rest of the year, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts only a transient hit to consumption.
These are the main moves in markets: 
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index rose 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.5%
* The euro rose 0.6% to $1.1798
* The British pound rose 0.4% to $1.3870
* The Japanese yen rose 0.8% to 109.56 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined seven basis points to 1.29%
* Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at -0.47%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 0.57%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.6% to $67.97 a barrel
* Gold futures rose 1.6% to $1,780.20 an ounce
–With assistance from Justin Zacks.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

By words the mind is winged. -Aristophanes, c.450 BCE-388 BCE.

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