Author: Carolann

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

Someone suggested I listen to guitarist Tommy Emmanuel on youtube…it was a revelation.  I had never heard of him before – an excellent guitarist; check it out for yourself.

Speaking of guitarists, I read recently that if you ever wished you could have a guitar lesson with James Taylor, all you have to do is visit jamestaylor.com and you can discover how to do so.  He breaks down his unique guitar technique in slow motion, so that even if you aren’t a player, it’s neat to see.  Also on the site are vintage and modern videos of performances and rehearsals throughout his illustrious career.

Also worth noting in the world of music, to mark composer Philip Glass’s 75^th birthday, Sony Classical is releasing a three-disc set – The Essential Philip Glass – which includes highlights from his classical career (“Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,” and “Akhnaten”), dance scores for Twyla Tharp (“In the Upper Room”) and Jerome Robbins (“Songs From Liquid Days”), theater works (“The Photographer”), plus music for solo piano and collaborations with artists such as Suzanne Vega, Linda Ronstadt, the Kronos Quartet, and Yo-Yo Ma.

 

photos of the day

February 22, 2012

A copy painting of the ‘Mona Lisa’ is seen through the viewfinder of a video camera on display in Spain’s Prado Museum in Madrid on Tuesday, Feb. 21. The ‘Mona Lisa’ copy was painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci’s apprentices alongside the master himself as he did the original, museum officials said.

Paul White/AP

Ethnic Tibetan women pray around the Labrang Monastery ahead of the Tibetan New Year which starts on Wednesday in Xiahe county, Gansu Province. A teenage Tibetan Buddhist monk has set himself on fire and died in southwestern China, a rights group said, in the latest reported self-immolation by a monk denouncing Chinese policies in Tibet and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama. Tibetan new year begins on February 22, 2012.

Market Closes for February 22, 2012:

North American Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	12938.67	-27.02   -.21%
S&P 500	1357.66	-4.55   0.33%
NASDAQ	2933.17	-15.40   -0.52%
TSX	12701.26	+77.90   +0.62

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	9554.00	+90.98   +0.96%
HANG SENG	21549.28	+70.56   +0.33%
SENSEX	18145.25	-283.36   -1.54%
FTSE 100	5916.55	-11.65   -0.20%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	2.052	2.093
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.636	2.669
U.S.      10 Year Bond	2.0017	2.0591
U.S. 30 Year Bond	3.1379	3.2073

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99980	0.99699
US $	1.00020	1.00302
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	0.75506	1.32440
US $	0.75490	1.32467

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1770.00	1759.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	106.01	105.50

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Katia Porzecanski and Andrew Theen

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, extending a five-month high, as energy shares gained with oil prices on concern Iran will curb supply and gold producers rallied with the metal.

Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s largest oil and gas producer, increased 1.9 percent. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the precious metal, gained 1.6 percent. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest copper and coal producer, advanced 2.9 percent. Manulife Financial Corp. the country’s biggest insurer, declined 1.7 percent.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 61.68 points, or 0.5 percent, to 12,685.04 at 1:57 p.m. Toronto time.

“On balance, things are slowly but surely improving,”

Irwin Michael, a money manager at ABC Funds in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees C$1 billion. “There are a lot of investors who are chomping at the bit wanting to get invested. They’ll buy on weakness; they’ll stick their toe in the water and the market will saw-tooth its way upwards.”

The index rallied 1.3 percent yesterday after European finance ministers approved 130 billion ($172 billion) in aid for Greece. Canadian stocks have gained eight of the past nine weeks as improving U.S. employment, manufacturing and housing data overshadowed the European debt crisis. Energy and raw material producers account for 48 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, according to Bloomberg data.

The S&P/TSX Energy Index gained 0.6 percent as oil extended a nine-month high after United Nations inspectors in Iran said they were denied access to a suspected nuclear-related military base.

Suncor Energy increased 1.9 percent to C$35.40, while oilfield-services company Calfrac Well Services Ltd. rose 3.4 percent to C$28.13. Nexen Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations on five continents, gained 0.8 percent to C$20.67.

Materials companies rallied as gold and copper prices erased earlier declines.

The S&P/TSX Gold Index rose for a second day. Barrick jumped 1.6 percent to C$49.02. Nevsun Resources Ltd., which mines gold in the African country of Eritrea, advanced 7.5 percent to C$4.29.

Lake Shore Gold Corp., which mines in Ontario, surged 12 percent to C$1.69 after the company said new resources at its Gold River Trend are almost triple a previous estimate.

Teck Resources, Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, advanced 2.9 percent to C$40.59. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., the country’s second-biggest publicly traded copper producer, gained 0.5 percent to C$23.17.

Money may flow from commodities into individual oil securities or gold securities “because a lot of the actual common shares have been lagging the bullion price and the oil price,”  Michael said.

Rogers Communications Inc. gained 1.2 percent to C$38.24 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings rose 8.3 percent, helped by increasing wireless revenue as customers spent more time on their smartphones.

Aircraft maker Bombardier Inc. advanced 0.9 percent to C$4.71. The company’s business-jet deliveries climbed 21 percent last year, outperforming a global industry in which total shipments declined, a U.S. trade group said.

Financial shares fell after U.S. purchases of previously owned homes climbed less than forecast and reports signaled declines in European and Chinese manufacturing.

Manulife fell 1.7 percent to C$12.50. Brookfield Asset Management Inc., the country’s largest real-estate company, fell

2.1 percent to C$31.11. Sun Life Financial Inc., Canada’s third largest insurer, declined 1.8 percent to C$21.09.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, a day after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index failed to hold at an almost four- year high, as sales of previously owned houses missed estimates and data from Europe and China spurred economic concern.

The S&P 500 slid 0.3 percent to 1,357.61 at 4 p.m. New York time, according to preliminary closing data.

“You can ride this, but you’ve got to be very careful and sit near the exit,” David Darst, the New York-based chief investment strategist at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, said in a phone interview. His firm has $1.6 trillion in client assets.

“Most of the economies are slowing. Earnings will be slowing.

The market is overbought.”

Stocks fell today as purchases of previously owned homes rose to a 4.57 million annual rate, less than forecast, data from National Association of Realtors showed. China’s manufacturing may shrink for a fourth month, according to data from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit. European services and manufacturing output unexpectedly shrank. Fitch Ratings lowered Greece’s credit rating and said a default is highly likely.

Today’s loss trimmed the S&P 500’s gain in February to 3.4 percent. Still, the index was poised for a third straight month of gains, the longest streak in a year, on higher-than-estimated economic data and expectations Europe would tame its crisis. The S&P 500 yesterday failed to hold above its April 2011 peak of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008.

“We have a trifecta of worrisome news,” Alan Gayle, a senior strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Virginia, which oversees about $47 billion, said in a telephone interview. “The softness in economic data suggests that global momentum remains muted. We have slower earnings growth and the market is facing some technical resistance.”

Earnings at S&P 500 companies will grow 7.4 percent this year, according to the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey, following a 15 percent increase in 2011.

A two-week retreat in the Dow Jones Transportation Average may signal a warning for the rally that has added $1.35 trillion to American equity values this year, according to analysts who use charts to predict markets.

The gauge has fallen 3.8 percent since Feb. 3, a period in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.8 percent and reached the highest level since May 2008. The transportation average is viewed by some analysts as a leading indicator because truckers, airlines and couriers may be the first to experience the effects of an economic slowdown.

“This market does seem to be overdue for a pullback,”

Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services LLC in Hammond, Indiana, said in a phone interview.

Horizon oversees $150 million and uses the relationship between the industrial and transportation gauges to determine how much cash to hold. A divergence “doesn’t always necessarily signal a change in the major trend, but it can foreshadow a bit of a correction,” he said.

Futures traders are pricing in the biggest increase in U.S.

equity hedging costs since 2010 after the S&P 500 rose within 2 points of erasing last year’s slump.

April futures on the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index closed at 25.15 yesterday, or 6.96 points higher than the level of the gauge, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gap widened to 7.02 points on Feb. 17. The last time two-month futures were that high in relation to the index known as the VIX was July 2010.

The S&P 500 has surged 24 percent since Oct. 3 on optimism Europe will resolve the debt crisis. Now, traders are increasing hedges to protect against losses, according to Dominic Salvino, a specialist on the CBOE floor for Group One Trading.

“The consensus bet is that we’re going to have turmoil or some levels of higher volatility in the future,” Liam Dalton, who oversees about $1.8 billion as chief executive officer of Axiom Capital Management Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “If you were to talk about a breakdown in cooperation in Europe, it would affect everything. If the sentiment goes negative, then you can get these periods of increased volatility.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

When a man has an idea of what he must be and how he must act,

and undermines this by not ceasing to act in the opposite way,

he must realize that his principles, his beliefs, his ideals,

will inevitably fall prey to hypocrisy and dishonesty.

It is the ideal that begets the opposite of itself.

-Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Mediocrity doesn’t mean average intelligence;

it means an average intelligence that resents

and envies its betters.

-Ayn Rand, 1905-1982

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

 

From the verbatim report of the trial of Joan of Arc, 1431.

 

On Monday the nineteenth day of February …. the Bishop of Beauvais …. explained to them that a woman named Jeanne called the Pucelle, who was accused of invoking devils and other crimes, and had been delivered and handed over to him from the Very Illustrious Prince the King of France and England [Henry VI] …. Since the Grand Inquisitor of the Faith was not in the town of Rouen, but only his deputy was there, it was ordered and directed by the bishop that the deputy should be called; and that in the presence of notaries he should be summoned to hear the articles and informations which had been made concerning the crimes and evildoing of the said Jeanne, and the scandal which had thereby arisen. –from The Book of Days.

photos of the day

February 20, 2012

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing with skipper Ian Walker from the UK, on the helm, chases Team Sanya, skippered by Mike Sanderson from New Zealand, during the start of leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, from Sanya, China, to Auckland, New Zealand. Race organizers will hold the six boats in Sanya to allow enough time for dangerous conditions to clear, with fears that waves of up to eight meters could wreak havoc with the fleet.

A waning moon is seen in the sky over a building crane decorated with illuminations in Minsk, Belarus.

Sergei Grits/AP

Market Closes for February 20, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones S&P 500 NASDAQ	Closed for President’s Day
	TSX	Closed for Family Day (Ontario)
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9485.09 +100.92 +1.08% HANG SENG 21424.79 -66.83   -0.31% SENSEX 18289.35 +135.36 +0.75% FTSE 100 5945.25 +40.18 +0.68% CAC 40 3472.54 +32.92 +0.96% DAX 6948.25 +100.22 +1.46% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	Closed for Family Day (Ontario)
CDN. 30 year bond
U.S. 10-year bond	Closed for President’s Day
U.S. 30-year bond

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99349	0.99715
US $	1.00656	1.00286

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.31585	0.75996
US $	1.31448	0.75501

 

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1733.70	1724.50

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	104.92	103.24

Market Commentary:

North American markets closed.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

The absurd denial of the truth  is natural in man.

Man does not want to be, but to appear to be.

He does not want to see what he is, but tries only to see himself as the person

other people take him for, when they talk about him.

-Swami Prajnanpad, 1891-1974

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

 

Ask yourself whether you are happy

and you cease to be so.

-John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

“Mobile devices will outnumber humans this year, according to network firm Cisco’s latest analysis of global mobile data traffic,” says BBC News.  “By 2016, it predicts that there will e 10 billion mobile connected devices around the world.”

In New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009, editor Teresa Carpenter has drawn from numerous personal journal entries and collaged together snapshot impressions of New York over the years.  Here are a few of the moments she captures:

“[The natives] all came on board, one after another in their canoes….They had no houses, but slept under the blue heavens, sometimes on mats of bulrushes interwoven, and sometimes on the leaves of trees.”

-Henry Hudson, Sept. 5, 1609

“Once more in Broadway!…Take care of the pigs.  Two portly sows are trotting up behind this carriage, and a select part of half-a-dozen gentlemen-hogs have just now turned the corner.”

-Charles Dickens, March 2, 1842

“Wrote a few lines to my beloved Catherine, an occupation that takes me out of this odious country….Let me die in a ditch in England, rather than in the Fifth Avenue of New York here.”

-Shakespearean actor William Macready, March 6, 1849

“Today I arrived by train in New York City….walked through the grandeur of Grand Central Terminal, stepped outside, got my first look at eh city and instantly fell in love.  [I]nside myself, I yelled: I should have been born here!”

-Journalist Edward Robb Ellis, May 22, 1947

“I am holding in my hands a piece of paper….that I found lying on the ground in the financial district.  It is an expense report from a company called ‘Cantor Fitzgerald’ written by a man named David R. Meyer….How this piece of paper [is] in such good condition, I can only speculate.”

-Writer Eric Rosenfield, Sept. 11, 2011

photos of the day

February 17, 2012

Librarian Alexander Gordin presents parts of influential scientist Sir Issac Newton’s newly digitized theological collection, at Israel’s national library in Jerusalem. Now Israel’s national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton’s writings, has digitized his theological collection, some 7,500 pages in Newton’s own handwriting, and put it online.

Sebastian Scheiner/AP

Filipino students Rudy Roa (l.) and Claire Vinzon prepare to scribble a message on the tribute wall for the late American singer Whitney Houston at a shopping mall in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila.

Bullit Marquez/AP

 

Market Closes for February 17, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12949.87	+45.79 +0.35%
	S&P 500	1361.23	+3.19 +0.23%
	NASDAQ	2951.78	-8.07 -0.27%
	TSX	12458.30	-27.29 -0.22%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9384.17 +146.07 +1.58% HANG SENG 21491.62 +214.34   +1.01% SENSEX 18289.35 +135.36 +0.75% FTSE 100 5905.07 +19.69 +0.33% CAC 40 3439.62 +46.37 +1.37% DAX 6848.03 +96.07 +1.42% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.044	2.011
CDN. 30 year bond	2.631	2.595
U.S. 10-year bond	2.0017	1.9310
U.S. 30-year bond	3.1476	3.0945

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99715	0.99708
US $	1.00286	1.00293

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.31036	0.76315
US $	1.31411	0.76097

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1724.50	1728.10

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	103.24	102.29

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, trimming a weekly gain, as gold shares dropped for the 10th time in 11 days following slower-than-estimated U.S. inflation and before European finance ministers meet to discuss a Greek bailout.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, dropped 2.4 percent as the metal declined. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Canada’s second-largest energy company by market value, rose 0.8 percent as crude oil and natural gas advanced.

Enbridge Inc., Canada’s largest pipeline company, dropped 4.1 percent after reporting earnings that missed estimates.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index decreased 27.29 points, or 0.2 percent, to 12,458.30, reducing its weekly increase to 0.6 percent. The gauge erased gains after the Wall Street Journal reported the International Monetary Fund will contribute less to a Greek bailout than to previous rescues.

“All eyes are on Greece,” Brian Huen, a managing partner at Red Sky Capital Management Ltd. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$55 million ($55 million). “It’s obviously getting people nervous. Greece is not the only problem in the EU. You’ve got Portugal, you’ve got Spain that are potential problems. If you can’t figure one piece of the puzzle out that’s so small, how are you going to figure out those other problems?”

The index has advanced eight of the past nine weeks as improving U.S. employment, manufacturing and housing data overshadowed the European debt crisis. Seventy-four percent of Canadian exports went to the U.S. last year, according to Statistics Canada.

The IMF is likely to contribute 10 percent of a 130 billion-euro ($171 billion) aid package for Greece, the Wall Street Journal said today, citing people familiar with the matter. The organization paid 27 percent of Greece’s 110 billion-euro bailout in 2010, the newspaper said.

Stocks had risen around the world earlier after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos expressed optimism today that an agreement on a Greece bailout can be reached on Feb. 20.

The S&P/TSX Gold Index slumped 1.6 percent, extending its loss since Feb. 2 to 6.3 percent. U.S. consumer prices increased

0.2 percent in January, the Labor Department said today.

Economists forecast a 0.3 percent rise in the inflation gauge, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

Barrick dropped 2.4 percent to C$46.83. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., which operates in Canada, Mexico and Finland, declined 3.6 percent to C$35.27. NovaGold Resources Inc., which is developing projects in Alaska and British Columbia, lost 3.7 percent to C$8.41.

Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, decreased 2.9 percent to C$38.30 as copper retreated for a sixth day on the Comex in New York, the longest slump since August.

Natural-gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange extended their two-day surge to 11 percent a day after the U.S.

reported a bigger drop in inventories than most analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast. Crude oil climbed to a nine-month high.

Canadian Natural rose 0.8 percent to C$37.38. Talisman Energy Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations in North America, the North Sea and Indonesia, gained 1.6 percent to C$13.60.

PetroBakken Energy Ltd., a western Canadian oil and gas producer, jumped 5.3 percent to C$15.42 after agreeing to sell some of its Saskatchewan assets to Crescent Point Energy Corp.

for C$427 million. Petrobank Energy & Resources Ltd., PetroBakken’s largest shareholder, rose 5.3 percent to C$15.38.

Crescent Point dropped 1.9 percent to C$45.59.

Calvalley Petroleum Inc., which operates in Yemen, soared

19 percent to C$1.60 after plunging 19 percent Feb. 14. Workers have suspended a strike at the Masila oil field, which had disrupted oil transportation in the country, according to a government official who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak on the matter.

Enbridge, Keyera Corp., and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.

retreated after reporting earnings that trailed analysts’

estimates in Bloomberg surveys.

Enbridge lost 4.1 percent, the most since February 2009, to

C$37.58 after reporting fourth-quarter profit that trailed the average analyst estimate by 6.1 percent, excluding certain items. The company also said Noverco Inc. plans to sell a third of its stake in Enbridge. Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec and Enbridge together own Noverco.

Keyera, a natural gas marketing company, slumped 5.6 percent, the most since March 2009, to C$44.75 after reporting a fourth-quarter loss. All five analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a profit.

Fairfax Financial, an insurance holding company, slipped

4.3 percent to C$400 after saying it lost $771.5 million in the fourth quarter. The loss was the most in a quarter since at least 2000.

Propane distributor Superior Plus Corp. jumped 8.6 percent to C$6.43 after reporting fourth-quarter financial results.

Unseasonably warm weather in North America reduced cash flow less than analysts may have forecast, Damir Gunja, an analyst at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said in a note to clients.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index near the highest level in about three years, amid optimism Greece will get a bailout.

Banks had the biggest gain in the S&P 500 among 24 groups, rallying 1.7 percent. H.J. Heinz Co., the biggest ketchup maker, and Campbell Soup Co., the largest soup maker, climbed at least

2.6 percent as earnings beat projections. Gilead Sciences Inc.

tumbled 14 percent as some patients relapsed on its hepatitis C drug. General Mills Inc., the maker of Cheerios cereal, retreated 3.6 percent after cutting its profit forecast.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 1,361.23 at 4 p.m. New York time. The index is 0.2 percent below its April peak of 1,363.61, the highest level since June 2008. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 45.79 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,949.87.

“Greece is the word,” Philip Orlando, the New York-based chief equity strategist at Federated Investors Inc., which oversees about $370 billion, said in a phone interview. “We’re just reacting to what the euro zone is telling us in terms of the state of negotiations. Do I believe that the euro zone will give Greece more money? Yes. Otherwise, Greece defaults.”

Equities rose as euro-area governments closed in on a deal to unlock a 130 billion-euro ($171 billion) aid package for Greece, seeking to avert the region’s first sovereign default.

Germany signaled that finance ministers may be ready to back Greece’s second bailout in two years when they meet Feb. 20.

“The bar has been raised,” Eric Thorne, who helps oversee about $6 billion at Bryn Mawr Trust Co. in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview. “If things don’t go quite smoothly as expected, then the market would experience a fairly steep selloff.”

Today’s gain extended this year’s rally in the S&P 500 to

8.2 percent. Stocks climbed as Europe stepped up efforts to tame its debt crisis and after reports on U.S. manufacturing, housing and jobs bolstered optimism in the world’s largest economy.

Seven out of 10 groups in the S&P 500 rose today as consumer discretionary and financial shares had the biggest gains. The KBW Bank Index of 24 stocks added 1 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co. advanced 1.2 percent to $38.47. Bank of America Corp. lost 0.9 percent to $8.02. Intel Corp. had the biggest advance in the Dow, rallying 2 percent to $27.37. It’s the highest level since 2007.

Should the S&P 500 rally above its closing peak in April, the gauge would extend its gains, according to Ryan Detrick at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. He said the next target for the S&P 500 would be 1,440, the intraday peak in May 2008.

“It would be a good sign that confidence is coming back,”

Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s, said in a telephone interview from Cincinnati. “People are realizing that things are on much better footing and that should lead to higher equity prices.”

H.J. Heinz gained 4.6 percent to $54.47. The company reported third-quarter earnings excluding some items of 95 cents a share, beating the average analyst estimate of 85 cents.

Campbell Soup added 2.6 percent to $32.90. The company reported second-quarter earnings excluding some items of 64 cents a share. On average, the analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated profit of 62 cents.

First Solar Inc. surged 7.3 percent to $42.59. The biggest maker of thin-film solar panels resolved a permitting issue with Los Angeles County for a $1.36 billion power project under construction, paving the way for financing to resume.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. jumped 4 percent to $24.71 after being raised to “buy” from “hold” at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

The 12-month share-price estimate is $29.

Gilead tumbled 14 percent to $47. Among eight patients with hepatitis C genotype 1 in a clinical trial, six had a viral relapse within four weeks after stopping a 12-week treatment with the medicine, GS-7977, plus ribavirin, Gilead said today in a statement. The two other patients are two weeks out from stopping treatment, and haven’t relapsed, the company said.

General Mills dropped 3.6 percent to $38.34. The company said “weak volume performance” across U.S. retail food categories in December and January hurt results in its fiscal third quarter.

The companies investors hated the most in 2011 have returned twice as much as the S&P 500 this year, burning speculators who bet stocks from Sears Holdings Corp. to Netflix Inc. would keep falling.

The 26 companies in the S&P 500 with the highest so-called short interest relative to shares available for trading rallied

18 percent this year, compared with 8 percent for the full index, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Speculators who borrowed Sears shares and sold them to profit from a drop got hammered as the stock surged 73 percent. Netflix, with short interest of 17 percent at the end of 2011, rose 76 percent.

Banks, commodity and industrial companies, the only groups to post losses last year, are leading stocks higher on signs the U.S. economy is gaining momentum. That’s forcing speculators to cut bearish wagers after pushing them to the highest levels since the market bottomed in 2009, according to a survey by International Strategy & Investment Group.

“It’s been a rotation back into fundamentally sound, economically sensitive companies that had been unduly punished in the second half of last year,” David Spika, who helps oversee $13 billion as an investment strategist at Westwood Holdings Group Inc. in Dallas, said in a telephone interview.

“When the market turns, those shorts have to be covered and that creates momentum.”

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

As long as you pursue pleasure, you are attached to the sources of pleasure;

and as long as you are attached to the sources of pleasure,

you cannot escape pain and sorrow.  The soul shines in the hearts of all living beings.

When you see the soul in others, you forget your own desires and fears,

and lose yourself in the service of others.

The soul shines equally in people on the farthest island, and in people close at hand.

Mundaka Upanishad

As ever,

 

Carolann

Think of all the beauty still left

around you and be happy.

-Anne Frank, 1929-1945

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

On this day, in 1932, the firs patent was issued for a tree to James Markham for a peach tree.

 

Nature Note: TREE FORMS IN WINTER

On a walk in the winter you can observe tree forms.  Each species has its own characteristic shape.  But you can also see how a group of two or more trees, perhaps of different species, have grown in concert to form one crown.  Here you are observing a key element in life: when given a chance, nature forms unified wholes. –CH

We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense.  They make many journeys, not extensive ones it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings – many of them not so much.  –John Muir

The first oil painting I made, when I was five or six years old, was a picture of a tree.  I am sure that I have painted and drawn hundreds of other versions since then.  In their complexity, variety, and particular specificity, trees are among the world’s special archetypal forms.  They offer endless opportunities for artistic invention and rich metaphorical allusion.  In [this] recent painting, Branches and Lines, the branches of the “tree” are made of careening, sweeping railroad trains.  I think of the painting as a metaphor for the experience of contemporary life at the nexus of nature and culture.  –Christopher Brown, Artist.

photos of the day

February 16, 201

People dressed for carnival pose for photographers at the start of the Luzern-Carnival in Lucerne in the early morning hours. The history of Lucerne’s carnival can be traced back over more than 600 years and is best known for its individually hand-crafted masks and costumes paraded in the town’s streets and squares by thousands of revellers during the three-day carnival festival.

A worker looks at an Eiffel tower made from lemons and oranges during the lemon festival in Menton. Some 145 metric tons of lemons and oranges were used to make displays during the 79th festival, which is themed ‘The regions of France,’ and runs from February 17 through March 7.

Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Market Closes for February 16, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market  Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12904.08	+123.13  +0.96%
	S&P 500	1358.04	+14.81  +1.10%
	NASDAQ	2959.85	+44.02  +1.51%
	TSX	12485.59	+123.56  +1.00%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9238.10 -22.24  -0.24% HANG SENG 21277.28 -87.95    -0.41% SENSEX 18153.99 -48.42  -0.27% FTSE 100 5885.38 -6.78  -0.12% CAC 40 3393.25 +2.90  +0.09% DAX 6751.96 -5.98  -0.09% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.011	2.016
CDN. 30 year bond	2.595	2.595
U.S. 10-year bond	1.9310	1.9344
U.S. 30-year bond	3.0945	3.0809

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian   $	0.99708	0.99985
US   $	1.00293	1.00015

 

Euro  Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.30968	0.76354
US  $	1.31355	0.76129

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1728.10	1726.30

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	102.29	102.02

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for a second day, led by gold and energy producers, after U.S. employment and housing reports beat estimates and natural gas inventories in Canada’s biggest trade market declined more than forecast.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second- largest energy company by market value, gained 1.5 percent.

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-biggest gold producer by value, advanced 4.3 percent after topping analysts’ average earnings estimate. Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s largest fertilizer producer by value, increased 2 percent after the U.S. reported higher corn exports.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 107.35 points, or 0.9 percent, the most in three weeks, to 12,469.38 at 2:03 p.m. Toronto time.

“There’s positive news out of the U.S.,” said Luciano Orengo, who oversees C$1.6 billion ($1.6 billion) as a money manager at Manulife Financial Corp. in Toronto. “Those are the two things that have been weighing the heaviest in the U.S.: the housing picture and the employment picture.”

The S&P/TSX fell 0.7 percent this month through yesterday after rallying 4.2 percent in January. Gold stocks led the decline as the U.S. dollar advanced on concern Greece’s efforts to reduce its budget deficit won’t avert a default. Seven of the world’s 20 largest gold companies by revenue are Canadian, according to Bloomberg data.

Americans filed 348,000 first-time unemployment claims last week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. None of the 45 economists in a Bloomberg survey had estimated a total that low. New-home construction advanced 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 699,000 in January, the Commerce Department said. That beat the median economist estimate of 675,000.

Energy stocks gained with natural gas futures after the U.S. Energy Department said inventories dropped more than 21 of 24 analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast.

Canadian Natural increased 1.5 percent to C$36.93. Encana Corp., the country’s biggest natural gas producer, climbed 3.3 percent to C$19.96. Nexen Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations on five continents, rose 3.8 percent to C$19.66 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that surpassed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey by 55 percent, excluding certain items.

The S&P/TSX Materials Index gained for the first time in 10 days, ending the longest streak of losses since June 2001.

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-largest gold producer by market value, increased 4.3 percent to C$47.19 after beating the average fourth-quarter earnings estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey by 9.8 percent, excluding certain items.

Kinross Gold Corp., Canada’s third-biggest gold producer by market value, advanced 7.1 percent, the most since May 2010, to C$11.08 after Tony Lesiak, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd., raised his rating on the shares to outperform from neutral. An outperform rating means the analyst forecasts the company will return at least 5 percentage points more than its benchmark over 12 months.

Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., which produces gold in Canada, Mexico and Finland, surged 6.6 percent to C$36.37. The shares sank as much as 7.7 percent earlier, after Agnico-Eagle took a $644.9 million writedown on its Meadowbank project and posted a quarterly loss.

Investors who had sold borrowed shares of the company to make a profit on a decline probably took advantage of the tumble to close their positions, John Stephenson, a money manager at First Asset Investment Management Inc. in Toronto, said in an e- mail message. The firm oversees $2.7 billion.

Potash Corp. climbed 2 percent to C$45.73 as corn futures rebounded on the Chicago Board of Trade after settling at the lowest since Jan. 24 yesterday. U.S. exporters sold more corn last week than in any week since October, the Agriculture Department said today in Washington.

Finning International Inc., the world’s biggest Caterpillar dealer, rallied 5.2 percent to C$28.15 after its fourth-quarter earnings surpassed the average analyst estimate by 19 percent, excluding certain items.

Stantec Inc., an engineering and architecture services company, surged 5.1 percent to C$30.79 after initiating a quarterly dividend. The company will pay 15 Canadian cents a share, with the first payment on April 17. Stantec touched C$31.25, the highest intraday since May 2008.

Property-services company FirstService Corp. jumped 5.3 percent to C$31.84 after Frederic Bastien, an analyst at Raymond James Financial Inc., raised his rating on the shares to outperform from market perform. Higher profit margins at the company’s commercial-real-estate unit in the fourth quarter “marked a turning point for the division,” Bastien wrote in a note to clients. An outperform rating means the analyst forecasts the stock will outgain the S&P/TSX over the next year.

Parex Resources Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations in Colombia and Trinidad, plunged 16 percent to C$7.08 after releasing production results that Darren B. Engels and Martin P. Molyneaux, analysts at FirstEnergy Capital Corp., called “disappointing.” At least three firms, including FirstEnergy, cut their ratings on the shares.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index near the highest level in about three years, amid better-than-estimated economic reports and optimism that Greece will receive a second bailout.

Financial shares rebounded from earlier losses as Bank of America Corp. rose 4 percent. Microsoft Corp. climbed 4.1 percent on a report that S&P is likely to increase its weighting in the S&P 500. General Motors Co. jumped 9 percent after the automaker posted the biggest annual profit in its 103-year- history. NetApp Inc. increased 7.2 percent as the maker of data- storage products reported revenue that beat analysts’ estimates.

The S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent to 1,358.04 at 4 p.m. New York time. The benchmark gauge for American equities is 0.4 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 123.13 points, or 1 percent, to 12,904.08.

“I don’t see what the case is for the market collapsing,” Brian Barish, who helps oversee about $7 billion as Denver-based president of Cambiar Investors LLC., spoke in a phone interview.

“The U.S. economy is doing pretty well. Taking the possibility of a euro-Lehman type of event off the table, that has a big effect on sentiment.”

Stocks rose as Americans filed the fewest claims for jobless benefits since 2008 and builders broke ground on more homes than forecast. Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region expanded in February at the fastest pace in four months as orders and sales picked up.

Benchmark gauges extended gains and banks rallied as three euro-area officials said the European Central Bank is swapping its Greek bonds for new ones to ensure it isn’t forced to take losses in a debt restructuring. European governments are considering cutting interest rates on emergency loans to Greece and using contributions from the ECB to plug a new financing gap in the second bailout program for Athens, two people familiar with the discussions said.

“We’re more important to Europe than Europe is to us,” Liz Ann Sonders, the New York-based chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab Corp., said in a telephone interview. Her firm has $1.68 trillion in client assets. “U.S. economic numbers have been much better than expected. I’m pretty optimistic, but I don’t think we’re going to boom. The debt overhang puts a lid on how fast the U.S. economy can grow.”

Financial shares underperformed the S&P 500 earlier today as Moody’s Investors Service is reviewing 17 banks and securities firms with global capital markets operations.

The KBW Bank Index rose 2.2 percent as all of its 24 companies gained. The gauge fell as much as 0.6 percent earlier today. Bank of America added 4 percent to $8.09. Morgan Stanley rose 1.2 percent to $19.19, after tumbling as much as 4 percent.

Twenty-nine out of 30 companies in the Dow gained today.

Microsoft jumped 4.1 percent, the most in the Dow, to $31.29. The shares rose to the highest price since April 2010. S&P is likely to increase Microsoft’s weighting in the S&P 500 by about 12 percent later this year because Chairman Bill Gates’s stock sales are increasing the amount of shares available for public trading, Adam Holt, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a report today.

GM surged 9 percent to $27.17. North America earnings before interest and taxes more than tripled for the year to $7.19 billion. The automaker’s Europe business, including the Opel brand, lost $747 million for the year.

NetApp rallied 7.2 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $42.74. The maker of data-storage products said revenue in the third quarter was $1.57 billion, above the average analyst estimate of $1.56 billion. The company said it won a record number of new customers and significantly increased the amount of units shipped.

CVR Energy Inc. surged 5.8 percent to $29.20. Carl Icahn offered to pay $30 a share in cash and give stockholders the right to collect an additional $7 a share if any other bidder tries to buy the oil-refining company.

Even with the stock’s 24 percent gain since Icahn disclosed an investment in January, a buyer could offer about a 40 percent premium and still purchase CVR at the lowest valuation relative to earnings of any takeover greater than $500 million in the U.S. oil refining and marketing industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Icahn, CVR’s biggest investor, urged the company this week to put itself up for sale.

Amazon.com Inc. sank 2.5 percent to $179.93. The world’s largest Web retailer fell after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock, citing competition from Apple Inc. and the decline of traditional media such as CDs and video games.

J.M. Smucker Co. slumped 8.4 percent to $71.60. The maker of Folgers coffee forecast 2012 earnings excluding some items of $4.65 a share at most. On average, the analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated profit of $5.

A gauge of homebuilders in S&P indexes dropped 0.8 percent. PulteGroup Inc., the largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, declined 1.8 percent to $8.87. The shares retreated after David Goldberg, an analyst at UBS AG, cut the rating to “neutral” from “buy,” citing valuation concern.

Price swings by the S&P 500 have narrowed to a nine-month low following the measure’s biggest rally to start a year since 1997. The distance between its intraday low and high has averaged 0.86 percent since Feb. 2, a 10-day level last seen on May 5, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Volatility has diminished after the S&P 500 advanced 6.8 percent in 2012. When the 10-day average swing was this low in May, the index had just peaked on April 29 and went on to slump 19 percent through October. The current narrowing signals the rally may be running out of steam, said Katie Stockton, chief market technician at Greenwich, Connecticut-based MKM Partners.

“It reflects a loss of momentum, which had been very strong until last week,” Stockton wrote in an e-mail.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

When a man is deprived of the foundation that provides him everything,

his poverty loses its best virtue, simplicity, to become no more than disgraceful and sordid.

His wealth is no longer splendid, but becomes merely extravagant.

His appetites no longer remain within natural limits; they no longer have the one goal

of meeting the needs of his life; they become an end in themselves,

setting fire to his existence, and dancing madly by the light of the flames.

-Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1901

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly.

-Brenda Ueland, 1891-1985

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

Birthday: Harold Arlen, songwriter, born February 15, 1905

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby. ~Harold Arlen

photos of the day

February 15, 2012

The moon is seen above a cross at the Kranji Commonwealth War Memorial Cemetery

before an Australian memorial service in Singapore. The dawn service was held to

commemorate the 70th anniversary of the fall of Singapore during World War II.

Tim Chong/Reuters

An aerial view of shipping containers stacked at the port of Singapore.

Edgar Su/Reuters

 

Market Closes for February 15, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12780.95	-97.33 -0.76%
	S&P 500	1343.23	-7.27 -0.54%
	NASDAQ	2915.83	-16.00 -0.55%
	TSX	12362.03	+7.56 +0.06%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9260.34 +208.27 +2.30% HANG SENG 21365.23 +447.40   +2.14% SENSEX 18202.41 +353.84 +1.98% FTSE 100 5892.16 -7.71 -0.13% CAC 40 3390.35 +14.71 +0.44% DAX 6757.94 +29.75 +0.44% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.011	2.016
CDN. 30 year bond	2.595	2.595
U.S. 10-year bond	1.9310	1.9344
U.S. 30-year bond	3.0945	3.0809

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	1.00015	0.99925
US $	0.99985	1.00075

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.30598	0.76571
US $	1.30578	0.76582

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1726.30	1715.90

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	102.02	101.01

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) — Canada’s main stock index was little changed as banks fell after European officials postponed a decision on an aid package for Greece, while energy stocks rose.

Bank of Montreal, Canada’s fourth-biggest lender by assets, declined 0.6 percent after Euro-region finance ministers canceled an in-person meeting scheduled for today. Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, gained 1.5 percent as crude advanced to the highest in a month. Canadian National Railway Co., the country’s largest railroad, lost 0.9 percent as North American carriers retreated on concern coal shipping will drop.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 7.56 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,362.03 Toronto time after closing at a three-week low yesterday.

“The market is waiting for continued good news,” Greg Eckel, a money manager at Morgan Meighen & Associates Ltd. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about

C$1 billion ($1 billion). “The bias is to run a little skittish until some more information comes out that can establish some firmer footing as to the way forward” on Greece.

The S&P/TSX has lost 0.7 percent this month after rallying

4.2 percent in January. Gold stocks led the decline as the U.S.

dollar advanced on concern Greece’s efforts to reduce its budget deficit won’t avert a default. Seven of the world’s 20 largest gold companies by revenue are Canadian, according to Bloomberg data.

The group of Euro-region finance ministers won’t decide on the new Greek rescue package until its next meeting on Feb. 20, Luxembourg Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, the panel’s chairman, said yesterday. Instead of meeting in person today, the finance chiefs held a conference call.

The S&P/TSX Commercial Banks Index fell for the first time in three days. BMO dropped 0.6 percent to C$57.94. Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, slipped 0.3 percent to C$53.46. Mortgage insurer Genworth MI Canada Inc.

declined 1.2 percent to C$21.30.

Energy companies advanced after the U.S. Energy Department said crude supplies retreated last week. Most analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast an increase.

Suncor increased 1.5 percent to C$34.22 after Highfields Capital Management LP reported it boosted its stake in the company. Talisman Energy Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations in North America, the North Sea and Indonesia, climbed 4.9 percent to C$13.13 after cutting its exploration- spending forecast.

Cenovus Energy Inc., Canada’s fifth-biggest energy company, slid 1.4 percent to C$38.08 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that missed the average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey by 17 percent, excluding certain items.

Canada’s two publicly traded railroads retreated along with their U.S. peers after Matthew Troy, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP, said in a note dated yesterday that rail stocks “will struggle in the first quarter as investors digest the reality that coal will be weak through the first half and earnings-per-share revisions skew downward in coming weeks.”

Railroad coal shipping has fallen this year from the same period of 2011, according to the Association of American Railroads.

CN dropped 0.9 percent to C$77.55. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. declined 2.2 percent to C$73.03.

Harry Winston Diamond Corp., a diamond-mining company and jewelry retailer, rallied 9.2 percent, the most in a year, to

C$13.01 after Oliver Chen, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., began coverage of the company with a “buy” rating. Diamond prices are likely to increase due to limited supply and growing demand from emerging markets, Chen wrote in a note to clients.

The S&P/TSX Materials Index slipped less than 0.1 percent, extending its streak of declines to nine days, the longest since June 2001. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, lost 1.3 percent to C$38.48 as copper retreated for a fourth day on the Comex in New York. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., the country’s second-biggest publicly traded copper producer, decreased 1.1 percent to C$21.93.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower for a second day, as concern grew that Greece was moving closer to default and the Federal Reserve said policy makers were divided on buying more assets.

Apple Inc. decreased 2.3 percent, reversing a 3.3 percent rally and snapping an eight-day advance. Industrial shares had the biggest decline in the S&P 500 among 10 groups as Deere & Co. tumbled 5.4 percent after lowering its 2012 U.S. farmer revenue forecast. The Dow Jones Transportation Average, a proxy for the economy, slumped 2 percent as CSX Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. retreated more than 2.8 percent.

The S&P 500 declined 0.5 percent to 1,343.23 at 4 p.m. New York time, reversing an earlier increase of as much as 0.4 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 97.33 points, or 0.8 percent, to 12,780.95 today.

“People just keep trying to delay the Greece situation,”

Peter Sorrentino, a fund manager who helps oversee $14.5 billion at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, said in a telephone interview. “What’s haunting everyone is that if this thing is delayed too much longer, you’ve another series of hurdles. We’re a prisoner of that.”

Stocks fell as concern that Greece will miss a debt payment next month grew. A decision slated for tonight on 130 billion euros ($171 billion) of aid was postponed until at least Feb. 20 and possibly until after a full-time Greek government emerges from elections later in the year. Minutes of the Fed’s last meeting showed a few policy makers said the central bank may have to consider purchasing more securities soon, while others said the economic outlook would have to worsen.

Equities gained earlier today as China said it will “get more involved” in supporting Europe and sustain its holdings of euro assets, spurring optimism the debt crisis would be overcome.

“It’s very clear that China realized the costs of a possible European recession that spreads to the rest of the world,” James Swanson, who oversees about $200 billion as chief investment strategist at Boston-based MFS Investment Management, said in a telephone interview. “Yet they haven’t fixed their problems and China can’t fix their problems.”

The S&P 500 has rallied 6.8 percent this year as the U.S.

economy showed signs of accelerating and European leaders moved closer to a solution on the region’s debt crisis. The U.S economy is forecast to grow 2.2 percent in 2012, according to the median projection in a survey of economists, up from the estimate of 2.1 percent in December.

Nine out of 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell today. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index dropped 0.8 percent amid concern about economic growth.

Apple retreated 2.3 percent to $497.67, two days after closing above $500 for the first time. The shares rose earlier today as CEO Tim Cook yesterday asked for forbearance from investors while the company discusses how to best use its growing cash pile.

“Apple’s CEO Tim Cook indicated that the board of directors continues to focus more time on the use of cash, which seems to increase the likelihood of a dividend and/or stock buyback,” William Power, a Robert W Baird & Co. analyst, wrote in a note to clients today. “We continue to believe that even a conservative 2 percent dividend yield could help attract an additional wave of investors.”

Deere lost 5.4 percent to $84.28. Total U.S. farm receipts will be $371.9 billion in 2012, down from a November forecast for $374.2 billion and lower than the record $381.4 billion in 2011, as corn, wheat and soybean prices decline, the Moline, Illinois-based company said today in a presentation accompanying its fiscal first-quarter results.

A measure of transportation shares had the biggest decline in the S&P 500 among 24 industries, slumping 2 percent as a group. CSX decreased 2.9 percent to $21.19. Union Pacific retreated 3.3 percent to $109.41.

The biggest component of Warren Buffett’s most-watched index is falling, and the decline may depress first-half earnings at U.S. railroads. Buffett follows a gauge of freight- train traffic that’s compiled by the Association of American Railroads, as he told ABC News in a 2009 interview. This indicator tracks the number of carloads, and coal accounts for a bigger percentage of the shipments than any other category.

“Coal results have been significantly below our prior expectations for the first quarter,” Gary Chase, a Barclays Capital analyst, wrote yesterday in a report. Shipments in the first five weeks of this year dropped 2.9 percent from the same period of last year. The total of 120,052 carloads for the week ended Feb. 4 was the lowest for that time of year since 2004.

Earnings per share swing by 0.5 percent at CSX and Norfolk Southern Corp. and by 0.2 percent at Union Pacific for every 1 percent change in the amount of coal they ship, Chase wrote. The New York-based analyst cut first- and second-quarter profit estimates on the railroads because of the current slump.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns a competitor, Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Zynga Inc. retreated 18 percent to $11.80. The biggest developer of games for Facebook Inc.’s site fell the most since it first started trading after product-development costs weighed on profit in the fourth quarter.

Dean Foods Co. rallied 10 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $11.99. The biggest U.S. milk processor reported lower raw- milk costs at its fresh dairy business.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. increased 8.3 percent to $48.30.

The operator of its namesake and Hollister teen-clothing stores said international sales growth would boost profit this year.

Kellogg Co. jumped 5.1 percent to $52.87 after agreeing to acquire Procter & Gamble Co.’s Pringles potato chip business for about $2.7 billion in cash to triple its global snacks sales after a deal with Diamond Foods Inc. fell through.

Comcast Corp. added 4.7 percent to $28.52. The largest U.S.

cable company climbed after fourth-quarter profit rose more than analysts estimated and video-customer losses narrowed for the fifth straight period.

Blackstone Group LP’s Byron Wien, whose prediction for the U.S. economy and stock market in 2011 proved too optimistic, said he may need to lift his estimate for the S&P 500 for this year. Wien, chairman of Blackstone’s advisory services unit, said in January in his annual “10 Surprises” list the benchmark gauge for U.S. stocks may exceed 1,400. He said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview he may have to raise the projection.

“1,400 when the market was 1,250 at the beginning of the year was a reasonable target, a conservative target,” Wien said in an interview today on Bloomberg Radio’s “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. “But I think we could well exceed it. Look, S&P 500 operating earnings are going to be in excess of $100. Very often, almost always, the S&P 500 sells at

15 times, that would take you over 1,500.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Those who are focused on the objects of the senses, become attached to those objects.

From attachment comes desire; and from desire comes anger; from anger comes confusion of mind;

from confusion of mind comes loss of memory; from loss of memory comes loss of intelligence;

and from loss of intelligence comes destruction.

The Bhagavad Gita

As ever,

 

Carolann

Be thankful for what you have.  You’ll end up having more.  If you

concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever

have enough.

-Oprah Winfrey, 1954-

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

“Love is never lost.  If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” –Washington Irvine.

 

I realize that a few of you did not receive the nightly newsletter last week, so please accept my apologies.  Toronto was having trouble with a new server that was installed last weekend, but the problem appears to have been resolved today, so there should be no further interruptions.

 

Tangents:

-from The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time

Edited by David H. Lowenherz, Random House, N.Y.

 

Dylan Thomas to Caitlin Thomas

 

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), Welsh poet and writer; Dylan was a sickly and neurotic child who dropped out of school at age sixteen.  He made a name for himself at twenty with the publication of his first book, Eighteen Poems (1934).    In 1936, the year Twenty-Five Poems was published, he met a young Irishwoman, Caitlin Macnamara, and married her the following year.  Lacking any business acumen, and with a growing family to support (the couple had three children), Dylan quickly fell upon hard times.  It became increasingly difficult to sustain a happy life, especially under the burden of his heavy drinking problem.  After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1947, friends were able to find a cottage for Dylan’s family in Wales.  In 1950, the first of four lecture tours to the United States was arranged, and Dylan gave numerous and well-attended readings.  His letters to Caitlin are often far more passionate than her responses – she no doubt had a hard life with this exceptionally gifted poet.  But long-standing income tax debts, a shaky marriage, and increased drinking contributed to his unhappiness.  After an enormous binge in a New York bar, Dylan collapsed and died just a few days after his thirty-ninth birthday.

 

March 16^th, 1950

 

Cat: my cat.  If only you would write to me:  My love, oh cat.  This is not, as it seems from the address above, a dive, joint, saloon, etc., but the honourable  and dignified headquarters of the dons of the University of Chicago.  I love you.  That is all I know.  But all I know, too, is that I am writing into space: the kind of dreadful, unknown space I am just going to enter.  I am going to Iowa, Illinois, Idaho, Indindiana, but these, though misspelt, are on the map.  You are not.  Have you forgotten me?  I am the man you used to say you loved.  I used to sleep in your arms – do you remember?  But you never write.  You are perhaps mindless of me.  I am not of you.  I love you.  There isn’t a moment of any hideous day when I do not say to myself, “It will be alright.  I shall go home.  Caitlin loves me.  I love Caitlin.”  But perhaps you have forgotten.  If you have forgotten, or lost your affection for me, please, my Cat, let me know.  I Love You.

 

photos of the day

February 14, 2012

Britain’s Catherine Duchess of Cambridge arrives for a visit to Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, northern England.

Nigel Roddis/Reuters

A couple embrace as they watch the sunset from a promenade along the Arabian Sea on Valentine’s Day, in Mumbai.

Vivek Prakash/Reuters

 

Market Closes for February 14, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12859.92	-14.12 -0.11%
	S&P 500	1348.76	-3.01 -0.22%
	NASDAQ	2931.83	+0.44 +0.02
	TSX	12350.19	-48.50 -0.39%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9052.07 +52.89 -0.59% HANG SENG 20917.83 +30.43   +0.15% SENSEX 17848.57 +75.73 +0.43% FTSE 100 5899.87 -5.83 -0.10% CAC 40 3375.64 -8.91 -0.26% DAX 6728.19 -10.28 -0.15% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.016	2.072
CDN. 30 year bond	2.595	2.638
U.S. 10-year bond	1.9344	1.9741
U.S. 30-year bond	3.0809	3.1202

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99925	0.99928
US $	1.00075	1.00072

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.31160	0.76243
US $	1.31255	0.76188

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1715.90	1723.00

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	101.01	100.80

 

 

 

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for the third time in four days, led by raw-materials companies, after U.S. retail sales increased less than forecast and European officials said Greece must do more to cut its debt.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, dropped 0.7 percent as the U.S. Dollar Index rose. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-largest energy company by market value, lost 4.7 percent after saying its Horizon oil-sands upgrader may be out of service until mid- or late March.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index slipped 44.22 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,354.47, the lowest close since Jan. 18.

“The problems south of the border are still not resolved,” David Cockfield, a managing director at Northland Wealth Management in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$200 million ($200 million). “A lot of people are still waiting on what’s going on in Europe. The earnings season hasn’t been a spectacular one. We’re starting to lose ground here.”

The index gained 5.4 percent in the two months ending yesterday as data from the U.S. signaled an improving economy.

The U.S. accounted for 74 percent of Canada’s exports last year, Statistics Canada said last week.

U.S. retail sales climbed 0.4 percent in January, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Economists had forecast a gain of 0.8 percent, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

Stocks extended their retreat after Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the group of euro- region finance ministers, said he “did not yet receive the required political assurances from the leaders of the Greek coalition parties” on budget cuts.

Gold futures fell for a third day on the Comex in New York as the euro dropped against the U.S. dollar. Barrick decreased 0.7 percent to C$47.64. Silver Wheaton Corp., Canada’s third- biggest precious-metals company by market value, declined 1.3 percent to C$35.16 as silver retreated. Eldorado Gold Corp., the country’s fifth-largest company in the industry by market value, slipped 2.1 percent to C$13.02 to extend its streak of losses to eight days, the longest since June.

Volta Resources Inc., which explores for gold in Africa, soared 35 percent, the most since December 2009, to C$1.51 after reporting a discovery.

Base-metals and coal producers in the S&P/TSX fell to the lowest since Jan. 9 as copper futures dropped for a third day on the Comex in New York.

Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest company in the industry, lost 0.8 percent to C$38.97. Inmet Mining Corp., a copper and zinc producer, decreased 3.1 percent to C$63.75.

Lundin Mining Corp., which operates in Europe, slumped 4.5 percent to C$4.86.

Canadian Natural decreased 4.7 percent to C$36.36 after cutting its 2012 production forecast for the Horizon upgrader, which processes oil sands into refinery-ready crude. The company shut the plant on Feb. 5 for maintenance, expecting to complete the work by the end of the month. More damage was found to a unit at the plant than was originally thought, Calgary-based Canadian Natural said today.

Cenovus Energy Inc., Canada’s fifth-biggest energy company, gained 2.3 percent to C$38.60 after Menno Hulshof, an analyst at Toronto-Dominion Bank, raised his rating on the shares to buy from hold. In a note to clients, Hulshof said he based his upgrade in part of the progress of the Christina Lake joint venture with ConocoPhillips.

TransCanada Corp., the owner of the country’s largest pipeline system, advanced 1.6 percent to C$42.15 as natural gas rallied 4.2 percent on the New York Mercantile Exchange on forecasts for colder weather in the western U.S.

Bankers Petroleum Ltd., which operates in Albania, slumped 5.6 percent to C$4.70 after plunging 5.9 percent yesterday, when the company reported a decline in production for January and increased its development-cost estimates. At least six analysts cut their 12-month share-price forecasts today.

Calvalley Petroleum Inc., which operates in Yemen, tumbled 19 percent, the most since October 2008, to C$1.30 after saying it will shut down its Block 9 production due to the strike at Petromasila, the state-run operator of the Masila oil field.

“Certain groups within the region have organized blockades on major roads within the Masila basin,” hampering oil transportation, Calvalley said in a press release.

Imax Corp., the maker of giant-screen movie projection systems, rallied 11 percent to C$24.45 after saying box-office revenue this year through Feb. 12 increased about 45 percent from a year earlier.

Trimel Pharmaceuticals Corp. surged 36 percent to C$3.41 after closing at the highest yesterday since becoming publicly traded through a reverse takeover in July. The company said today its Tefina female sexual dysfunction medicine was successful in a study.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — Most U.S. stocks retreated as an advance in the final half hour spurred by optimism that Greece will commit to budget cuts stopped short of erasing a decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Bank of America Corp. slid 3.3 percent as Citigroup Inc. cut its recommendation. Yahoo! Inc. slumped 4.7 percent as talks on an Asia asset swap are said to have stalled. Masco Corp. tumbled 12 percent after the home improvement and building products maker reported a wider-than-projected loss. Boeing Co.

added 1 percent after signing a 230-aircraft order worth $22.4 billion, setting a record for the planemaker.

The S&P 500 decreased 0.1 percent to 1,350.50 at 4 p.m. New York time, trimming an earlier decline of as much as 0.8 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.24 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 12,878.28 today. Almost two stocks declined for each that rose on U.S. exchanges.

“To say that Greece doesn’t matter is probably short- sighted,” David Goerz, chief investment officer at Highmark Capital Management Inc., said in a phone interview from San Francisco. His firm oversees $17 billion. “There’s a lot of skepticism on whether Greece will be successful. They are trying to make it work.”

Equities fell earlier today as European finance ministers canceled a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. After Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker canceled the gathering, citing the lack of political assurances from Greek leaders to stick to austerity pledges, a government official in Athens said the leaders of Greece’s two biggest political parties, New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras and Pasok’s George Papandreou, will provide the written commitments demanded.

A report showing that sales at U.S. retailers rose less than forecast in January also drove earlier losses. The 0.4 percent gain reported by the Commerce Department today in Washington was half the 0.8 percent median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Today’s decline came after the S&P 500 closed less than 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. The index has risen 7.4 percent this year as the U.S. economy showed signs of accelerating and European leaders moved closer to a solution on the region’s debt crisis.

“You’ve had a significant run-up in the market and you haven’t really had any significant pullback,” Paul Simon, chief investment officer at Tactical Allocation Group LLC in Birmingham, Michigan, said in a phone interview. His firm oversees $1.6 billion. “We approached the highs of 2011 and that’s going to be a resistance in the very, very short term.”

The KBW Bank Index fell 1.3 percent as 21 of its 24 stocks retreated. Bank of America lost 3.3 percent, the biggest decline in the Dow, to $7.98. The stock fell after Keith Horowitz, an analyst at Citigroup, cut its rating to “neutral,” meaning he believes there aren’t enough reasons to take a positive or negative view on the stock. His previous rating was “buy.”

The recent rally in shares reflects “capital concerns subsiding, but earnings headwinds persist,” analyst Horowitz wrote in a note today.

Yahoo slumped 4.7 percent to $15.37. Representatives of Alibaba and Softbank Corp., co-owner of Yahoo Japan Corp., are prepared to approach Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson to explore another arrangement that would let companies buy back their stakes, said a person briefed on the matter. Dana Lengkeek, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Masco dropped 12 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $11.63. It reported a fourth-quarter loss from continuing operations of 9 cents a share, wider than the average analyst estimate of a loss of 2 cents.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. sank 5.2 percent to $13.25 after reporting fourth-quarter profit that was less than analysts’ estimates as the number of tires sold declined 5 percent.

First Solar Inc. fell 6 percent to $39.21. The maker of thin-film solar panels may “have the most near term downside risk” under a German proposal to cut subsidies that is likely to be “worse than expected,” Deutsche Bank AG said in a note.

Boeing gained 1 percent, the second biggest advance in the Dow, to $75.56. The accord with Indonesian budget carrier PT Lion Mentari Airlines today at the Singapore Airshow, which solidifies a provisional agreement last year, includes 201 orders for the in-development 737 MAX and 29 for the extended range 737-900.

Avon Products Inc. climbed 1.5 percent to $17.80. The door- to-door cosmetics seller conducting an internal bribery probe said it will cut jobs and identify other ways to reduce costs.

Apple Inc. rose 1.4 percent to $509.46, gaining for an eighth day. That’s the longest winning streak since July 26. The largest technology company yesterday surpassed $500 for the first time.

Dividend-paying stocks are still a “winning theme” for investors even though they have gotten off to a relatively slow start this year, according to Gina Martin Adams, a strategist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC.

While the Standard & Poor’s 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index rose 4.2 percent for the year through yesterday, the gain was 2.6 percentage points smaller than the S&P 500’s advance. By contrast, the indicator fared better than the S&P 500 in the past two years, its first back-to-back wins since 2002. The index is comprised of companies that have raised payouts for at least 25 consecutive years, relative to the S&P 500.

Payout ratios suggest companies can distribute plenty more money to shareholders, Martin Adams wrote yesterday in a report.

She noted that dividends equal 27 percent of S&P 500 earnings, the lowest figure in more than a century, according to data compiled by Yale University Professor Robert Shiller.

“Companies may be only just beginning to catch on to the fact that investors are keenly interested in dividend-paying stocks,” the report said.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

Free yourself from anger and desire, which are the causes of sin and conflict,

and thereby make yourself whole.  This is the essence of yoga;

this is the means by which you come to know the soul, and thereby attain the highest spiritual state.

Learn to meditate.  Close your eyes; calm your breathing; and focus your attention

on the center of consciousness.  Thus you will master the senses, the emotions, and the intellect –

and thereby free yourself from desire and anger.

The Bhagavad Gita

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,

but the parent of all the other virtues.

-Cicero, 106 BC-43 BC

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times.
– Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

photos of the day

February 13, 2012

A woman lights a candle in front of the famous 18th century Frauenkirche cathedral, Church of Our Lady, to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden during WWII, in Dresden, Germany. British and US bombers destroyed Dresden’s centuries-old baroque city center from Feb. 13-14, 1945.

Jens Meyer/AP

A man looks at Marc Chagall’s paintings during a media presentation of the exhibition ‘Chagall’ at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.

Susana Vera/Reuters

Market Closes for February 13, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12874.04	+72.81 +0.57%
	S&P 500	1351.77	+9.13 +0.68%
	NASDAQ	2931.39	+27.51 +0.95%
	TSX	12398.69	+9.27 +0.07%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 8999.18 +52.01 -0.58% HANG SENG 20887.40 +103.54   +0.50% SENSEX 17772.84 +24.15 +0.14% FTSE 100 5905.70 +53.31 +0.91% CAC 40 3384.55 +11.41 +0.34% DAX 6768.47 +45.51 +0.68% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.072	2.046
CDN. 30 year bond	2.638	2.614
U.S. 10-year bond	1.9741	1.9723
U.S. 30-year bond	3.1202	3.1258

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99928	0.99790
US $	1.00072	1.00210

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.31772	0.75889
US $	1.31678	0.75948

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1723.00	1723.30

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	100.80	98.98

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Katia Porzecanski

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, led by energy and financial companies, after Greece approved austerity plans to secure rescue funds. Mining companies’ shares fell as the bailout measure eroded the appeal of gold as a haven.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the metal, lost 0.6 percent, while Goldcorp Inc., the second-biggest producer by market value, fell 0.5 percent. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals company, fell 2.3 percent as copper declined on concern demand from China may falter. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-biggest energy company by market value, rose 1.1 percent as oil recovered from a three-day low on concern sanctions against Iran will crimp supply.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index gained 9.3 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,398.69 in Toronto.

“The fact that they took the bitter pill and are going to accept the austerity is puts to bed the uncertainty that the market always has trouble dealing with,” Barry Schwartz, a money manager at Baskin Financial Services Inc. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$400 million

($400 million). “Today was another one of those days where Canadian markets seem to lag and seem not to be paying attention to the news around the world. It should’ve been a much more positive day.”

The index snapped a seven-week rally last week on concern that plans to help Greece avoid default were unraveling and industrial production growth would slow in China. The index has gained 3.7 percent this year through today as falling U.S.

unemployment signaled Canada’s biggest trade partner was weathering the European debt crisis.

Financial companies rallied with global shares as Germany and the European Commission welcomed Greek approval of the austerity steps demanded for a financial lifeline, suggesting European finance chiefs will pull Greece back from the brink when they meet in two days.

Bank of Nova Scotia, the country’s third-largest lender by assets, gained 0.3 percent to C$52.47. Manulife Financial Corp., the country’s biggest insurer, advanced 2 percent to C$11.98.

Oil rallied on concern that Iranian crude supplies will be disrupted. Companies controlling more than 100 supertankers said they would stop loading cargoes from Iran, tightening sanctions on OPEC’s second-biggest producer.

Canadian Natural Resources rose 1.1 percent to C$38.17.

Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest partner in Syncrude Canada Ltd., rallied 2.7 percent to C$22.59. Nexen Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations on five continents, gained 1.7 percent to C$22.59.

The S&P/TSX Gold Index fell for a seventh straight day as the chance Greece will win another international bailout improved and eroded the appeal of the precious metal.

“Ever since the resolution of austerity measures in Greece and Europe, people are looking at whether there will be more easing,” Timothy Lazaris, chief executive officer of Red Sky Capital Management Ltd. in Toronto, which oversees C$54 million

($54 million), said in a telephone interview. “There would’ve been a view that the answer is yes, which would’ve been good for gold, and now I think the market’s turned the sentiment negative.”

Goldcorp declined 0.5 percent to C$45.70. Great Basin Gold Ltd., a prospector with operations in South Africa and Nevada, fell 4.1 percent to 94 Canadian cents.

Barrick lost 0.6 percent to C$47.97. The company plans to sell its 20 percent stake in Highland Gold Mining Ltd., the Russian miner part-owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich’s Millhouse Capital, after output stagnated.

Copper fell for a second day as climbing stockpiles signaled slackening demand in China, the world’s biggest metals consumer.

Mercator Minerals Ltd., an operator of an Arizona mine, declined 3.4 percent to C$1.69. Copper and zinc producer Inmet Mining Corp. slipped 3.3 percent to C$65.77.

Teck fell 2.3 percent to C$39.30. The zinc and coal producer may have bought a 2.89 percent stake in Fortescue for

A$480 million ($515 million), the Australian Financial Review reported, citing unidentified people. Marcia Smith, a spokeswoman for Teck, declined to comment on the report, citing company policy.

Pulp producer Canfor Pulp Products Inc. rose 4.7 percent to C$13.40. The company was raised to “outperform” from “market perform” at Raymond James Ltd., with a 12-month price estimate of C$17. Consumption of paper products will continue to grow with Chinese income, Daryl Swetlishoff, an analyst at Raymond James, said in a report.

Alliance Grain Traders Inc., which calls itself the world’s largest lentil and pea splitter, fell 5.5 percent to C$16.70.

The company was lowered to “sector perform” from “sector outperform” at Scotia Capital Inc, with a 12-month price estimate of C$22.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, after the first weekly loss for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in 2012, as Greece approved austerity plans to secure rescue funds.

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Caterpillar Inc. increased at least 1.7 percent to lead gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Apple Inc. climbed 1.9 percent to trade above $500 for the first time. Chesapeake Energy Corp.

added 2.4 percent after the natural-gas driller said it’s targeting as much as $12 billion in asset sales and joint ventures this year. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. surged 3.4 percent after being raised at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.7 percent to 1,351.77 at 4 p.m. New York time. The Dow increased 72.81 points, or 0.6 percent, to 12,874.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1 percent to 2,931.39, the highest level since 2000. The Russell 2000 Index of small companies climbed 1.4 percent to 824.81.

“This has been a risk-on rally,” Mike Ryan, the New York- based chief investment strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said in a telephone interview. “The fact that the Greek Parliament was able to push through the austerity measures was widely expected. This eliminates one of the stumbling blocks, but it doesn’t solve the Greek issue. Our view is that Greece is going to struggle to make payments going forward.”

Today’s rally put the S&P 500 less than 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. The index has climbed 7.5 percent in 2012, on expectations the global economy will withstand the impact of the euro area’s debt crisis.

Global stocks gained today as Germany and the European Commission welcomed Greek approval of the austerity steps demanded for a financial lifeline, suggesting euro finance chiefs will pull Greece back from the brink when they meet in two days.

“I’m confident that the other conditions, including for instance the identification of the concrete measures of 325 million euros ($430 million), will be completed by the next meeting” of finance ministers, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index of companies most-tied to the economy gained 1.1 percent. Caterpillar, the largest construction and mining-equipment maker, rose 1.7 percent to $113.70. The KBW Bank Index added 0.8 percent as 19 of its 24 stocks advanced. Bank of America rose 2.2 percent to $8.25.

JPMorgan advanced 1.8 percent to $38.30.

Apple added 1.9 percent to $502.60, after rallying for four straight weeks. On Jan. 24, the largest technology company reported quarterly profit that more than doubled. Its earnings are expanding so fast that even with the rally, the shares are trading at less than half their median valuation since 1990, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The gain since Apple reported results is almost four times as large as the advance in the Nasdaq 100 Index.

“It reminds us all of the amazing transformation of Apple over the past eight years,” Timothy Ghriskey, who oversees $2 billion as chief investment officer of Solaris Group LLC in Bedford Hills, New York, said in a telephone interview today.

“We think the stock has higher to go, $600 is next,” he said.

Chesapeake added 2.4 percent to $22.66. The sales will help the company reduce debt and fund its drilling operations as it faces gas prices that hit a 10-year low in New York last month.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon has vowed to cut long-term debt 25 percent by year end as the company reduces output.

Advanced Micro Devices surged 3.4 percent to $7.29. The maker of processors for personal computers was raised to “outperform” from “market perform” at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped 12 percent, the most in the Russell 1000 Index, to $114.65 as the company raised its sales forecast for the eye drug Eylea to exceed analyst estimates.

First Solar Inc. tumbled 5 percent, the biggest decline in the S&P 500, to $41.72 after being downgraded to “hold” from “buy” at Brigantine Advisors.

AmerisourceBergen Corp. sank 3.6 percent to $37.21. The drug distributor said Chief Financial Officer Michael DiCandilo left the company. The company was cut to “neutral” from “outperform” at Robert W. Baird & Co.

U.S. stocks may extend gains this year and mirror the performance of 1995, when the S&P 500 rallied 34 percent even after Mexico devalued its currency and Treasury yields dropped, Laszlo Birinyi said.

Improved investor sentiment, central-bank actions and optimism that U.S. economic data will beat estimates, will sustain gains even after the best January for the S&P 500 since 1997, the president of Birinyi Associates Inc. in Westport, Connecticut, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today.

“We still think you should buy stocks,” the fund manager said in London. “It’s a continuation of the bull market and we’re encouraged by what we are seeing in Europe. I look at the markets, I find they are strong. There’s real buying going on.

This is not short-covering or a temporary or transitory thing.”

The fund manager reiterated recommendations to buy General Motors Co., Research In Motion Ltd., Hermes International, People’s United Financial Inc. and BlackRock Inc.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

An animal, a child and an ignoramus are slaves to their desires.

They want to satisfy them immediately, whatever the time, the place or the circumstances…

How can a man be distinguished from them?  Before satisfying his desires, a man takes into account the time,

the place and the circumstances, because he is trying to achieve an aim.

-Swami Prajnanpad, 1891-1974

As ever,

 

Carolann

Don’t cry because it’s over.

Smile because it happened.

-Theodore Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

I love the feedback I get from all of you.  After I mentioned the new Leonard Cohen CD in my newsletter last night, one of my clients sent this to me:

 

Carolann –

This is a stream of Leonard Cohen’s new album – maybe pass along – pretty cool…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jan/23/leonard-cohen-old-ideas-stream?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

photos of the day

February 10, 2012

Marco Pichlmayer of Austria soars through the air during official training ahead of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

Devotees walk around candles stuck to jars of honey, forming a Holy Cross shape, during mass for the ‘sanctification of honey’ at the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin church in the town of Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Honey and beehives are sanctified by performing a ritual for health and rich harvest, marking the day of St. Haralampus, Orthodox patron saint of bee-keepers.

Valentina Petrova/AP

 

Market Closes for February 10, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12801.23	-89.23 -0.69%
	S&P 500	1342.64	-9.31 -0.69%
	NASDAQ	2903.88	-23.35 +0.8%
	TSX	12389.42	-108.52 -0.87%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 8947.17 -55.07 -0.61% HANG SENG 20783.86 -226.15   -1.08% SENSEX 17748.69 -82.06 +0.46% FTSE 100 5852.39 -43.08 -0.73% CAC 40 3373.14 -51.57 -1.51% DAX 6692.96 -95.84 -1.41% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.046	2.092
CDN. 30 year bond	2.614	2.651
U.S. 10-year bond	1.9723	2.0364
U.S. 30-year bond	3.1258	3.1803

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99790	0.99538
US $	1.00210	1.00464

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.32239	0.75621
US $	1.31962	0.75780

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1723.30	1732.70

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	98.98	99.77

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Katia Porzecanski

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, completing the first weekly decline this year, as oil and metals slumped on concern that plans to help Greece avoid default were unraveling.

Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s largest oil and gas producer, fell 2.1 percent as oil dropped from a three-week high. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal company, sank 1.4 percent and Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, lost 1.3 percent as the U.S. dollar strengthened, curbing demand for commodities. Manulife Financial Corp., the country’s biggest insurer, fell 1.1 percent after an analyst recommended selling the shares.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index lost 108.52 points, or 0.9 percent, to 12,389.42 in Toronto, for its first weekly decline since Dec. 16 with a loss of 1.5 percent.

“The fear of the market is that this is the first time you’ve heard something about a strong pushback from the Greek side,” Marcus Xu, director of equity investments at Genus Capital Management in Vancouver, said in a telephone interview.

The firm oversees about C$1.7 billion ($1.7 billion). “The market seems to worry that this could be the start of a whole bunch of negative news coming out.’

Canadian raw materials and energy companies fell earlier this week as China said industrial production growth is likely to slow this quarter and the U.S reported a bigger-than-forecast increase in gasoline supplies. The index had capped its longest streak of weekly gains since April 2009 on Feb. 3, as falling U.S. unemployment signaled Canada’s biggest trade partner was weathering the European debt crisis.

Global equities fell today as emergency talks of euro-area finance chiefs broke up with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean- Claude Juncker saying Greece must turn its budget cuts into law, flesh out 325 million euros in spending reductions and get the endorsement of major party leaders. George Karatzaferis, the leader of one of the three parties backing interim Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, said he wouldn’t support austerity measures.

Mining companies fell as gold and copper retreated. Copper shipments to China fell for the first time in eight months in January, while inventories monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange advanced to a record after rising for a ninth straight week.

First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, declined 2.5 percent to C$21.28. Romarco Minerals Inc., which is developing a gold project in South Carolina, lost 2.6 percent to C$1.14. Barrick fell 1.3 percent to C$48.25. Teck Resources fell 1.4 percent to C$40.24.

Copper and zinc producer Inmet Mining Corp. fell 2.5 percent to C$68.02 after reporting earnings that missed analysts’ estimates.

Energy companies sank for a fifth day, the longest losing streak since Nov. 25, as oil dropped from a three-week high on concern that the European debt crisis will reduce fuel demand.

Suncor lost 2.1 percent to C$33.87. Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd., the majority owner of PetroBakken Energy Ltd., fell 3.5 percent to C$14.74. Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest partner in Syncrude Canada Ltd., dropped 2.7 percent to C$22.

Manulife lost 1.1 percent to C$11.75. Ohad Lederer, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research, cut the shares to ‘‘sell” from “buy.”

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., Canada’s largest construction and engineering company, sank 5 percent to C$50.90 after the departure of two executives who were linked in a report in the Globe & Mail to the family of deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Fibrek Inc. surged 17 percent to C$1.32 after Mercer International Inc. agreed to purchase the pulp maker for C$1.30 in a board-supported takeover bid.

Thomson Reuters Corp. fell 2.6 percent to C$26.66. The provider of news and information services was lowered to “buy” from “action list buy” by Vince Valentini, an equity analyst at TD Newcrest Inc., with a 12-month price target of C$33.

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters in selling financial and legal information and trading systems.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, snapping a five- week-rally for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, on concern that plans to help Greece avoid default were unraveling and as confidence among American consumers dropped more than forecast.

Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. retreated more than 1.3 percent to pace declines among financial companies.

Commodity producers slumped as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Alcoa Inc. and Halliburton Co. decreased at least 1.9 percent. First Solar Inc., the biggest maker of thin-film solar panels, tumbled 10 percent after permitting issues delayed a U.S. loan guarantee for a power plant in California.

The S&P 500 declined 0.7 percent to 1,342.64 as of 4 p.m.

New York time, the most since Dec. 28. The benchmark gauge has fallen 0.2 percent since Feb. 3, snapping the longest weekly rally since January 2011. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 89.23 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,801.23 today.

“We’ve had a flip-flop that triggered global selling,” Frederic Dickson, who helps oversee $28 billion as chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon, said in a telephone interview. “Investors are responding to the sudden change in direction or the lack of resolution of the Greek/European problem that they felt was resolved.”

Global equities tumbled after George Karatzaferis, who heads one of the three parties supporting interim Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, said he wouldn’t support austerity measures worked out for a rescue. He spoke hours after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers in Berlin that Greece was missing deficit targets. S&P downgraded 34 Italian banks after reducing the nation’s grade last month.

Stocks extended losses as the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment dropped to 72.5 from 75 in January. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for 74.8. The gauge averaged 89 in the five years leading to the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009.

Today’s slump followed a three-day rally that yesterday put the S&P 500 less than 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008.

The benchmark gauge is up 6.8 percent this year as companies reported earnings that beat analysts’ estimates while better- than-expected data on manufacturing and employment bolstered optimism about the world’s largest economy.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index dropped 1.2 percent amid concern about global economic growth. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 1 percent. All 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell as commodity, financial and industrial shares had the biggest declines.

The KBW Bank Index slid 1.3 percent as all of its 24 stocks retreated. Citigroup sank 2.2 percent to $32.93. Bank of America lost 1.3 percent to $8.07.

Concern that Europe’s debt crisis may curb global economic growth also drove energy and raw material producers lower.

Copper shipments to China fell in January, the first drop in eight months, while inventories monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange advanced for the ninth straight week to a record.

Freeport-McMoRan, the world’s largest publicly traded copper producer, sank 3.2 percent to $44.94. Alcoa erased 3.3 percent to $10.29. Halliburton fell 1.9 percent to $36.06.

First Solar tumbled 10 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $43.91. Exelon Corp. purchased the 230-megawatt Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One for $75 million in September, and the Tempe, Arizona-based solar company will have to buy it back if the project cannot win final construction permits and qualify for the $646 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee, First Solar said yesterday in a regulatory filing.

“First Solar will not be able to recognize revenues from AVSR construction unless a sale is completed and funded,” Dan Ries, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said today in a note to clients. He reduced his rating to “neutral” from “buy.”

Apollo Global Management LLC dropped 6.1 percent to $14.40.

The private equity firm that went public last year said fourth- quarter profit fell 66 percent as market swings hurt its private equity holdings.

NYSE Euronext rose 4.5 percent, the biggest gain in the S&P 500, to $28.94. Excluding some items, fourth-quarter earnings were 50 cents a share, beating the 48-cent average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The operator of the New York Stock Exchange is preparing to discuss its standalone strategy with shareholders after being blocked last week from merging with Deutsche Boerse AG.

LinkedIn Corp. surged 18 percent to $89.96. The biggest professional-networking website reported quarterly sales that more than doubled and forecast higher 2012 revenue, buoyed by advertising and subscriptions.

BlackRock Inc.’s Laurence D. Fink, who urged investors this week to put all their money in equities, said his call was aimed at getting cash back into the capital markets.

“It’s important to get cash off the sidelines and back into the markets so people can get the returns they need and we can get our economies moving again,” Fink, chief executive officer of the world’s largest asset-management firm, told BlackRock employees in Beijing yesterday. “Obviously, everyone needs a portfolio tailored to their risk-tolerance and goals; one size doesn’t fit all,” Fink said, according to a transcript of the comments obtained by Bloomberg News.

Comments by Fink that yields from traditional bonds are too low to provide meaningful returns for investors have been echoed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who said yesterday that bonds are among the “most dangerous of assets.” The Federal Reserve has kept borrowing costs near zero, and said last month that economic conditions may warrant “exceptionally low” interest rates through 2014.

“Too many people are underweight equities, and one of things I’m trying to do is to get people to think about the opportunities they’re missing, with valuations at these levels,” Fink said in Beijing.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plain living and high thinking

the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.  Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness

and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things

cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the

earth all one’s lifetime.

-Mark Twain, 1835-1910

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

 

Dear Friends,

 

Tangents:

I mentioned in my newsletter last night about seeing Michaël Jean on Tuesday evening in Vancouver.  Another poignant moment in the evening was when she was asked who was the person she most admired in the world.  Without a moment’s hesitation she answered, “a person with courage.”  I  thought of that this morning when I read that the last World War I veteran has died at the age of 110.  I’m reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain right now, and is the tale of the love story between Ernest Hemmingway and Hadley Richardson.  They met in Chicago just after WW I, and it is a story about life during the 1920’s and the effect the great war had on the world and in its aftermath.

If you haven’t heard the new Leonard Cohen CD – Old Ideas –  yet I highly recommend you pick it up.  It is full of amazing lyrics.  There are 10 terrific songs, from Going Home, Darkness, Anyhow to name a few.   You will love the poetry of his words.

The Starbucks’ barista gave me a little sample of their new blonde roast coffee which they introduced in Canada on Monday.  It is very mild, but apparently has a higher caffeine content than dark roast coffee.  It comes from central and south America.  It’s apparently attracting a lot of buzz…

photos of the day

February 9, 2012

Lava flows down the mountain during an eruption of Mt. Etna, a volcano near Catania, Sicily, in the early hours of the day. The lava flowed on the snow toward a desert valley and did not pose a threat to the inhabited area.

Carmelo Imbesi/AP

A surfer cuts off the top of a wave while surfing just south of the Huntington Beach Pier in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Mark Rightmire/The Orange County Register/AP

 

Market Closes for February 9, 2012:

North American Markets

	Market Index	Close	Change
	Dow Jones	12890.46	+6.51 +0.05%
	S&P 500	1351.95	+1.99 +0.15%
	NASDAQ	2927.23	+11.37 +0.39%
	TSX	12497.94	-23.08 -0.18%
International Markets   Close Change NIKKEI 9002.24 -13.35 -0.15% HANG SENG 21010.01 -8.45   -0.04% SENSEX 17830.75 +123.43 +0.70% FTSE 100 5895.47 +19.54 +0.33% CAC 40 3424.71 +14.71 +0.43% DAX 6788.80 +40.04 +0.59% Bonds

 

Bonds	%Yield	Previous %Yield
CDN. 10 year bond	2.092	2.066
CDN. 30 year bond	2.651	2.642
U.S. 10-year bond	2.0364	1.9822
U.S. 30-year bond	3.1803	3.1509

 

Currencies

 

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.99538	0.99693
US $	1.00464	1.00308

 

Euro  Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.32148	0.75673
US $	1.32761	0.75324

 

Commodities

 

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1732.70	1729.30

 

Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	99.77	98.71

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell after BCE Inc.’s failure to match analysts’ earnings estimates and a drop in wheat futures outweighed an agreement among Greek leaders on austerity measures.

BCE, Canada’s largest phone company, dropped 3 percent.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s biggest fertilizer producer by market value, slipped 1.1 percent as wheat futures retreated the most in four weeks after the U.S.

forecast a record world supply of the grain. Canadian Tire Corp., the country’s largest general-goods retailer, rallied 4.2 percent after beating the average analyst profit estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index slipped 23.08 points, or 0.2 percent, to 12,497.94.

“With Greece, I think they forced an agreement so there could be a nice press conference, but nothing is really settled,” Stephen Gauthier, a money manager at Fin-XO Securities in Montreal, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$600 million ($600 million). “If it had been that Germany is guaranteeing everything, that would have pleased the market.”

The index gained 4.7 percent this year through yesterday as U.S. unemployment dropped to a three-year low, overshadowing the European debt crisis. Seventy-five percent of Canada’s exports went to the U.S. in 2010, according to Statistics Canada.

BCE fell 3 percent, the most since December 2009, to

C$39.62 after its fourth-quarter profit missed the average analyst estimate by 5.5 percent, excluding certain items. The company hadn’t trailed analysts’ earnings forecasts by so much since the second quarter of 2008, according to Bloomberg data.

Potash Corp. dropped 1.1 percent to C$45.79. Wheat inventories on May 31 will be 6.2 percent higher than a year earlier, the U.S. Agriculture Department said today. Most analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a decrease.

The S&P/TSX Energy Index retreated for a fourth day after Suncor Energy Inc. shut down an operating unit at an oil-sands refinery in Edmonton, Alberta. The discount for oil from the Syncrude oil-sands project to West Texas Intermediate crude climbed to a record this week.

Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., which, like Suncor, owns part of the Syncrude project, fell 4.2 percent to C$22.61, a fifth straight drop. Penn West Petroleum Ltd., a western Canadian oil and gas producer, lost 2.1 percent to C$21.48. Suncor slipped

0.3 percent to C$34.59.

Manulife Financial Inc., North America’s fourth-largest insurer, slumped 1.9 percent to C$11.88 after saying its chief financial officer, Michael Bell, will leave the company to return to Philadelphia, where he lived before joining Manulife in 2009. “This is far from a positive as Michael had shown a very firm grasp on the company’s operations and, in our view, will be difficult to replace,” John Aiken, an analyst at Barclays Plc, wrote in a note to clients.

Canadian Tire rose 4.2 percent to C$66.15 after reporting fourth-quarter profit that surpassed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey by 10 percent, excluding certain items. Irene Nattel, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, raised her 12-month price estimate on the shares to C$85 from C$76.

Gildan Activewear Inc., Canada’s largest clothing maker, jumped 7.7 percent, the most since December 2009, to C$23.86.

The company reported a smaller first-quarter loss than it had forecast in December.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. fell for the first time in seven days after closing at the highest price relative to earnings since at least 2002 yesterday. CP dropped 1.7 percent to C$75.25. The shares soared 66 percent from Sept. 22 to yesterday as William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP bought a stake in the company and began a campaign to oust Chief Executive Officer Fred Green.

Lake Shore Gold Corp., which mines in Ontario, rallied 12 percent to C$1.55 after saying Franco-Nevada Corp. agreed to invest in and buy a royalty from the company.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index higher for a third day, as Greek political leaders struck a deal on a package of austerity measures needed to secure international rescue funds.

Technology shares had the biggest gain among 10 industries in the S&P 500, adding 1 percent. Akamai Technologies Inc., the operator of a server network that lets businesses speed data delivery, and Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, advanced at least 3.7 percent as earnings topped analysts’

projections. United Technologies Corp. rallied 2.5 percent as it is said to be studying the sale of a pumps business.

The S&P 500 increased 0.2 percent to 1,351.95 as of 4 p.m.

New York time. The benchmark gauge declined as much as 0.4 percent earlier today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced

6.51 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,890.46. The Russell 2000 Index of small companies lost 0.4 percent to 824.99.

“I’d expect a better performance for stocks,” said Peter Jankovskis, who helps manage about $2.6 billion at Oakbrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois. “If the EU can show that they can deal with a small country with a big problem, then investors may be reassured that some of the larger countries with smaller problems can also be handled.”

Equities rallied around the world after Greece’s government reached a deal on austerity measures required for a 130 billion- euro ($173 billion) financing package. Greece faces a 14.5 billion-euro bond payment on March 20 and is struggling to secure financing to avert a collapse of the economy that could spark a new round of contagion in the euro area.

Today’s gain put the S&P 500 less than 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. The benchmark gauge climbed 7.5 percent this year, as companies reported earnings that beat analysts’

estimates while better-than-expected data on manufacturing and employment bolstered optimism about the world’s largest economy.

A rally in stocks has pushed market momentum and breadth to levels that suggest any imminent retreat in the S&P 500 will be limited to 3 percent, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Michael Krauss, head of technical research at JPMorgan in New York, this week boosted the higher end of his 2012 forecast for the S&P 500 to 1,440, from a November projection of 1,350, after the market had its best start of a year since 1991. While prices may have risen too fast, any pullback will attract investors who missed the rally, limiting the decline, he said.

“There is no setup right now that to me would suggest a 5-

to-10 percent correction is imminent,” Krauss said in a note today. “There is nothing worse than underperforming a rising market. Hence, we see 2-to-3 percent corrective ‘non-crisis’

pullbacks will find buyers.”

Akamai jumped 11 percent, the biggest gain in the S&P 500, to $38.06. The company, whose customers include Apple Inc., is benefiting from rising demand for its services as companies seek ways to push data-heavy digital content, such as videos, around the world more quickly.

Visa rallied 3.8 percent to $112.42, a record. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joseph W. Saunders is positioning Visa for its next phase of growth after U.S. regulators capped so- called swipe fees, or interchange, that the company charges merchants for debit-card purchases. Visa, which derived about 56 percent of revenue from the U.S. in fiscal 2011, has said it intends to generate more than half from markets abroad by 2015.

United Technologies gained 2.5 percent to $83.78. It is studying the sale of a pump- and compressor-making division to raise cash for the planned purchase of aerospace supplier Goodrich Corp., people with knowledge of the matter said. John Moran, a United Technologies spokesman, declined to comment.

The KBW Bank Index fell 0.3 percent as 18 of its 24 stocks retreated. Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan and three other U.S.

banks reached a $25 billion settlement with 49 states and the U.S. government to end a probe of abusive foreclosure practices stemming from the collapse of the housing bubble. Bank of America added 0.6 percent to $8.18. JPMorgan lost 1.2 percent to $37.86. Citigroup Inc. retreated 1.7 percent to $33.66.

Cisco Systems Inc. slumped 2.1 percent, the most in the Dow, to $20. The biggest maker of networking equipment predicted a third-quarter revenue gain of 5 percent to 7 percent. That equates to about $11.4 billion to $11.6 billion, compared with an average estimate of $11.5 billion. Excluding some costs, earnings will be 45 cents to 47 cents a share. Analysts had projected 45 cents.

PepsiCo Inc. fell 3.7 percent to $64.27. The company plans to cut 8,700 jobs and boost marketing spending for its brands by as much as $600 million as Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi works to turn around the world’s largest snack-food maker.

Groupon Inc. sank 14 percent to $21.17. The largest daily- deal site reported a tax-related fourth-quarter loss that analysts hadn’t predicted. Groupon, based in Chicago, has expanded to 47 countries and set up a new international headquarters in Switzerland. That contributed to a higher-than- expected $34.8 million in taxes, Chief Financial Officer Jason Child said.

As global stocks return to a bull market, the losers in the U.S. are companies least tied to economic growth.

For the first time since 1999, S&P 500 utilities, phone companies and providers of consumer staples posted the only monthly losses, slumping at least 1.5 percent with dividends in January, and continued to lag behind this month. It’s a reversal from 2011, when the three defensive industries returned more than 6.3 percent as investors embraced stocks thought to do well during a slowdown.

Investors are shifting toward riskier assets as U.S.

manufacturing expanded the most since June and the jobless rate fell to a three-year low of 8.3 percent. In 2011, the global equity measure suffered its biggest losses since the subprime- mortgage crisis.

“Last year, investors tended to hide in things which are stable, paying reasonable dividends,” said Sudhir Nanda, a money manager and head of the quantitative equity group at T.

Rowe Price Group Inc. in Baltimore, which oversees $489.5 billion. “This year, people looked at the U.S. and said, ‘Things are not really that bad.’ If the economy is humming, people tend to buy more of the sectors which will profit from growth, industrials, materials and things like that.”

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

To understand pleasure is not to deny it.

We are not condemning it or saying it is right or wrong but if we pursue it, let us do so with our eyes open, knowing that a mind that is all the time seeking pleasure must inevitably find its shadow in pain.

They cannot be separated, although we run after pleasure and try to avoid pain.

-Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather

the judgment that something else is more

important than fear.

-Ambrose Redmoon, 1933-1996

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor