August 18, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.
August 18, 1838:  United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica.
1872: First mail-order catalogue published.
1920: 19^th Amendment ratified – Women’s Right To Vote.
1991: Soviet hard-liners launched a coup aimed at toppling President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was vacationing in the Crimea. Go to article >>

Roslynn Carter, b. 1927.
Robert Redford, b.1937.

Ford reveals new Mustang with $300,000 price tag,  Learn why this Ford Mustang has a Lamborghini-level price.

Ralph Lauren targeting metaverse shoppers.

The Milky Way wasn’t always a spiral — and astronomers may finally know why it ‘shape-shifted’.  A century-old mystery of how galaxies change shapes has been solved by considering “survival of the fittest” collisions between cosmic titans.  Full Story: Live Science (8/17)

‘We were freaking out’: Scientists left ‘flabbergasted’ by detailed dinosaur footprints covering a cliff in Alaska
A 20-story rock face in Alaska known as “The Coliseum” is covered with layers of footprints belonging to a range of dinosaurs, including a tyrannosaur. Read More.

Hirota people of Japan intentionally deformed infant skulls 1,800 years ago.   The Hirota people, who occupied a Japanese island for around 400 years, deliberately flattened the back of their children’s heads. And experts are not entirely sure why.

Plantation slavery was invented on this tiny African island, according to archaeologists
A 16th-century sugar estate on the tiny African island of São Tomé is the earliest known example of plantation slavery. Read More.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

British Columbia, Canada
Smoke from a wildfire at McDougall Creek billows over Lake Okanagan.  Photograph: Joe O’Connal/AP

Havana, Cuba
A vintage American car passes a poster of Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.  Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

Beijing, China
Surprised looking robots are spotted at the annual World Robot Conference.  Photograph: Mark R Cristino/EPA
Market Closes for August 18^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1982, a bull market suddenly materialized out of nowhere, and daily trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange exceeded 100 million shares for the first time, with 132,681,120 shares changing hands.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite advanced slightly to 19,818.39 in Toronto, ending a 4-day loss.
The gain follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.4%.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.9%. K92 Mining Inc. had the largest increase, rising 6.6%.
Today, 122 of 227 shares rose, while 97 fell; 5 of 11 sectors were higher, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index fell 2.9%, heading for the biggest decline since the week ended March 10
* The index declined 2.2% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 1.4% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 4.9% below its 52-week high on Feb. 2, 2023 and 10.9% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.9 on a trailing basis and 14 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.4% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.14t
* 30-day price volatility little changed to 10.82% compared with 10.83% in the previous session and the average of 10.58% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | 28.0000| 0.8| 27/11
Industrials | 7.5196| 0.3| 13/11
Utilities | 6.9994| 0.8| 15/1
Real Estate | 1.2995| 0.3| 13/8
Health Care | 0.5212| 0.8| 4/0
Information Technology | -0.1062| 0.0| 9/2
Consumer Discretionary | -1.7918| -0.2| 5/8
Communication Services | -2.3869| -0.3| 2/3
Materials | -3.6312| -0.2| 21/26
Consumer Staples | -3.8994| -0.5| 4/7
Financials | -26.3706| -0.4| 9/20
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Natural Resources | 11.7400| 1.9| 88.3| 10.9
Brookfield Corp | 7.8790| 1.8| 0.6| 5.3
Suncor Energy | 6.0500| 1.5| 118.8| 4.4
Bank of Montreal | -3.5440| -0.6| -55.9| -7.7
Manulife Financial | -9.1730| -2.8| 28.8| 1.2
RBC | -9.9280| -0.8| -26.9| -4.6
US
By Cristin Flanagan and Isabelle Lee
(Bloomberg) — Mega cap tech stocks slumped for a third straight week — the longest such streak in 2023 — as fears of higher global interest rates weighed on sentiment while bonds bounced off multiyear lows.
Stocks ground higher in the final minutes of the session in moves likely exacerbated by Friday’s giant options expiration.
It wasn’t enough as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session unchanged.
Nasdaq 100 the session lower while MSCI’s global equities benchmark notched its biggest weekly loss since the March meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank.
While fears of an imminent recession are fading, wary investors are instead facing entrenched inflation and the prospect of more policy tightening.
That hurt risk as assets as Bitcoin slid as much as 8% and oil was set for its first weekly loss since June.
“Investors are concerned that if bond yields continue going higher, the economy is too strong and the Fed will need to raise interest rates further,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. “And with the bond yield high enough, that poses competition for equity investors who feel the bond market is less risky than the stock market right now.”
Bond markets bounced higher Friday on speculation losses may be overdone.
In Treasuries, yield on the 10-year pulled back from Thursday’s levels that were approaching the highest since 2007.
UK and German bonds advanced.
Markets are on edge ahead of the annual gathering of policy makers at Jackson Hole in Wyoming next week, according to Andrew Hunter, deputy chief US economist at Capital Economics.
“Expectations of an economic re-acceleration have mounted,” Hunter wrote. “But with little evidence that stronger growth will threaten to reignite inflationary pressures, we don’t think there is any need for Powell to dust off his hawkish script from last year’s event.”
In another sign of nervousness, the CBOE Volatility Index climbed above 18, touching the highest level since May.
Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett warned that stocks may drop another 4%, given China’s economic turmoil and jump in bond yields.
Options expirations might have been behind some of Friday’s choppy moves in equities.
There’s some $2.2 trillion of longer-dated contracts tied to stocks and indexes scheduled to mature on Friday, according to an estimate by Rocky Fishman, founder of derivatives analytical firm Asym 500.
Not everyone on Wall Street is confident that an economic slump can be avoided.
Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of the Boston-based investment firm Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo, reiterated his call for a recession.
Artificial intelligence is very important said Grantham, after the boom in AI-tied stocks staved off his dire earlier predictions for a market reckoning, but “it’s perhaps too little too late to save us from a recession.”
Nvidia Corp., the poster child for the AI-fueled stock frenzy, is due to report earnings on Wednesday.
“Markets are being hit by a perfect storm amid surging rates, worsening data in China and poor summer liquidity,” Emmanuel Cau, a strategist at Barclays Plc, wrote in a note.
In other markets, Bitcoin traded around $26,000.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX sold the cryptocurrency after writing down $373 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. 
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4:03 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.1%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed
* The MSCI World index fell 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0873
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2740
* The Japanese yen rose 0.4% to 145.31 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 5.6% to $26,092
* Ether fell 3.3% to $1,659.96
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined three basis points to 4.25%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined nine basis points to 2.62%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined seven basis points to 4.68%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.1% to $81.31 a barrel
* Gold futures rose 0.2% to $1,918.60 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alice Atkins, Alex Nicholson and Cecile Gutscher.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Honor is a harder master than the law. –Mark Twain, 1835-1910.

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