August 6, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, that instantly killed an estimated 66,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.  Go to article »

Andy Warhol, artist, b. 1928.
Lucille Ball, comic actor, b. 1911.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, b. 1809.

A black hole warping space and time. 

Cave lion cub found frozen in Siberia is 28,000 years old.  The cat is “probably the best preserved Ice Age animal ever found.” Even its whiskers are intact. 

Virgin Galactic reopens ticket sales.  It will cost you $450,000 per seat. 

In 1945, Col. Dave Severance sent U.S. Marines to the top of Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima to plant a flag. The moment, captured in a photograph, remains an enduring image of America at war. Severance died at 102.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

“Stars over the Cathedral” by Alex van Harmelen. This shot of the Milky Way over Mount Buffalo National Park, Victoria Australia, was nominated for the 2021 CWAS David Malin Awards.
CREDIT: ALEX VAN HARMELEN/CWAS DAVID MALIN AWARDS/TNG

Giraffes walk beneath a luminous rainbow in the Masai Mara, Kenya
CREDIT: TOEHOLD PHOTOGRAPHY/SOLENT NEWS & PHOTO AGENCY

Rubber ducks float in the Chicago River during the Chicago Ducky Derby in Illinois, US. Derby organizers dropped 70,000 rubber ducks into the river to raise money for Special Olympics Illinois.
CREDIT: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

Market Closes for August 6^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1979, Paul Volcker took office as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Inflation, the chief destroyer of America’s household wealth, would soon be on the run—and interest rates would drop almost continuously for the next twenty years, creating a stock-market boom and a flood of new home ownership.
Canada
By Aoyon Ashraf
(Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks climbed on Friday, along with U.S. equity markets, after better-than-expected payrolls data in that country. The S&P/TSX Composite index rose as much as 0.4% in Toronto, extending its third consecutive weekly gain.  Financials were the best performers led by insurance companies.  Materials were the worst, led by gold and silver miners as prices for the precious metals tumbled after strong U.S. jobs data fueled expectations that the Federal Reserve may start scaling back stimulus measures soon. Meanwhile, Canada’s labor market continued its recovery in July as health restrictions were lifted, but the gains were less than expected.  The country’s economy added 94,000 jobs last month, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa. Economists were predicting a jobs gain of 150,000. The unemployment rate fell to 7.5% from 7.8% in July.
Commodities:
* Western Canadian Select crude oil traded at a $13.55 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 2.2% to $1,764.65 an ounce
FX/ Bonds:
* The Canadian dollar fell 0.3% to C$1.2543 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year Canada government bond yield rose about 6 basis points to 1.227%
By Bloomberg Automation:
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the second day, climbing 0.5 percent, or 99.94 to 20,475.42 in Toronto. The move was the biggest since rising 0.8 percent on July 21. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 2.1 percent.  Westport Fuel Systems Inc. had the largest increase, rising 27.8 percent. Today, 132 of 229 shares rose, while 97 fell; 8 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index rose 0.9 percent
* 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 0.1 percent below its 52-week high on Aug. 6, 2021 and 32.8 percent above its low on Oct. 30, 2020
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.2 on a trailing basis and 16.5 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$3.2t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 8.90 percent compared with 8.82 percent in the previous session and the average of 8.32 percent over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Financials | 77.3756| 1.2| 20/8
* Energy | 17.1415| 0.7| 16/7
* Communication Services | 4.5154| 0.5| 5/2
* Consumer Staples | 4.1885| 0.5| 10/3
* Real Estate | 3.5295| 0.6| 19/6
* Industrials | 3.0492| 0.1| 19/11
* Health Care | 2.5580| 1.1| 5/4
* Consumer Discretionary | 2.4366| 0.3| 6/7
* Utilities | -1.3521| -0.1| 4/12
* Materials | -6.1770| -0.3| 19/34
* Information Technology | -7.3244| -0.3| 9/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Brookfield Asset | | | |
* Management | 14.6800| 2.1| -10.3| 36.4
* TD Bank | 13.7000| 1.3| -29.9| 17.9
* Royal Bank of | | | |
* Canada | 12.1100| 1.0| -59.8| 23.5
* Wheaton Precious | | | |
* Metals | -3.4190| -1.9| -14.8| 4.7
* Barrick Gold | -5.0820| -1.5| 29.6| -9.3
* Shopify | -12.7500| -0.8| -28.8| 33.3

US
By Kamaron Leach and Elaine Chen
(Bloomberg) — U.S. equities rose on Friday after a better-than-expected increase in U.S. payrolls fueled expectations that the Federal Reserve is moving closer to a pullback of stimulus. The S&P 500 climbed to a record, led by financials and materials, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell. U.S. job growth accelerated in July by the most in almost a year and the unemployment rate declined, illustrating momentum in the labor market as it grapples with hiring challenges. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 1.3% and the dollar strengthened against major peers. “Today’s bumper payrolls report highlights a roaring recovery in the labor market and increases the chances of the Fed tapering their asset purchases sooner rather than later,”  Mike Bell, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said. The report marked another step toward the Fed’s goal of “substantial” further progress in the labor market and rises expectations the central bank will start to cut back stimulus as it wrestles with inflation well above target. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan also added to the speculation Friday, saying he’d support adjusting purchases soon but in a gradual manner. “I imagine the Fed wants to see another good report like this, but this is going to probably edge them a lot closer to tapering sooner,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist for Schwab Center for Financial Research. “There’s not a lot to not like here.”
The jobs data showed continued momentum in the U.S.’s economic recovery and traders will be looking for data on price pressures next week and how hot inflation is running ahead of the Jackson Hole symposium later this month. “When you rub all that together you have an economy that’s been in recovery for a year,” David Petrosinelli, senior trader at InspereX, said in a phone interview.  “I think that’s going to force the Fed’s hand a little bit on being a bit more deliberate on the language vis-à-vis tapering to try to cool things down.” The read-through on the report could also bode well for corporate earnings in the second half of the year, which has helped propel stocks to record highs as the economy recovers, Matt Peron, director of research at Janus Henderson Investors, said. “Friday’s jobs report was strong on almost all measures, suggesting the economy continued its robust expansion despite recent delta fears,” he said. “Risks remain, but so far there are few signs of significant impact from the summer wave.” Gold fell below $1,800. Bitcoin rose to almost $43,000 and WTI crude oil fell. Equities in Europe drifted higher while stocks in Japan gained and those in China fell.
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 fell 0.5%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.5%
* The euro fell 0.6% to $1.1759
* The British pound fell 0.4% to $1.3877
* The Japanese yen fell 0.4% to 110.23 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced eight basis points to 1.30%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to -0.46%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 0.61%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.4% to $68.13 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 2.6% to $1,762 an ounce
–With assistance from Vildana Hajric, Anchalee Worrachate and Robert Brand.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea.  And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins, the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears.  We are tied to the ocean. 
And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came. -John Fitzgerald Kennedy,  1917-1963.

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com