Author: Carolann

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
February 27,1932: The neutron is discovered.  English physicist James Chadwick was later awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
February 27, 1997: Legislation banning most handguns in Britain went into effect.  Go to article >>

Henry W. Longfellow, b.1807
Rudolph Steiner, philosopher, b.1861.
Joanne Woodward, actress, b. 1930
Elizabeth Taylor, actress, b.1932
Ralph Nader, b.1934.

Mexico City could be just months away from running out of drinking water
Record droughts have been draining Mexico City’s aquifers faster than they can be replenished, placing the city at risk of severe water shortages. Read More.

‘Finally, we have the evidence’: James Webb telescope spots neutron star hiding in wreckage of famous 1987 supernova
A neutron star spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope stayed hidden for 37 years while lurking in the wreckage of a stellar explosion, Supernova 1987A. Read More.

1st US spacecraft on moon in 50 years tipped over and face-planted near a crater
Despite tipping over, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus spacecraft has still completed the key tasks of its mission.
Full Story: Live Science (2/26)

Owner of real ‘Saltburn’ house inundated with visitors
A TikToker recently showed viewers where to find the real house featured in the hit movie “Saltburn.” Now, the property owner said he’s been forced to hire extra security as crowds of people are showing up.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

London, UK
Self-portrait at the Crossroads Between the Arts of Music and Painting, by Angelica Kauffman, 1794. A new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London explores the Swiss painter’s life and work
Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock

Suqian, China
Hongze Lake is the fifth-largest freshwater lake in China, and a scenic spot in Jiangsu province
Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

​​​​​​​Barcelona, Spain
People play a video game with virtual reality headsets at the Mobile World Congress
Photograph: Bruna Casas/Reuters

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38972.41	-96.82
		-0.25%
S&P 500	5078.18	+8.65
		+0.17%
NASDAQ	16035.30	+59.05
		+0.37%
TSX	21318.90	-5.41
		-0.03%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39239.52	+5.81
		+0.01%
HANG SENG	16790.80	+156.06
		+0.94%
SENSEX	73095.22	+305.09
		+0.42%
FTSE 100*	7683.02	-1.28
		-0.02%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.553	3.493
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.414	3.353
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3032	4.2795
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4269	4.3942

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7391	0.7405
US $	1.3530	1.3504

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4674	0.6815
US $	1.0845	0.9221

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2027.20	2027.45
Oil
WTI Crude Future	78.87	77.58

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1891, David Sarnoff, future president of Radio Corp. of America and the greatest visionary of the radio and television industries, was born in Uzlian, Russia.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 21,318.90 in Toronto.
Bank of Montreal contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 3.6%.
Africa Oil Corp. had the largest drop, falling 8.3%.
Today, 73 of 225 shares fell, while 143 rose; 4 of 11 sectors were lower, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 1.4%
* The index advanced 5.2% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 27% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.6% below its 52-week high on Feb. 26, 2024 and 14.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.5% in the past 5 days and rose 0.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6 on a trailing basis and 17.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.38t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 12.27% compared with 12.40% in the previous session and the average of 10.18% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -24.2145| -0.4| 16/10
Industrials | -6.6525| -0.2| 15/11
Information Technology | -5.6194| -0.3| 7/3
Materials | -2.5819| -0.1| 27/22
Real Estate | 0.2991| 0.1| 10/8
Utilities | 0.8597| 0.1| 11/4
Health Care | 1.2522| 1.9| 4/0
Consumer Staples | 2.7296| 0.3| 8/3
Communication Services | 3.4707| 0.5| 5/0
Consumer Discretionary | 4.5278| 0.6| 10/3
Energy | 20.4942| 0.6| 30/9
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Bank of Montreal | -22.7800| -3.6| 135.9| -6.7
RBC | -10.7900| -0.8| 6.2| -2.1
Shopify | -9.3530| -1.1| -32.6| 0.5
Magna Intl | 3.8170| 2.9| 114.6| -5.4
Brookfield Corp | 7.3980| 1.3| 75.8| 5.0
Bank of Nova Scotia| 17.1100| 3.2| 241.5| 2.2
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street saw another busy session of bond sales as issuers looked to borrow before key economic data later this week.
Treasuries were mixed after a $42 billion auction of seven-year notes and a heavy slate of new corporate debt.
Seven more issuers came forward to sell US investment-grade bonds, building off Monday’s surge that saw the most deals in a single day so far this year.
Investors are contending with an erosion in expectations for how much the Federal Reserve will lower rates and an onslaught of new corporate issuance that has given yield-seeking investors ample alternatives.
Traders no longer expect the Fed to cut rates by more than 75 basis points in 2024, bringing their view in line with what policymakers have indicated as the likeliest outcome.
“We continue to recommend investors act soon to lock in currently attractive bond yields,” said Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management. “We particularly like the five-year duration segment of quality bonds, as this part of the yield curve offers the best combination of high yields, stability, and sensitivity to falling interest-rate expectations.”
Shorter-term Treasuries outperformed longer ones.
The S&P 500 edged higher.
Mega-caps were mixed, with Apple Inc. up and Nvidia Corp. down.
Macy’s Inc. climbed on plans to close almost a third of its namesake US locations.
Chevron Corp. and Hess Corp. slipped after Exxon Mobil Corp. said it’s considering a move that could break up the companies’ $53 billion merger and increase its share of Guyana’s giant offshore oil reserves.
Bitcoin hovered near $57,000.
Traders refrained from making big bets ahead of Thursday’s inflation data and a parade of central bank speakers.
Fed Governor Michelle Bowman repeated her expectation that inflation will continue to decline further with interest rates held at their current level — but said it’s too soon to begin rate cuts — joining a raft of officials stressing they’re in no rush to lower borrowing costs.
The personal consumption expenditures price index will likely validate that stance and possibly further diminish market expectations for a rate cut in the coming months.
“Because market expectations for a Fed cut this quarter have already reset, we don’t anticipate strong volatility resulting from this data print,” said Lauren Goodwin at New York Life Investments. “However, since market activity is likely to be heavily driven by interest-rate expectations for the foreseeable future, we are watching closely for any surprises.”
To Yung-Yu Ma at BMO Wealth Management, while the equity market seems due for a pause and a consolidation of its recent gains, key PCE inflation data could be the next short-term catalyst for the market, as investors are looking for additional data to help confirm if inflation is truly re-accelerating.
“This is a ‘teflon’ stock market, which has shown a remarkable ability to shake off bad news and focus on what is positive,” he noted. “Nothing bad has been able to stick to the markets for long – such as upside surprises in inflation data and delayed Fed rate cut expectations.”
Calm stock markets have dampened demand for hedges tied to the S&P 500.
The three-month 25-delta put skew – a measure of the price of put options relative to equivalent calls – dropped to its lowest level since 2006, underscoring the limited demand for hedging against declines, and the fear of missing out on further rallies.
Barclays Plc was the latest bank to ramp up its year-end target on the S&P 500 — following increases from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS Group AG, and Piper Sandler & Co. Strategists led by Venu Krishna boost forecast on US equity benchmark to 5,300 from 4,800.
“The US economy continues to defy rates headwinds in 2024, much as mega​-​cap tech continues to defy even the most bullish earnings targets,” they wrote.
Indeed, the “Magnificent Seven” group of tech mega-caps saw its average earnings per share rise 55% in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Most of that group has helped power the Nasdaq 100 to a record high and its fourth consecutive monthly gain.
S&P 500 companies are headed for their highest quarterly earnings beat rate since the fourth quarter of 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence strategists Gina Martin Adams and Wendy Soong.
With more than 90% of S&P 500 companies having reported results, the gauge is on track for 7.7% year-on-year earnings per share growth, blowing past the pre-season forecast for 1.2%.
To Kristina Hooper at Invesco, there is a perception that the US stock market is trading at very lofty valuations.
While it is true that the S&P 500 is at an above-average price-to-earnings ratio, much of that is driven by just a few stocks, she noted.
“The good news is that this narrow group of stocks — dubbed the “Magnificent Seven” — have been meeting the high expectations set for them,” Hooper said. “Given their collective performance, valuations for the Magnificent Seven remain elevated compared to the broader US equity market, but their earnings growth is expected to be almost five times that of the remaining 493 stocks in the S&P 500 over the next years.”
“This isn’t ‘irrational exuberance’ — it’s more like ‘rational exuberance,’ she concluded.
Matt Maley at Miller Tabak has a word of caution.
He says that after the big run in equities, the market is showing signs of froth.
While that doesn’t mean stocks will roll over in a big way soon, it is a reason for investors to avoid being too complacent.
“The stock market could easily continue to advance,” Maley noted. “However, we believe that it’s important for investors to remain nimble and to have a plan in place — in advance — for what they will do if some sort of significant ‘surprise’ creates a big increase in volatility at some point in the coming months.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Viking Therapeutics Inc. more than doubled after results from a mid-stage trial suggested the biotech company may field a viable competitor to weight-loss drugs from Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S.
* Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. climbed after issuing guidance ahead of expectations amid strong demand for its sailings.
* Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. ended its pursuit of a merger with rival Hollywood studio Paramount Global, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
* Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
* American Airlines Group Inc. is closing in on an order for about 100 narrowbody jets split between Airbus SE and Boeing Co., with the European plane-maker likely to secure the larger part of the commitment, according to people familiar with the talks.
* Capital One Financial Corp. predicted the time and expenses needed to fix Discover Financial Services’ regulatory challenges will be at the high end of what’s expected, or even beyond.
* ASM International NV projected revenue this quarter that fell far below market expectations, signaling that the Dutch chip-equipment maker is continuing to grapple with an uneven recovery in global demand for semiconductors.

Key Events This Week:
* Reserve Bank of New Zealand policy decision, Wednesday
* Eurozone economic confidence, consumer confidence, Wednesday
* US wholesale inventories, GDP, Wednesday
* Fed’s Raphael Bostic, Susan Collins and John Williams speak, Wednesday
* G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meet in Sao Paulo, Wednesday through Thursday
* Germany CPI, unemployment, Thursday
* US consumer income, PCE deflator, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Fed’s Austan Goolsbee, Raphael Bostic and Loretta Mester speak, Thursday
* China official PMI, Caixin manufacturing PMI, Friday
* Eurozone S&P Global Manufacturing PMI, CPI, unemployment, Friday
* BOE chief economist Huw Pill speaks, Friday
* US construction spending, ISM Manufacturing, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Fed’s Raphael Bostic and Mary Daly speak, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.2% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0844
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2681
* The Japanese yen rose 0.1% to 150.51 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 4.3% to $57,007.51
* Ether rose 2.2% to $3,254.49
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 4.31%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 2.46%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 4.20%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.4% to $78.65 a barrel
* Spot gold was little changed
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Carly Wanna, Alexandra Semenova, Isabelle Lee, Carmen Reinicke and Elizabeth Stanton.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Some people look for a beautiful place.  Others make a place beautiful. –Inayat Khan, 1882-1927.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Monday.
February 26 , 1991: The world’s first web browser, Nexus, is presented to the public.
On Feb. 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in the garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.  Go to article >>

1848: Communist Manifesto published.
1919: Grand Canyon National Park established.
Victor Hugo, b. 1802.
Johnny Cash, b.1932.

Earth has extra moons, and they may hold the secrets of our solar system’s past
Earth’s closest cosmic companions, known as ‘minimoons’ or ‘quasi-moons’, could hold the secrets to the history of our early solar system. Read More.

Bright-red pigment is one of the earliest examples of Bronze Age lipstick
The bright-red pigment is housed inside an “elegant and valuable” stone vial. Read More.

Atlantic’s hurricane alley is so hot from El Niño it could send 2024’s storm season into overdrive
Unusually high temperatures combined with the abatement of the El Niño southern oscillation could aid the formation of extreme hurricanes this year. Read More.

‘Everything has changed since Apollo’: Why landing on the moon is still incredibly difficult in 2024
More than 50 years after the Apollo era, major governments and well-funded private companies still struggle with lunar landing missions. Why is landing on the moon so hard in 2024? Read More.

Qubits are notoriously prone to failure — but building them from a single laser pulse may change this
Qubits are normally made from superconducting metals and need to be cooled to near absolute zero to avoid collapsing. But scientists just built an error-free “logical qubit” from a single laser pulse — and it works at room temperature. Read More.

‘Scandals and secrets’: On board the world’s most exclusive private residential ship
This luxurious vessel, home to multimillionaires and billionaires, is shrouded in secrecy. Read what it takes to buy a condo on board.

SAG Awards 2024: See who won
The 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were held Saturday in Los Angeles, and the show streamed live globally on Netflix. These were the big winners of the night.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Geneva, Switzerland
A mockup of the new Renault R5 E-Tech electric model car at the French carmaker’s stand during a press day for the Geneva international motor show
Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Kent, UK
A dog enjoys the windy weather on Folkestone beach
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

​​​​​​​Bandung, Indonesia
Children riding kadaplak in Kampung Pasir Angling. Kadaplak cars were a traditional means of transportation for farmers and are being reintroduced for public entertainment
Photograph: Ryan Suherlan/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Market Closes for February 26^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	39069.23	-62.30
		-0.16%
S&P 500	5069.53	-19.27
		-0.38%
NASDAQ	15976.25	-20.57
		-0.13%
TSX	21324.31	-88.84
		-0.41%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39233.71	+135.03
		+0.35%
HANG SENG	16634.74	-91.12
		-0.54%
SENSEX	72790.13	-352.67
		-0.48%
FTSE 100*	7684.30	-21.98
		-0.29%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.493	3.461
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.353	3.318
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2795	4.2480
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.3942	4.3703

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7405	0.7404
US $	1.3504	1.3506

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4656	0.6823
US $	1.0851	0.9216

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2027.45	2024.00
Oil
WTI Crude Future	77.58	77.54

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1954, the New York Stock Exchange introduced its first major advertising campaign, with the theme “Own Your Share of American Business.”
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.4% at 21,324.31 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.3% on Feb. 13 and follows the previous session’s increase of 0.4%.
Today, financials stocks led the market lower, as 8 of 11 sectors lost; 146 of 225 shares fell, while 77 rose.
Toronto-Dominion Bank contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.1%. K92 Mining Inc. had the largest drop, falling 8.5%.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 1.4%
* The index advanced 5.5% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 27% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 14.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.3% in the past 5 days and rose 0.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6 on a trailing basis and 17.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.4t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.40% compared with 12.35% in the previous session and the average of 10.05% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -45.7982| -0.7| 6/21
Materials | -24.5187| -1.1| 10/40
Utilities | -18.3875| -2.2| 1/14
Communication Services | -10.2167| -1.3| 1/4
Real Estate | -7.1537| -1.4| 1/20
Consumer Discretionary | -5.7416| -0.7| 3/10
Health Care | -0.4130| -0.6| 2/2
Consumer Staples | -0.2143| 0.0| 5/6
Energy | 3.1100| 0.1| 27/14
Industrials | 4.0072| 0.1| 14/12
Information Technology | 16.5006| 0.9| 7/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
TD Bank | -11.3700| -1.1| 30.5| -5.7
RBC | -8.8250| -0.7| 178.6| -1.3
Enbridge | -8.0260| -1.2| 23.0| -2.6
Cameco | 2.8210| 1.7| 14.3| -3.4
Canadian Natural Resources | 5.9850| 0.9| 41.9| 2.5
Shopify | 15.5900| 1.8| -34.0| 1.6
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The stock market lost steam near record highs as traders braced for a barrage of economic data and remarks from Federal Reserve speakers that will help shape the outlook for interest rates.
Wall Street is also keeping a close eye on how the market will manage to absorb heavy Treasury and corporate sales amid month-end positioning. US yields rose after Monday’s auctions of two-year and five-year government notes. Meantime, blue-chip companies are expected to sell about $35 billion in bonds this week.
Those firms sold at least $153 billion of debt in the US in February — a record for the month — as they race to seize on investor demand amid a drop in borrowing costs.
As the economy comes back to the forefront, the Fed’s favored inflation gauge is projected to show the biggest increase in a year.
Thursday’s core personal consumption expenditures price index will likely highlight the bumpy path the central bank faces in achieving its 2% target.  
Following a jump in both the consumer and the producer price indexes, the PCE would also validate recent Fedspeak underscoring officials are in no rush to cut rates.
“Economic data will return to center stage,” said Chris Larkin at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. “After hotter-than-expected CPI and PPI readings earlier this month, more people may be looking to the PCE to for insight into the reinflation threat — and how it may influence the Fed’s timing of rate cuts.”
The S&P 500 fell to around 5,070. Alphabet Inc. sank amid renewed fears that the Google owner’s missteps in artificial intelligence are putting its search business at risk.
Nvidia Corp. closed at a new record while Amazon.com Inc. effectively joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
In late trading, Zoom Video Communications Inc. gained on a bullish earnings forecast.
Treasury 10-year yields rose three basis points to 4.28%.
Bitcoin jumped above $54,000.
Stock markets have room to extend gains beyond record highs if the economic outlook remains upbeat and investors pour money into recent laggards, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists led by Cecilia Mariotti said.
The S&P 500’s run to an all-time peak has left investor positioning “extremely” concentrated in the so-called Magnificent Seven, they wrote.
While that does create the risk of a pullback, there’s also “space for bullish sentiment and positioning to be further supported, especially if we start seeing a more meaningful rotation out of cash and into risky assets and laggards within equities.”
“Now, as a result of the AI-induced surge, investors wonder if the market will top out or broaden out,” said Sam Stovall at CFRA. “We think it will broaden out – eventually, but not before investors feel assured that the Fed will not postpone the first rate cut beyond the second quarter of this year.”
Those who currently see the possibility of a rate hike are “are dead wrong,” according to Arthur Laffer Jr., president of Laffer Tengler Investments.
“Inflation would have to really jump (and consistently) for more than a quarter before the Fed would even consider raising rates at this juncture,” he noted. “Inflation has always been erratic month to month. If inflation stays elevated for longer or starts to rise, the Fed will sit pat for a while before bringing back the possibility of a rate hike.”
In his view, the worst-case scenario right now would be the Fed pushing out any rate cuts until the end of the second quarter to the beginning of the third.
HSBC strategists upgraded their view on global stocks to neutral from underweight, saying their decision to downgrade in January was “wrong” as they failed to predict the rally in artificial-intelligence stocks.
“Our message to investors is to continue to focus on the sectors and companies that are seeing growth,” said Michael Landsberg, chief investment officer at Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management. “Tech, healthcare and selected discretionary names are seeing strong earnings growth and that is where we want to focus. This can also be outside the US as well.”
To Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management, investors looking to boost portfolio diversification have a broad range of opportunities outside of US large-caps.
“For example, we have identified high-quality growth stocks in Europe that, in our estimates, offer similar earnings growth prospects as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ in the US, while India is among our most preferred region within emerging markets. We also see value in US small-caps and small- and mid-caps in Europe,” Marcelli noted.
It’s time for investors to move away from the view that the US is the only game in town, according to Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
The rally powered by AI has helped send the valuation gap between non-US equities and the S&P 500 Index to a 20-year low — turning geographic diversification into an “inexpensive hedge” against a market correction, she said.
“Consider rebalancing extreme over weights to US equities with some exposure to Japan, Europe and EM, including Brazil, Mexico and India,” she said.
A number of forecasters have raised their targets for equity benchmarks due to an optimistic outlook for corporate earnings, but profit margins might actually be peaking, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Mislav
Matejka write margins are currently elevated by historical standards.
While earnings have kept up — with big beats in the fourth quarter — the year-ahead picture looks less stellar.
Analysts have marked down each of the four quarters in fiscal 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
The projections still imply a solid 9.5% earnings-per share gain for the year.
Muted corporate demand for software and hardware, along with cost-cutting efforts to protect margins, will set the tone for report cards from Salesforce Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and HP Inc. this week.
The three main drivers of corporate-earnings strength are expected to turn weaker as the year progresses, which will put pressure on stock prices, according JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Marko Kolanovic.
The biggest sources of downside risk to profit margins and earnings are increasing net interest expenses, weakening pricing power for firms and a pickup in unit labor costs, he said.
Meantime, Jamie Dimon said problems in commercial real estate will be contained to “pockets” of the sector as long as the US avoids a recession.
Many property owners can handle the current level of stress, the JPMorgan chief executive officer told CNBC Monday. Lower valuations tied to higher interest rates is “not a crisis, it’s kind of a known thing,” he said.

Over the weekend, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said its cash pile scaled a new record as the billionaire investor decried a lack of meaningful deals that would give the firm a shot at “eye-popping performance.”
“There remain only a handful of companies in this country capable of truly moving the needle at Berkshire, and they have been endlessly picked over by us and by others,” Buffett, 93, said in his annual shareholder letter, which the company released alongside its results on Saturday.
To Nicholas Colas at DataTrek Research, while this reads as if Buffett is saying that global equities are fairly valued, the truth is more nuanced.
Being a “huge business,” Berkshire needs to take significant positions in large companies in order to “move the needle”.
Colas also highlighted the absolute absence of the words “artificial intelligence” in this year’s letter.
“There’s an old Wall Street saying which goes ‘never argue about investing with anyone who is far richer than you’,” Colas said.
“Warren Buffett deserves every bit of the respect he has earned over the decades,” Colas added. “Our own view is different from his, however, and it is based on the idea that tech-enabled growth is the only reliable driver of shareholder value aside from having a genius at the helm of a company like Berkshire.”

Corporate Highlights:
* US regulators issued a scathing report on Boeing Co.’s safety culture, putting further pressure on the company as it contends with the fallout from a near-catastrophic accident at the start of the year.
* Microsoft Corp., under mounting political scrutiny globally for its deep ties to OpenAI, has cut a deal with the startup’s primary competition in Europe. On Monday, the French company Mistral AI announced a “strategic partnership” with the US software giant.
* Members of the Walton family sold roughly $1.5 billion worth of Walmart Inc. stock at the end of last week as shares hovered near a record high.
* Charter Communications Inc. is exploring a takeover of smaller cable provider Altice USA Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.
* The US Federal Trade Commission, eight states and Washington DC sued to block Kroger Co.’s $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons Cos. Monday, arguing the tie-up would lead to lower wages for workers and higher prices for groceries.
* US aluminum producer Alcoa Corp. made a $2.2 billion offer to acquire its Australian joint-venture partner Alumina Ltd. to consolidate ownership of key upstream assets with long-term demand for the metal forecast to rise.
* Intuitive Machines Inc. sank after the spacecraft company said its lander, which successfully touched down on the moon last week, likely landed on its side.

Key Events This Week:
* BOE Governor Andrew Bailey speaks, Tuesday
* US Conf. Board consumer confidence, durable goods, Tuesday
* Michigan Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, Tuesday
* Reserve Bank of New Zealand policy decision, Wednesday
* Eurozone economic confidence, consumer confidence, Wednesday
* US wholesale inventories, GDP, Wednesday
* Fed’s Raphael Bostic, Susan Collins and John Williams speak, Wednesday
* G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meet in Sao Paulo, Wednesday through Thursday
* Germany CPI, unemployment, Thursday
* US consumer income, PCE deflator, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Fed’s Austan Goolsbee, Raphael Bostic and Loretta Mester speak, Thursday
* China official PMI, Caixin manufacturing PMI, Friday
* Eurozone S&P Global Manufacturing PMI, CPI, unemployment, Friday
* BOE chief economist Huw Pill speaks, Friday
* US construction spending, ISM Manufacturing, University of
Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* Fed’s Raphael Bostic and Mary Daly speak, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.4% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 was little changed
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro rose 0.3% to $1.0851
* The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.2685
* The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 150.68 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 5.3% to $54,497.51
* Ether rose 2.4% to $3,183.59
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 4.28%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced eight basis points to 2.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 13 basis points to 4.16%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.4% to $77.57 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.2% to $2,032.22 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Molly Smith, Craig Stirling, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Tatiana Darie and Christopher DeReza.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
Cooperation and friendship are two assets that can be had only by first giving them. -Andrew Carnegie, 1835-1919.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.  Full moon tonight.
“February’s full moon, known as the “snow” moon, will brighten skies starting Friday night before reaching maximum illumination early Saturday. The snow moon, the second full moon of the year, comes at a time when winter usually has a firm grip on the Northern Hemisphere.  This month’s full moon is also considered a “micro moon,” because it is passing Earth at its farthest distance in its orbit. It will appear slightly dimmer and less large than a typical full moon, but it will nonetheless appear big and bright in our night sky…” –Ian Livingston, Washington Post.

February 23, 1917: The February Revolution begins in Russia.  The demonstrations and armed clashes ultimately resulted in the demise of the Russian Empire.
February 23, 1945: Iwo Jima Day.
1954: The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began, in Pittsburgh. Go to article >>

Viking market may be buried on a Norwegian island, radar suggests
The Norwegian island of Klosterøy is famous for its medieval monastery, but new research suggests it was important long before that. Read More.

World’s oldest known decimal point discovered in merchant’s notes from 1440s Italy
Decimal points are at least 150 years older than historians thought, according to newly unearthed notes from Venetian merchant Giovanni Bianchini, who practiced astrology in the 1440s. Read More.

‘Mind-blowing’ deep sea expedition uncovers more than 100 new species and a gigantic underwater mountain
Researchers recently discovered an “incredible number” of potential new marine species, as well as a handful of hefty new seamounts while exploring the deep sea off the coast of Chile. Full Story: Live Science (2/23).

A small change by Microsoft was a big jolt for some users.  Read why the Microsoft default font change from Calibri to Aptos has upset some users.

Scientists uncover mystery behind whale song.  Eerie and fascinating, whale songs are one of the most mysterious sounds reverberating through the ocean. Now, researchers say they know how the sea creatures vocalize.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Nove Mesto, Czech Republic
Lucie Charvatova of the Czech Republic competes during the women’s 4x6km ski relay event of the Biathlon World Championships
Photograph: Michal Čížek/AFP/Getty Images

Inyo County, California
Tourists enjoy the rare opportunity to walk in water as they visit Badwater Basin, usually the driest place in the US, in Death Valley national park. The basin was flooded by Hurricane Hilary in August 2023 and by recent rains in California
Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​A honeybee flies to a spring crocus to collect nectar in mild weather, Brandenburg, Germany
Photograph: Frank Hammerschmidt/dpa
Market Closes for February 23^rd, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	39131.53	+62.42
		+0.16%
S&P 500	5088.80	+1.77
		+0.03%
NASDAQ	15996.82	-44.80
		-0.28%
TSX	21413.15	+95.07
		+0.45%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39098.68	+836.52
		+2.19%
HANG SENG	16725.86	-17.09
		-0.10%
SENSEX	73142.80	-15.44
		-0.02%
FTSE 100*	7706.28	+21.79
		+0.28%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.461	3.539
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.318	3.403
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2480	4.3207
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.3703	4.4560

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7404	0.7413
US $	1.3506	1.3489

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4625	0.6838
US $	1.0828	0.9235

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2024.00	2026.75
Oil
WTI Crude Future	77.54	79.71

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1965, Michael Dell was born. He later founded Dell Computer Corp. to assemble made-to-order computers.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the second day, climbing 0.4%, or 95.07 to 21,413.15 in Toronto.
The index advanced to the highest closing level in at least a year.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.7%.
Altus Group Ltd/Canada had the largest increase, rising 8.1%.
Today, 131 of 225 shares rose, while 88 fell; 6 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 1.9%
* So far this week, the index rose 0.7%
* The index advanced 6.1% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 26% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 14.6% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6 on a trailing basis and 17.2 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.38t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.35% compared with 12.33% in the previous session and the average of 10.11% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 42.0135| 0.6| 21/6
Materials | 28.1020| 1.3| 40/10
Information Technology | 25.4237| 1.4| 7/3
Industrials | 7.8656| 0.3| 13/12
Consumer Discretionary | 4.2913| 0.6| 9/3
Consumer Staples | 2.4317| 0.3| 5/6
Health Care | -0.3762| -0.6| 2/2
Communication Services | -0.5273| -0.1| 2/3
Real Estate | -0.9904| -0.2| 11/8
Utilities | -2.6569| -0.3| 7/8
Energy | -10.5052| -0.3| 14/27
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | 14.7500| 1.7| 3.2| -0.2
RBC | 9.0210| 0.7| -42.5| -0.6
TD Bank | 8.8170| 0.9| -24.1| -4.7
Cameco | -3.2760| -2.0| 8.5| -5.0
Nutrien | -3.8040| -1.5| 74.8| -3.7
Canadian Natural Resources | -8.9390| -1.3| 35.1| 1.6
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Stocks struggled to gain traction, with big tech losing steam after a powerful rally driven by the artificial-intelligence euphoria.
A feat of multiple records in the world’s biggest equity market drove the S&P 500 briefly above 5,100.
The “Magnificent Seven” group of mega-caps underperformed, though Nvidia Corp. saw a modest gain and its value hovered near $2 trillion.
“The speed of the tech rally has left investors wondering whether to take profits,” said Mark Haefele at UBS Global Wealth Management. “While we see merit in rebalancing portfolios, we believe that retaining strategic exposure to US large-cap technology is important.”
A rally in AI and optimism about economic growth at a time of easing monetary policy are the ingredients of a “magic sauce” to drive more gains in equities, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett.
The strategist — who has taken a more neutral tone on stocks this year after remaining bearish through 2023 — said that a “baby bubble” in AI was “growing up.
The S&P 500 barely budged Friday, while posting a weekly win.
Treasury 10-year yields fell seven basis points to 4.25%.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said the economy is headed in the right direction, and it will likely be appropriate to cut rates later this year.
“We expect the momentum to continue and for markets to melt up in the short run, but the story of the stock market for this year will eventually be about the economy and the Federal Reserve,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance.  “As long as the economy keeps expanding, it’s really hard to interrupt a bull market.”
The “tug of war” between bulls and bears is currently being dominated by the bulls — as the technical tailwinds converge with positive fundamental developments, according to Mark Hackett at Nationwide.
“We have had a powerful rally and there is still a lot of momentum in the market,” said David Donabedian at CIBC Private Wealth US. “Anyone who goes against it – taking positions that the market will go in the other direction – will be sorry. You do not want to bet against this market in the short term.”
The surge in Nvidia’s shares in the session that followed its results left short sellers with about $3 billion in paper losses, according to an analysis by S3 Partners LLC — which called it an “AI generated nightmare” for bearish traders.
The mark-to-market losses are another blow for contrarians who argued that Nvidia’s sky-high valuations and speculative fever had all the makings of a market bubble about to pop.
The chipmaker is the third-largest US short with $18.3 billion of shares that have been borrowed and sold, according to S3.
While the rally in US tech behemoths has sparked some concern about a potential bubble, the price action is aligned with earnings fundamentals, according to Barclays Plc strategists.
As long as stocks move in tandem with profit outlook, the “fear of missing out” will continue to prevail for the tech/AI space and investors will give the benefit of the doubt to lofty valuations, the team led by Emmanuel Cau wrote.
“There will likely be pullbacks and volatility over the next few months and we are supportive of the buy-the-dip mentality when it comes to big tech,” said Greg Marcus at UBS Private Wealth Management.
As hard as the S&P 500 rallied in the session that followed Nvidia’s blowout results, the advance lacked an important component — strong participation of its constituents.
Only 73% of the S&P 500’s members advanced that day.
That was the lowest participation for an up day of this magnitude since the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, when the index gained 2.2% while only 47% of its members went up.
“Even though market breadth is still narrow, it’s wider than it was last year, with more and more stocks this year outperforming the S&P 500,” Marcus added.
To Matt Maley at Miller Tabak + Co., while earnings out of Nvidia sparked another strong advance, it was disappointing to see a “very narrow” rally — which hasn’t hurt the market yet.
However, Maley points to a significant “valuation divergence” between Nvidia and the other AI-related stocks that has been developing for some time now.
“This should have important implications for how these stocks should be weighted in one’s portfolio — even when an inevitable correction takes place at some point in the future,” he noted.
Marcus at UBS says that if the Fed starts cutting interest rates, that will likely help spark wider breadth in the market.
Meantime, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists have pushed back their view on when the Fed will begin cutting rates to June after parsing recent comments from the central bank and minutes of its January meeting.
The US investment bank has dropped its forecast for a May cut and now expects four reductions this year, versus five previously, with moves in June, July, September and December.
It now sees four more cuts next year, versus a prior three, leaving the same terminal rate of 3.25%-3.5%, economists including Jan Hatzius wrote.
And rate strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their year-end forecasts for Treasury yields “to reflect greater risk premium and a longer QT runway than previously expected,” a team led by Jay Barry said.
The 10-year yield forecast rose to 3.80% from 3.65%.
While “yields have room to decline from their current levels in the coming months” based on “markets pricing in a less dovish path than our forecast” for Fed policy — which is for 25bp rate cuts at every meeting this year beginning in June — uncertainty over the Fed’s path is likely to persist, they noted. “And Treasury yields will likely stay more elevated with a higher risk premium to reflect higher probability of fewer cuts over time.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Jeff Bezos, Nvidia Corp. and other big technology names are investing in a business that’s developing human-like robots, according to people with knowledge of the situation, part of a scramble to find new applications for artificial intelligence.
* Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. reported fourth quarter revenue and profits that fell short of Wall Street forecasts amid declining TV advertising sales and weakness at its studios business.
* Payments company Block Inc. reported results and first-quarter expectations that exceeded analysts’ estimates
* Booking Holdings Inc. gave a disappointing forecast for travel reservations and gross bookings, with the war in Israel and currency fluctuations weighing on results.
* Carvana Co. topped Wall Street’s profit expectations in the final months of 2023 and said it expects improved earnings this quarter as the used-car retailer defies the challenges of high interest rates and inflation.

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.4%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0822
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2670
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 150.50 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 1.1% to $51,088.63
* Ether fell 1.1% to $2,952.59
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined seven basis points to 4.25%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined eight basis points to 2.36%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined seven basis points to 4.04%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 2.6% to $76.60 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.6% to $2,036.47 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Elena Popina, Jessica Menton, Robert Brand and Subrat Patnaik.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Say not you know another entirely, till you have divided an inheritance with him. –Johan Kasper Lavater, 1741-1801.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve.
February 22, 1819: Spain ceded Florida to the United States.  Go to article >>
February 22, 1948: Czechoslovakia becomes a communist state following a coup d’etat.

George Washington, b. 1732.
Arthur Schopenhauer, b.1788.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, b.1892.

‘A wonderful spectacle’: Photographer snaps rare solar eruption as ‘magnetic noose’ strangles the sun’s south pole
A recent solar flare unleashed a massive plasma plume from the sun’s south pole, where these stellar eruptions rarely happen. The unusual phenomenon is a sign of the impending solar maximum. Read More.

‘Completely surreal’: Metal detectorist unearths 1,500-year-old gold ring in Denmark
An amateur metal detectorist in Denmark has unearthed a rare gold ring that may have belonged to a previously unknown royal family with ties to the Kingdom of France. Read More.

Gut bacteria linked to colorectal cancer in young people
Certain gut bacteria reside in colorectal tumors, but the species differ depending on a patient’s age, offering hope that our gut tenants could serve as early warning signs of cancer in young people. Read More.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Venice, Italy
A woman poses for a portrait at sunrise in St Mark’s Square during the city’s carnival
Photograph: Stefano Mazzola/Getty

Huai’an, China
This woman is better sheltered than her dog in the eastern Jiangsu province
Photograph: AFP/Getty

​​​​​​​Vatican City
Scaffolding around the 17th-century, 95ft-tall bronze canopy by Gian Lorenzo Bernini as planned restoration works start in St Peter’s Basilica
Photograph: Andrew Medichini/AP
Market Closes for February 22^nd, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	39069.11	+456.87
		+1.18%
S&P 500	5087.03	+105.23
		+2.11%
NASDAQ	16041.62	+460.75
		+2.96%
TSX	21318.08	+145.70
		+0.69%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	39098.68	+836.52
		+2.19%
HANG SENG	16742.95	+239.85
		+1.45%
SENSEX	73158.24	+535.15
		+0.74%
FTSE 100*	7684.49	+21.98
		+0.29%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.539	3.548
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.403	3.435
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3207	4.3187
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4560	4.4814

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7413	0.7412
US $	1.3489	1.3492

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4604	0.6847
US $	1.0827	0.9236

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2026.75	2029.10
Oil
WTI Crude Future	79.71	79.04

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1973, the New York Stock Exchange couldn’t have picked a worse time to kick off its first-ever nationwide TV advertising campaign to encourage Americans to buy equities. U.S. stocks lost 14.7% of their value that year and another 26.5% in 1974
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.7% at 21,318.08 in Toronto.
The index advanced to the highest closing level in at least a year.
The move follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.2%.
Today, financials stocks led the market higher, as 9 of 11 sectors gained; 126 of 225 shares rose, while 99 fell.
Nutrien Ltd. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 7.2%.
CCL Industries Inc. had the largest increase, rising 16.4%.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 1.4%
* So far this week, the index rose 0.3%
* The index advanced 5.6% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 27% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 14% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 2.1% in the past 5 days and rose 1.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.5 on a trailing basis and 39.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.36t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.33% compared with 12.23% in the previous session and the average of 10.06% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 61.6650| 0.9| 23/4
Industrials | 34.8061| 1.1| 17/9
Consumer Staples | 17.6954| 1.9| 10/1
Energy | 16.6002| 0.5| 26/15
Information Technology | 10.6964| 0.6| 6/4
Materials | 4.3306| 0.2| 12/40
Health Care | 1.8596| 2.9| 3/1
Real Estate | 1.2002| 0.2| 9/12
Consumer Discretionary | 0.8342| 0.1| 8/5
Communication Services | -1.2120| -0.2| 2/3
Utilities | -2.7616| -0.3| 10/5
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Nutrien | 16.9100| 7.2| 72.4| -2.2
Brookfield Corp | 14.7000| 2.7| -25.4| 4.3
Canadian National | 12.0400| 1.7| -9.7| 6.4
Wheaton Precious Metals | -5.0990| -2.9| 82.0| -18.3
Barrick Gold | -6.1370| -2.5| 30.5| -18.9
Shopify | -7.5830| -0.9| -32.1| -1.9
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The stock rally powered ahead as Nvidia Corp.’s bullish outlook rekindled the artificial-intelligence mania and data showed the world’s largest economy is still going strong.
From the US to Europe and Japan, equities hit all-time highs, with the most-valuable chipmaker up 16% Thursday and adding $277 billion to its market capitalization.
That’s the biggest single-session increase in value ever — eclipsing a $197 billion gain made by Meta Platforms Inc.
With the numbers now in, bulls are calculating Nvidia’s new price-to-earnings ratio, or how much investors are paying for future growth.
Put another way, the company’s profits have been growing faster than its shares.
“Nvidia got to where it is because of extremely strong earnings and revenue,” said James Demmert, chief investment officer at Main Street Research. “When a company posts 265% year-over-year revenue growth — like Nvidia did — it deserves a premium valuation.”
The MSCI ACWI Index of both developed and emerging-market shares rose to its highest level ever.
The Nasdaq 100 added 3%, while the S&P 500 saw its biggest gain since January 2023.
The $16 billion VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) jumped 6.8%.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Broadcom Inc. — two other chipmakers expected to benefit from AI growth — rallied to records.
Super Micro Computer Inc., which has become a darling for investors wanting exposure to the revolutionary technology, soared 33%.
Equities were also buoyed by solid manufacturing, housing and labor-market data, with traders taking more hawkish Fedspeak in stride.
Treasury 10-year yields were little changed at 4.32%.
“Few things are more certain than death, taxes, and Nvidia beats on earnings,” said Ryan Detrick at Carson Group.  “The bar was set quite high, and incredibly they’ve once again stepped up and hit a home run.”
Nvidia’s market capitalization has now increased by more than $700 billion this year — with its valuation now topping $1.9 trillion — as investors bet that the company will remain the prime beneficiary of an AI computing boom.
Companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms, Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are Nvidia’s largest customers — accounting for nearly 40% of its revenue, — as they rush to invest in hardware for AI computing.
“Demand for AI is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations,” said Tom Hulick at Strategy Asset Managers. “We own NVDA and continue to hold the company. This is an exciting momentum play that we have been promoting and participating with for a few years now.”
Demmert at Main Street Research says that for investors who already own Nvidia, the recommendation would be to hold the stock and avoid selling in order to capture future expected growth “as we are still early in this transformative AI technology.”
“For investors who don’t own the stock, we would be buying on any weakness,” he noted. “With Nvidia’s stock, there will be corrections and bumps along the way, but the stock will continue to climb the wall of worry.”
Nvidia’s results come as a relief for AI bulls, as expectations have improved significantly, according to Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management.
Despite the industry surge, she sees potential for further gains in technology shares — especially those that would benefit from the AI revolution.
“We think the near-term momentum in AI-related stocks is likely to continue,” Marcelli noted. “To position, we maintain our preference for semiconductors and software, and see opportunities in beneficiaries of AI edge computing, big tech, and their partners.”
Nvidia’s blockbuster results also underscored the tech dominance over the rest of the stock market, with the “Magnificent Seven” group of mega-caps leading gains.
To Chris Senyek at Wolfe Research, US equities are poised to power ahead over the next two to three weeks — with the AI-leveraged names, most of the “Mag 7,” and momentum themes driving the gains.
Other stock-market industries are not rallying as strongly  as the tech sector.
“We still believe it is going to be important for the stock market to broaden out a lot more than it has this year if it’s going move a lot more than it already has so far this year,” said Matt Maley at Miller Tabak + Co. “What we’re trying to say is that although the tech sector is the most important one for the stock market right now, there are still plenty of opportunities in other sectors in the marketplace.”
The tech rally has propelled the valuation of the Nasdaq 100 to an elevated level versus history, with a similar picture for the S&P 500.
Lofty valuations could ultimately curb more gains as investors weigh how much they’re willing to pay for stocks valued on future growth.
Still, Citigroup Inc. strategist Scott Chronert said recently that index price-to-earnings readings could be misleading because 40% of the S&P 500 trades off other metrics.
He predicted that more stocks could re-rate even with the US benchmark trading at 20 times forward earnings — which is exactly what followed.
Meantime, demand for options protecting against a short-term pullback in the Nasdaq 100 is easing after nearing the highest level in months before Nvidia’s earnings report.
The implied volatility premium for one-month puts over calls — known as the skew — on the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 ETF had increased to about 3.5 points this week, a level last seen for any length of time back in November. The concerns were focused in the market for short-term options, with the difference between one-month and three-month skews reaching the narrowest level since April 2022 before widening back out.

Corporate Highlights:
* AT&T Inc. said its mobile network has been restored after a widespread, hours-long outage Thursday as the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security began investigating why hundreds of thousands of wireless subscribers lost service.
* Reddit Inc. filed for an initial public offering, confirming its revenue growth and helping to propel a still tenuous
resurgence in US listings.
* AbbVie Inc. is selling around $15 billion of bonds in the US investment-grade market on Thursday to help fund its acquisitions of ImmunoGen Inc. and Cerevel Therapeutics Holdings Inc., adding to a recent rush of buyout  financings.
* Space exploration startup Intuitive Machines Inc. will attempt on Thursday to put the first intact, US-made lander on the moon in more than 50 years.
* Rivian Automotive Inc., an electric-vehicle maker, issued a disappointing production forecast and announced another round of job cuts.
* Moderna Inc. reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ expectations by gaining Covid vaccine market share on its rival, Pfizer Inc.
* Newmont Corp., the world’s top gold producer, will sell six mines and two projects in a set of divestitures aimed at generating $2 billion in cash.
* Grab Holdings Ltd., a ride-hailing company, forecast 2024 revenue below analysts’ estimates, suggesting a deeper-than-anticipated slowdown in its core online business.

Key Events This Week:
* China property prices, Friday
* Germany IFO business climate, GDP, Friday
* ECB publishes 1- and 3-Year inflation expectations survey, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 2.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 3%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2%
* The MSCI World index rose 1.7%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0821
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2661
* The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 150.51 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 1.1% to $51,928.73
* Ether rose 2.8% to $3,009.41
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.32%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 2.44%
* Britain’s 10-year yield was little changed at 4.11%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.7% to $78.44 a barrel
* Spot gold was little changed
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Subrat Patnaik, Carmen Reinicke, Ryan Vlastelica, Carly Wanna, Farah Elbahrawy and Thyagaraju Adinarayan.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
How far that little candle throws its beams!  So shines a good deed in a naughty world. -William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
February 21, 1804: The world’s first ever railway journey takes place in Wales.
February 21, 1916: Battle of Verdun – over 1 million men killed, France.
1925: New Yorker magazine debuts.
On Feb. 21, 1965, former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot and killed by assassins identified as Black Muslims as he was about to address a rally in New York City; he was 39.  Go to article >>

Andres Segovia, guitarist, b. 1893.
Anais Nin, b. 1903.
W.H. Auden, poet/writer, b. 1907.

James Webb telescope finds ancient galaxy larger than our Milky Way, and it’s threatening to upend cosmology
Astronomers believe the first galaxies formed around giant halos of dark matter. But a newly discovered galaxy dating to roughly 13 billion years ago mysteriously appeared long before that process should have occurred. Read More.

Ancient language found on 2,100-year-old bronze hand may be related to Basque
Researchers think the inscription is written in a Vasconic language spoken in northeastern Spain before the arrival of the Romans. Read More.

NASA grabbed a whopping 120 grams of rubble from asteroid Bennu, and it may contain the seeds of life
NASA’s final tally shows that OSIRIS-REx collected roughly 4 ounces (120 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu. The sample collected from the “potentially hazardous” asteroid is thought to contain some of the earliest precursors for life. Read More.

“Hotel California” trial centers on handwritten Eagles lyrics.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

San Francisco, US
Surfers under the Golden Gate Bridge during rainy weather in California
Photograph: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Laruns, France
Visitors walk along a slope at the Artouste ski resort in the Pyrenées-Atlantiques region, which has not had such little snow in February for over 30 years
Photograph: Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​The sun rises behind the BT Tower, viewed from Richmond Park in south London.
Photograph: Rick Findler/Story Picture Agency
Market Closes for February 21^st, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38612.24	+48.44
		+0.13%
S&P 500	4981.80	+6.29
		+0.13%
NASDAQ	15580.87	-49.91
		-0.32%
TSX	21172.38	-45.15
		-0.21%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38758.07	+495.91
		+1.30%
HANG SENG	16503.10	+255.59
		+1.57%
SENSEX	72623.09	-434.31
		-0.59%
FTSE 100*	7662.51	-56.70
		-0.73%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.548	3.512
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.435	3.388
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3187	4.2714
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4814	4.4463

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7412	0.7393
US $	1.3492	1.3526

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4605	0.6847
US $	1.0826	0.9237

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2029.10	2017.05
Oil
WTI Crude Future	79.04	79.19

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1947, Edwin H. Land, founder of Polaroid Corp., demonstrated the instant camera to 650 scientists assembled at the annual meeting of the Optical Society of America. Never before had it been possible to develop a snapshot within a single minute. Polaroid went on to become one of the great growth stocks of postwar America.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell for the second day, dropping 0.2%, or 45.15 to 21,172.38 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.3% on Feb. 13.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 4.0%.
IA Financial Corp. had the largest drop, falling 8.7%.
Today, 99 of 225 shares fell, while 119 rose; 5 of 11 sectors were lower, led by information technology stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 0.7%
* The index advanced 4.5% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 24% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.7% below its 52-week high on Feb. 16, 2024 and 13.3% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 2.9% in the past 5 days and rose 1.3% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.5 on a trailing basis and 16.8 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.36t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.23% compared with 12.21% in the previous session and the average of 9.96% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology | -53.6918| -2.8| 0/10
Financials | -46.7637| -0.7| 7/19
Materials | -18.0304| -0.9| 23/27
Consumer Staples | -2.1125| -0.2| 7/4
Communication Services | -1.1362| -0.1| 1/3
Health Care | 0.1779| 0.3| 2/1
Real Estate | 0.1860| 0.0| 15/6
Consumer Discretionary | 0.2002| 0.0| 6/7
Utilities | 1.0772| 0.1| 9/5
Industrials | 3.2819| 0.1| 10/16
Energy | 71.6648| 2.0| 39/1
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -35.5600| -4.0| 2.6| -1.0
Wheaton Precious Metals | -15.1400| -8.0| 203.4| -15.9
Constellation Software | -8.1920| -1.6| -2.0| 11.5
Enbridge | 6.2420| 0.9| 5.2| -1.5
Suncor Energy | 11.1400| 2.8| 59.6| 6.8
Canadian Natural Resources | 18.7100| 2.9| 99.1| 1.3
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Big tech looked poised for a rebound after Nvidia Corp.’s solid earnings bolstered confidence in the artificial-intelligence frenzy that has powered the stock market resurgence.
The giant chipmaker soared 6% in late trading after predicting another blowout sales gain for the current quarter, with Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang saying “accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point.”
A $243 billion exchange-traded fund tracking the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) pushed decidedly higher after struggling to find direction in the immediate aftermath of Nvidia’s earnings.
“Nvidia has been the ‘poster child’ of AI enthusiasm because NVDA makes the type of semiconductor chips that power generative AI and demand for those chips has gone through the roof,” said Tom Essaye, founder of The Sevens Report. “The AI-driven rally in the ‘Mag Seven’ is largely justified by the fact that they’re making a lot more money than they were previously.”
The S&P 500 staged a late-day rebound on Wednesday, erasing losses minutes before the market close.
Treasury yields climbed after a $16 billion sale of 20-year bonds.
Traders also kept a close eye on the latest Federal Reserve minutes that showed officials are in no rush to cut rates.
Traders also kept an eye on the latest debate about the outlook for the Fed’s next steps. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman argued on Wednesday that the current economic environment doesn’t warrant the central bank cutting rates. Fed Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin said recent data highlighted how price pressures in some sectors are still too high, despite improvement in the overall inflation picture.
Most Fed officials last month flagged concerns over moving too quickly to cut interest rates, indicating such risks outweighed keeping borrowing costs elevated for too long, according to the minutes of the January Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
“Given the uptick in prices, the Fed’s concerns appear valid,” said Quincy Krosby at LPL Financial. “Above all else, they don’t want to repeat the mistake of monetary policy from the 1970’s, which opened the door to stagflation and the need for much higher interest rates to expunge seemingly embedded inflation.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Marko Kolanovic, who drew attention for his gloomy stock-market calls through last year’s rally, is raising a risk that’s mostly gone out of vogue on Wall Street — a return of 1970s-style stagflation.
The bank’s chief market strategist said a recent pickup in consumer and producer prices has cast a shadow over the economic enthusiasm that powered equity markets in recent months.
Speaking of which, stakes are so high for Nvidia’s earnings that even strategists who wouldn’t normally comment on individual securities had something to say ahead of the numbers.
“We do not usually talk about individual stocks as asset allocation traditionally is the largest driver of portfolio risk and return,” said Emily Roland and Matt Miskin at John Hancock Investment Management. “While Nvidia is high quality for sure, to us the AI hype has gone beyond the ‘reasonable price’ stage.”
A host of similarities between tech stocks now and previous bubbles suggest the “Magnificent Seven” is only nearing — but not yet at — levels that may lead it to pop, Bank of America Corp. strategist Michael Hartnett said last week.
While Nvidia is the proverbial “picks and shovels” of the “AI gold rush”, other big-tech companies such as Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. have also seen large stock rallies as investors expect these companies to harness the power of generative AI to boost profits, Essaye noted.
“Has the AI mania gone too far and are we looking at a bubble situation?” Essaye said. “Based on what most of us think about typical bubbles, the answer is ‘no’ they are not in a  bubble.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Intel Corp. has landed Microsoft Corp. as a customer for its made-to-order chip business, marking a key win for an ambitious turnaround effort under Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger.
* Cisco Systems Inc. is selling $13.5 billion of bonds in the US high-grade debt market to partly finance its proposed $28 billion acquisition of Splunk Inc., as issuers rush to capitalize on strong investor demand.
* Boeing Co. ousted the head of its 737 Max program after a midair blowout of a fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines jet led to withering scrutiny of the manufacturing quality of the plane maker’s most important model.
* Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. said it’s optimistic about its prospects for a key selling season.
* HSBC Holdings Plc reported fourth-quarter profit fell 80% after taking unexpected charges on holdings in a Chinese bank and from selling its French retail operations. Shares slid in London.
* Palo Alto Networks Inc., a cybersecurity company, cut its annual revenue forecast, stoking concerns that customers are reining in spending despite an uptick in attacks.
* Mercedes-Benz Group AG plans to buy back as much as €3 billion ($3.2 billion) worth of stock, extending moves to reward shareholders after cash flow exceeded expectations.

Key Events This Week:
* Eurozone S&P Global Services PMI, S&P Global Manufacturing PMI, CPI, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, US existing home sales, Thursday
* ECB issues account of January meeting, Thursday
* Fed Governor Lisa Cook and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speak, Thursday
* China property prices, Friday
* Germany IFO business climate, GDP, Friday
* ECB publishes 1- and 3-Year inflation expectations survey, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.4%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%
* The MSCI World index was little changed
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0818
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2634
* The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 150.19 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 2% to $50,990.31
* Ether fell 2.7% to $2,908.32
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.32%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced eight basis points to 2.45%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 4.10%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3% to $78.04 a barrel
* Spot gold was little changed
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Tatiana Darie, Lu Wang, Henry Ren, Carly Wanna and Alexandra Semenova.

Have a  lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
One should count each day a separate life. –Marcus Annaeus Seneca, 54 BC-39 AD.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
February 20, 1913: Works to build Australia’s capital city commence.  Canberra is an entirely planned city and was chosen as the Australian capital as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne.

1965: The Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back thousands of pictures of the lunar surface.  Go to article >>

Brightest black hole ever discovered devours a sun’s-worth of matter every day
A distant quasar that was initially mistaken for a star is actually one of the brightest and fastest-growing black holes ever seen. Read More.

CRISPR ‘will provide cures for genetic diseases that were incurable before,’ says renowned biochemist Virginijus Šikšnys
Live Science spoke with biochemist Virginijus Šikšnys, whose work helped establish CRISPR as a gene-editing system. Read More.

‘More unzipping of the landscape’: Arctic permafrost could crumble into rivers, unleashing devastating feedback loop
Permafrost thaw could result in new rivers forming across the Arctic, potentially unleashing 35 million car journeys’ worth of carbon every year. Read More.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Wakefield, UK
Daniel Arsham’s Unearthed Bronze Eroded Melpomene is installed for his Relics in the Landscape exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Nanjing, China
People enjoy the sight of plum blossom trees in flower in the country’s eastern Jiangsu province
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

​​​​​​​St Joseph, US
Ice builds up along a pier on Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes shorelines have historically been ice-covered at this time of year, but this winter’s warmer weather has led to the lowest ice cover on the lakes since record-keeping began in 1973
Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Market Closes for February 20^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38563.80	-64.19
		-0.17%
S&P 500	4975.51	-30.06
		-0.60%
NASDAQ	15630.79	-144.86
		-0.92%
TSX	21217.53	-38.09
		-0.18%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38363.61	-106.77
		-0.28%
HANG SENG	16247.51	+91.90
		+0.57%
SENSEX	73057.40	+349.24
		+0.48%
FTSE 100*	7719.21	-9.29
		-0.12%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.512	3.585
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.388	3.427
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2714	4.2792
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4463	4.4356

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7393	0.7411
US $	1.3526	1.3493

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4619	0.6840
US $	1.0807	0.9253

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2017.05	2004.05
Oil
WTI Crude Future	79.19	79.19

Market Commentary:
📈 1961: The New York Stock Exchange delisted five stocks in one day.  All were railroad or sugar companies based in Cuba, after their assets had been expropriated by the new government of Fidel Castro.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.2% at 21,217.53 in Toronto.
The move follows the previous session’s increase of 0.2%.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 3.0%.
Methanex Corp. had the largest drop, falling 10.5%.
Today, 140 of 225 shares fell, while 82 rose; 7 of 11 sectors were lower, led by information technology stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 0.9%
* The index advanced 3.4% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 21% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.5% below its 52-week high on Feb. 16, 2024 and 13.5% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.7% in the past 5 days and rose 1.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.5 on a trailing basis and 16.6 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.37t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 12.21% compared with 12.30% in the previous session and the average of 9.85% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology | -35.9384| -1.8| 1/9
Industrials | -20.9728| -0.7| 6/20
Energy | -11.8831| -0.3| 10/31
Materials | -7.1386| -0.3| 23/26
Consumer Discretionary | -3.2621| -0.4| 3/10
Real Estate | -2.2301| -0.4| 6/15
Health Care | -0.3029| -0.5| 2/2
Utilities | 2.0435| 0.2| 7/8
Communication Services | 5.1040| 0.7| 3/2
Consumer Staples | 17.2759| 1.9| 5/6
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -27.9700| -3.0| 34.8| 3.0
Canadian National | -7.9160| -1.1| 113.6| 3.9
Suncor Energy | -4.1650| -1.0| 164.1| 3.9
CIBC | 5.7530| 1.4| 17.8| -1.5
RBC | 5.9810| 0.5| 29.7| -1.1
Couche-Tard | 15.7200| 3.7| 70.1| 9.0
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Big tech dragged the stock market away from its all-time highs, with Wall Street awaiting Nvidia Corp.’s earnings on Wednesday for confirmation the chipmaker can meet the lofty expectations set by the artificial-intelligence boom.
While the ongoing earnings season has so far reaffirmed the view that Corporate America is holding up well, the reporting period has been mixed for the “Magnificent Seven” mega-caps.
Ahead of the chipmaker’s numbers, some traders decided to lock in profits — with the market also weighing a report that Microsoft Corp. is developing a networking card as an alternative to the one supplied by Nvidia.
The bar is high for the company at the heart of the AI revolution — which boasts the best performance in the S&P 500 this year after more than tripling in 2023.
Nvidia’s revenue is expected to be buoyed by soaring demand in its data-center business.
AI should remain strong, especially with Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc. loading up on graphics processing units, Susquehanna said.
To Matt Maley at Miller Tabak + Co., while bets are that Nvidia will report solid earnings and forecasts, one thing to keep in mind is that the stock has not always responded well to fabulous results.
“Sometimes their expectations are SO high that we get a ‘sell the news’ reaction,” Maley said. “We don’t know which reaction we’ll get this week, so we wouldn’t be surprised if investor and traders sit on their hands until they report this Wednesday evening.”
In the run-up to its results, Nvidia sank over 4%.
The Nasdaq 100 dropped almost 1%, while the S&P 500 fell below 5,000.
A gauge of chipmakers slid 1.6%.
Walmart Inc. climbed after reporting strong earnings.
Treasury 10-year yields were little changed at 4.27%.
The dollar wavered.
“We’re seeing a material correction in the AI high flyers today,” wrote Louis Navellier, chief investment officer at asset manager Navellier & Associates. “A correction was overdue, though the AI theme is hardly broken…but it certainly is a defensive day.”
While the artificial-intelligence frenzy has boosted stocks that have been linked to the technology, Nvidia is one of the few firms to have demonstrated significant revenue growth from AI.
Because of its uncontested leadership in AI-training chips, Nvidia’s market capitalization has ballooned to around $1.7 trillion, briefly topping the values of both Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.
While other big techs have hardly performed badly in 2024, juxtaposed with Nvidia’s surge they appear to be relegated to the slow lane.
The rally has been fueled in part by Nvidia handily beating analysts’ estimates — something it’s done several quarters in a row.
The company may now have to do that again.
But analysts estimate that sales more than tripled in the fourth quarter, and they’re projecting a growth increase nearly as big in the latest period.
“In our view, this is the market event to watch this week,” said Anthony Saglimbene at Ameriprise. “While one company doesn’t usually make or break a market, the growing influence of Nvidia on the overall bullish stock narrative, key tech companies, and broader indexes warrants close attention.”
Beyond its results, investors will be particularly keen to know how Nvidia’s chief Jensen Huang sees demand developing across the rest of the year, according to Matthew Weller at Forex.com and City Index.
“Any signs that the AI boom may be slowing could lead to a big bearish reversal in the stock, so traders are justifiably on tenterhooks ahead of the release,” Weller said.
While 2023 was the beginning of the biggest tech transformation since the first days of the Internet in the 90’s, “investors needed to see enterprise spend ramping to justify these valuations and show the growth path ahead for 2024 and beyond,” said Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities.
Nvidia’s rapid expansion supports an argument bulls have been making to justify lofty valuations for tech giants: that the companies will deliver bigger profits than contemplated in current estimates, thereby making them cheaper than they appear.
Despite surging to new highs this month — and taking the entire stock market with it — Nvidia’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is only back to where it was before its last earnings report in November, and about a third lower than it was before the fourth-quarter earnings last year.
The stock has managed to grow its way into a cheaper valuation thanks to cheaper profits.
Nvidia investors may have almost $200 billion in market value riding on this week’s earnings report, according to options positioning.
Prices for short-term calls and puts imply a 10.6% move in the chipmaker’s shares on Thursday, the session after its earnings report, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
That would sway Nvidia’s market capitalization by some $180 billion, one of the largest single-session moves on record, still trailing records set by Meta Platforms — holder of both the biggest one-day drop and largest single-session gain.
The stock of the Santa Clara, California-based company has also become one of the most-loved on Wall Street.
It has 60 buys, five holds and only a single sell rating among analysts tracked by Bloomberg.
Even with Tuesday’s losses, the S&P 500 is still up over 4% this year, buoyed in part by optimism around artificial intelligence and signs of a resilient economy.
UBS Group AG raised its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 for the second time since December, as Wall Street strategists struggle to keep pace with the market’s strength to start 2024.
The update comes a few days after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also boosted its view on US equities for the second time since late last year.
“Despite our bullish outlook, it appears we were not bullish enough,” the UBS strategists wrote in a note to clients.
While the market sold off on robust consumer- and produce-price data last week, “our work indicates these demand-driven readings are constructive for future returns.”
Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler notes that February’s performance so far has been exceptionally stronger than its historical seasonality.
For now, the S&P 500 is also heading toward its fourth straight monthly advance.
“We suspect the back half of the month will be a time for bulls to rest and trim some profits,” he said. “We anticipate plenty of in-flight turbulence during the coming weeks as the S&P levels off around 5,000.”
To Jay Woods at Freedom Capital Markets, the stock index showed signs of getting tired and was due for a pause.
“It did just that but remains secure in its uptrend,” he noted. “Any pullback towards 4,900 should be considered routine and normal.”
US stocks will keep outperforming Treasuries over the next month, according to majority of respondents in the latest MLIV Pulse survey.
The percentage of equity bulls is the second-highest since the question about the relative performance of stocks and bonds was first asked in August 2022.
Stocks are expected to keep beating bonds well past the earnings season and heading into the Federal Reserve’s March meeting.

Corporate Highlights:
* Walmart Inc. also said it agreed to buy smart-TV maker Vizio Holding Corp. for about $2.3 billion.
* Macy’s Inc. said it received nine nominations to its board from Arkhouse Management Co., the activist investor leading an effort to acquire the department-store company.
* Home Depot Inc. reported a fifth straight comparable sales decline, underscoring a drop in demand for house improvement due to high mortgage rates and a slowdown in construction.
* The Biden administration is in talks to confer more than $10 billion in subsidies to Intel Corp., people familiar with the matter said, in what would be the largest award yet under a plan to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to US soil.
* The US plans to award $1.5 billion to GlobalFoundries Inc., the largest domestic maker of made-to-order semiconductors, as part of the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen the nation’s chip production.
* Capital One Financial Corp. agreed to buy Discover Financial Services in a $35 billion all-stock deal to create the largest US credit card company by loan volume, giving the combined entity a stronger foothold to compete with Wall Street’s behemoths.
* KeyCorp Chief Executive Officer Chris Gorman touted his company’s contained exposure to commercial real estate lending, an area of concern for investors in regional US banks amid heightened interest rates and property vacancies.

Key Events This Week:
* Eurozone consumer confidence, Wednesday
* Nvidia, HSBC earnings, Wednesday
* Federal Reserve releases minutes from its January meeting, Wednesday
* Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks, Wednesday
* Eurozone S&P Global Services PMI, S&P Global Manufacturing PMI, CPI, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, US existing home sales, Thursday
* ECB issues account of January meeting, Thursday
* Fed Governor Lisa Cook and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speak, Thursday
* China property prices, Friday
* Germany IFO business climate, GDP, Friday
* ECB publishes 1- and 3-Year inflation expectations survey, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.6% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.8%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro rose 0.3% to $1.0810
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2624
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 149.98 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 0.2% to $51,993.67
* Ether rose 0.3% to $2,976.66
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.27%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined four basis points to 2.37%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined seven basis points to 4.04%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.3% to $78.18 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.4% to $2,024.69 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Jessica Menton, Tatiana Darie, Carly Wanna and Kasia Klimasinska.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Genius is eternal patience. -Michelangelo, 1475-1564.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday!
Carolann is away from the office; I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

February 16, 1968 sees the first official “911” call placed in the United States. Read more. 

1,800-year-old ‘Iron Legion’ Roman base discovered near ‘Armageddon’ is largest in Israel
Archaeologists have discovered the remnants of a massive 1,800-year-old Roman legionary base that is the only one of its size and caliber ever found in Israel. Read more.

Do dark forces exist?
Along with additional particles of dark matter, there is the possibility that dark matter experiences force analogous to those felt by regular matter.

Undiscovered ‘minimoons’ may orbit Earth. Could they help us become an interplanetary species?
Due to their proximity to Earth, minimoons are prime candidates for exploration. Now, some scientists want to use these tiny satellites to push humanity further into the cosmos.

Only part of rare 280-million-year-old fossil is real — the rest is mostly paint
Researchers have found that a fossil of the lizard-like Tridentinosaurus antiquus is mostly fake.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

California, US
A snowy white egret in Pacific Grove
Photograph: Rory Merry/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Heilongjiang, China
A girl enjoys her time at an ice-and-snow theme park in Harbin, north-east China. The popular park closed for the season on Thursday due to rising temperatures
Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

​​​​​​​Doha, Qatar
Canada’s Jessica Macaulay competes in the 20m high diving semi-final during the 2024 World Aquatic Championships in Doha
Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
Market Closes for February 16^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38627.99	-145.13
		-0.37%
S&P 500	5005.57	-24.16
		-0.48%
NASDAQ	15775.66	-130.51
		-0.82%
TSX	21255.61	+32.92
		+0.16%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38487.24	+329.30
		+0.86%
HANG SENG	16339.96	+395.33
		+2.48%
SENSEX	72426.64	+376.26
		+0.52%
FTSE 100*	7711.71	+114.18
		+1.50%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.585	3.542
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.427	3.411
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2792	4.2300
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4356	4.4086

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7411	0.7428
US $	1.3493	1.3463

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4544	0.6876
US $	1.0779	0.9277

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2004.05	1985.10
Oil
WTI Crude Future	79.19	76.64

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1990, Cisco Systems went public on the Nasdaq, selling 2.8 million shares at $18 apiece. The stock increased in value by more than 30,000% by the end of the decade, before deflating in the dot-com bust. It has yet to regain its peak.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the third day, climbing 0.2%, or 32.92 to 21,255.61 in Toronto.
The index advanced to the highest closing level in at least a year.
Enbridge Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 1.4%.
Ero Copper Corp. had the largest increase, rising 7.8%.
Today, 125 of 225 shares rose, while 92 fell; 7 of 11 sectors were higher, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index rose 1.2%, heading for the biggest advance since the week ended Dec. 22
* The index advanced 3.2% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 22% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 13.7% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6 on a trailing basis and 16.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.36t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 12.30% compared with 12.43% in the previous session and the average of 9.96% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | 28.2656| 0.8| 27/13
Materials | 18.6658| 0.9| 33/14
Communication Services | 7.6746| 1.0| 5/0
Industrials | 7.2552| 0.2| 15/11
Financials | 5.4127| 0.1| 13/13
Consumer Discretionary | 2.9338| 0.4| 6/7
Health Care | 0.3964| 0.6| 2/1
Utilities | -0.0409| 0.0| 5/10
Real Estate | -0.9905| -0.2| 11/10
Consumer Staples | -3.6890| -0.4| 7/4
Information Technology | -32.9566| -1.7| 1/9
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Enbridge | 9.6600| 1.4| 37.7| -2.6
TC Energy | 9.5760| 2.5| -8.6| 3.0
Waste Connections | 6.4670| 1.6| 15.9| 14.4
Fairfax Financial | -4.0150| -1.8| -24.2| 12.5
Couche-Tard | -6.5040| -1.5| 12.2| 5.1
Shopify | -28.7300| -3.0| -0.9| 6.3
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest bond market extended this year’s selloff and stocks dropped from a record on speculation that the Federal Reserve will be in no rush to cut interest rates.
Another report signaling inflation is showing signs of being “stickier” than expected weighed on Wall Street’s sentiment, with the producer price index rising on a sizable jump in costs of services.
Traders found little encouragement to bid up the market at a time when the Fed bumps into what’s being referred to as a tough “last mile” toward its goals.
“It’s been a wild week,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance. “While we understand the market’s knee-jerk behavior when it sees too too-hot or too-cold data, we think it will take another couple data releases to establish a new trend (if the pattern continues) or to show that this week’s data was just a bump in the road.”
Treasuries fell, with two-year yields up seven basis points to 4.65%.
Swaps are pricing less than 90 basis points of rate cuts in 2024 — from around 150 basis points at the start of February.
The S&P 500 halted a streak of five weeks of gains.
The Nasdaq 100 underperformed amid losses in big names like Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc.
US markets will close Monday for Presidents’ Day.
To Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets, the PPI was a “troubling print” that reinforces the tone set by the core-consumer price index.
It’s another data point that suggests the Fed has “very mlittle reason” to cut interest rates anytime soon, said Clark Bellin at Bellwether Wealth.
“The disinflation is not so immaculate,” noted Peter Boockvar, author of the Boock Report. “As for the Fed, I’m beginning to believe that the ONLY reason they might cut rates this year is if the unemployment rate notably gets above 4% and for no other reason.”
The latest data has driven traders to roll back their once-aggressive rate-cut bets so much that their expectations are now approaching the Fed’s own forecast.
At the time of the last quarterly update in December, policymakers’ median projection was for cuts totaling 75 basis points this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues have been signaling they’re on a wait-and-see mode before deciding to embark on policy easing.
Two officials who vote on policy in 2024 indicated an openness to three interest-rate cuts this year should inflation progress continue.
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said Friday that’s a “reasonable baseline” expectation, and Atlanta’s Raphael Bostic said he could “for sure” see three cuts — rather than his current preference for two — should inflation data come in better.
“This PPI print further highlights that getting inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target isn’t just a walk in the park,” said Ken Tjonasam at Global X. “It’s the last mile that’s the toughest. For Chair Powell and the Fed, this means recalibrating their lens on the economic landscape. The narrative of easing into a rate cut has just hit a snag.”
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that persistent inflationary pressures evident in the latest data suggest that there’s potential for the next Fed policy move to be to raise interest rates, not lower them.
“There’s a meaningful chance — maybe it’s 15% — that the next move is going to be upwards in rates, not downwards,” Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin. “The Fed is going to have to be very careful.”
Separate data on Friday showed US consumer sentiment improved for a third month in February as Americans grew more optimistic about the outlook for the economy and inflation.
Meantime, new-home construction sank at the start of the year by the most since the onset of the pandemic.
Despite signs that rates will possibly be higher for longer than the market had envisioned, US equities saw only a mild loss this week.
To Fawad Razaqzada at City Index and Forex.com, investors have chosen to concentrate on stronger earnings and the artificial-intelligence optimism, taking advantage of the bullish momentum.
“But with some of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks reaching extremely expensive levels, there is always the danger of a correction soon,” he noted. “Nvidia will be the last from this group to report its results in the week ahead. With most of the optimism now in the price, a correction of some sort, should not come as major surprise in the tech sector.”
A host of similarities between tech stocks now and previous bubbles suggest the “Magnificent Seven” is nearing — but not yet at — levels that may lead it to pop, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists.
They cite a handful of indicators, such as bond yields, valuations and price action, that suggest there are further gains ahead of the group that includes Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
“It ain’t cheap,” said the team led by Michael Hartnett, “but true that bubble highs have seen dafter valuations.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Applied Materials Inc., the largest US maker of chipmaking machinery, gave a bullish revenue forecast for the current period, signaling that some of the largest semiconductor companies are increasing their investments in new production.
* OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman is working to secure US government approval for a massive venture to boost global manufacturing of artificial intelligence chips, an effort that risks raising national security and antitrust concerns in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.
* Coinbase Global Inc. posted a profit for the first time in two years after a fourth-quarter rebound in digital-asset markets lifted trading revenue.
* DoorDash Inc. beat analysts’ estimates for delivery orders in the fourth quarter, as an expansion into new categories is luring a record number of monthly users who order more frequently.
* DraftKings Inc. reported fourth-quarter sales and profit that missed analysts’ projections and announced it would buy the lottery app Jackpocket for $750 million in cash and stock.
* Eli Lilly & Co.’s relentless stock records have Morgan Stanley analysts musing whether it will become the first US company outside of the Magnificent Seven to reach a market value of $1 trillion.
* Novartis AG Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan says the drugmaker aims to compete in the growing obesity market by designing next-generation treatments.

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.9%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%
* The MSCI World index was little changed
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0776
* The British pound was unchanged at $1.2600
* The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 150.22 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 1% to $51,869.05
* Ether fell 0.5% to $2,781.26
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced five basis points to 4.28%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points to 2.40%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 4.11%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3% to $79.08 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.4% to $2,012.50 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Edward Bolingbroke and Henry Ren.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Shabnam
“If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.”– Seamus Heaney

Shabnam Mohammadpourmarzbali
Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff
Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
Carolann is away from the office; I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

On February 15, 1965, Canada adopts maple leaf flag: In accordance with a formal proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II of England, a new Canadian national flag is raised above Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Read more.
On February 15, 1950, Walt Disney’s animated feature Cinderella opens in theaters across the United States. Read more.
On February 15, 1903, First Teddy bear goes on sale: toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window, advertising them as Teddy bears. Read more.

Ancient rock art in Argentinian cave may have transmitted information across 100 generations
A cave in Patagonia houses the oldest known pigment-based rock art in South America.

What would happen if you moved at the speed of light?
In science fiction, people often find a way to move at the speed of light. But you might find yourself asking, could your body survive going so fast? What would happen to it? Read more.

5 beguiling heart-shaped objects found in space
From a ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid to a pair of galaxies unable to quell their attraction, here are five of the most beautiful heart-shaped objects seen in space.

How a TV show changed an industry?
“The Love Boat” first aired in 1977 and went on to become one of the most successful shows in TV history. Here’s how it transformed the cruise industry

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine
A wintry reflection of the city from Khortytsia Island as the conflict with Russia continues
Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock

Glen Coe, UK
Wild swimmers brave the clear icy water at the Meeting of Three Waters in Glen Coe in the Scottish Highlands
Photograph: Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

New York City, US
People walk through the snow in Central Park
Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Market Closes for February 15^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38773.12	+348.85
		+0.91%
S&P 500	5029.73	+29.11
		+0.58%
NASDAQ	15906.18	+47.03
		+0.30%
TSX	21222.69	+333.29
		+1.60%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	38157.94	+454.62
		+1.21%
HANG SENG	15944.63	+65.25
		+0.41%
SENSEX	72050.38	+227.55
		+0.32%
FTSE 100*	7597.53	+29.13
		+0.38%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.542	3.557
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.411	3.422
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2300	4.2554
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4086	4.4346

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7428	0.7385
US $	1.3463	1.3541

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4506	0.6894
US $	1.0775	0.9281

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1985.10	1996.10
Oil
WTI Crude Future	76.64	77.87

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1985, the U.S. government began allowing Treasury securities to be carved up. Investors could now hedge more easily against changes in interest rates by trading the interest or principal of a bond, vastly increasing the market’s liquidity.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the second day, climbing 1.6%, or 333.29 to 21,222.69 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since rising 2% on Dec. 13.
Today, financials stocks led the market higher, as 9 of 11 sectors gained; 200 of 225 shares rose, while 24 fell.
Manulife Financial Corp. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 8.7%.
Seabridge Gold Inc. had the largest increase, rising 19.1%.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater gain four times. The next day, it advanced three times for an average 0.6% and declined 0.5% once
* So far this week, the index rose 1%
* The index advanced 2.4% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 21% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.1% below its 52-week high on Jan. 31, 2024 and 13.5% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1.4% in the past 5 days and rose 0.8% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.4 on a trailing basis and 16.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.1% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.31t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.43% compared with 11.52% in the previous session and the average of 9.89% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 105.2927| 1.6| 24/3
Energy | 102.8465| 2.9| 39/2
Materials | 48.8504| 2.4| 51/1
Information Technology | 34.5952| 1.8| 7/3
Industrials | 19.0906| 0.6| 22/4
Utilities | 13.8587| 1.7| 15/0
Real Estate | 5.3998| 1.1| 16/4
Communication Services | 4.2054| 0.6| 4/1
Health Care | 0.5184| 0.8| 4/0
Consumer Staples | -0.6469| -0.1| 10/1
Consumer Discretionary | -0.7260| -0.1| 8/5
================================================================
| | |Volume VS | YTD
| Index | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Manulife Financial | 33.9600| 8.7| 109.0| 13.9
Shopify | 31.6800| 3.4| 43.0| 9.6
Canadian Natural Resources | 25.3800| 4.1| 121.7| -2.4
Constellation Software | -1.6010| -0.3| 40.8| 12.9
Restaurant Brands | -2.8140| -1.2| 48.9| -1.1
Couche-Tard | -5.2240| -1.2| 50.5| 6.7
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street traders looked past mixed economic data, sending stocks and bonds higher before an inflation reading that will help define the Federal Reserve’s next steps.
The S&P 500 hit another record — despite losses in its most-influential group: technology.
A drop in retail sales helped soothe investors’ nerves about overheated consumer demand— especially after all the jitters caused by a strong inflation print earlier this week.
Bonds saw small moves, with Fed swaps fully pricing in a rate cut in June.
The dollar fell.
For months, investors have been dealing with clashing economic narratives.
Progress toward lower inflation has shaped the view that the Fed can cut interest rates from multiyear highs to avoid pushing the US into a recession.
At the same time, the economy has outperformed expectations, giving the central bank cover to delay.
“The data is complicated — a true dichotomy,” said Gina Bolvin president of Bolvin Wealth Management Group. “The market will be volatile as it digests the data and scrutinizes every data point.”
The S&P 500 rose to around 5,030, erasing this week’s losses.
Banks and energy companies rallied, while Tesla Inc. climbed over 6%.
In late hours, Applied Materials Inc. gave a bullish revenue forecast.
Treasury 10-year yields retreated two basis points to 4.23%.
A hotter-than-expected US inflation print earlier this week hasn’t dimmed the outlook for equities, and any selloff is a buying opportunity ahead of a Fed pivot, according to Citigroup strategists.
The team led by Scott Chronert maintained its year-end target for the S&P 500 at 5,100.
They remain overweight tech and recommend adding cyclical exposure via industrial and financial shares.
A seemingly tireless rally in US equities can persist as long as excess liquidity has traders comfortable buying, according to Lisa Shalett at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
However, she expects liquidity to dry up later this year.
“As long as there’s excess liquidity in the system, we’re going to have the ability for investors to come in and think that they’re getting a bargain and participate in all asset classes when there’s some evidence of weakness,” Shalett told Bloomberg Television.
The amount of money that investors are parking at a major Fed facility dropped below $500 billion for the first time since 2021.
Market participants have been closely watching the pace at which the so-called RRP drains: Some on Wall Street warn that the draining facility is evidence that excess liquidity has been removed from the financial system — that bank reserve balances aren’t as abundant as policymakers believe.
A hot consumer price index earlier this week roiled financial markets, with traders resetting their bets on Fed rate-cuts in 2024.
Next up is Friday’s producer price index — which wouldn’t normally get as much attention from markets as the CPI — but will be highly scrutinized this time around.
“Tomorrow’s PPI will be closely watched by markets and should drive the near-term direction for the equity and bond markets,” said Larry Tentarelli, chief technical strategist at Blue Chip Daily Trend Report.
Signs that inflation anxiety remains potent included strong demand for Treasury options strategies targeting 10-year yields to exceed 4.4% in the coming weeks, a level last seen in November.
Aside from retail sales, a reading on factory production also pointed to a loss of momentum — but didn’t necessarily signal significant deterioration in the economy.
In fact, Thursday’s data also showed sentiment among homebuilders hit a six-month high and jobless claims declined.
“Today’s weak retail sales and middle-of-the-road jobless claims total may help soothe the market’s nerves in the near term,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. “But there may still be an element of ‘altitude sickness’ at work, since the higher the market rallies, the more vulnerable it may be to setbacks when individual economic numbers don’t fit the rate-cutting narrative.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Apple Inc., racing to add more artificial intelligence capabilities, is nearing the completion of a critical new software tool for app developers that would step up competition with Microsoft Corp.
* Alphabet Inc. sank after a report that ChatGPT owner OpenAI is developing a web search product that would compete with Google.
* Microsoft Corp. will make four exclusive Xbox games available for Nintendo Co.’s Switch and Sony Group Corp.’s PlayStation, sharing homegrown titles with rivals in the first significant way as the company looks to boost revenue in a stagnant gaming market.
* Digital World Acquisition Corp., the blank-check firm that’s been looking to take Donald Trump’s media company public, soared after receiving a long-awaited nod from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
* The Justice Department plans to scrutinize the new streaming service proposed by Walt Disney Co., Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. over concerns it could harm consumers, media rivals and sports leagues.
* Nvidia Corp., the chipmaker at the heart of an artificial intelligence spending boom, disclosed investments in Arm Holdings Plc, SoundHound AI Inc. and the biotech company Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Key Events This Week:
* US housing starts, PPI, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday
* Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr speaks, Friday
* ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.6% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.8%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%
* The euro rose 0.4% to $1.0771
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2596
* The Japanese yen rose 0.4% to 149.96 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 0.1% to $51,701.41
* Ether rose 1.7% to $2,826.92
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.23%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 2.36%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 4.05%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2% to $78.17 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.6% to $2,004.17 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Shabnam
“Where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity.”– Aphra Behn

Shabnam Mohammadpourmarzbali
Assistant to Carolann Steinhoff
Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Valentine’s Day.
It’s Ash Wednesday too.

February 14, 1876: Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents, the Suprem Court eventually rules Bell the rightful inventor.
February 14^th, 2003: Dolly the sheep – the first mammal cloned from an adult – was put to death at age 6 due to premature aging and disease. Go to article >>

A cousin to the Mediterranean diet
Recent studies show the Atlantic diet, a cousin to the popular Mediterranean diet, may help reduce chronic disease.

Disneyland’s Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy want to join a union
Disneyland employees who perform as various characters at the theme park are seeking to join the Actor’s Equity Association. 

Why is Valentine’s Day candy so expensive?
Some holiday editions of popular candies are priced higher than the regular versions of the sugary treats. Here are the reasons behind the markups.

California-size Antarctic ice sheet once thought stable may actually be at tipping point for collapse
Researchers have discovered the base of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, which holds enough ice to raise sea levels by as much as 10 feet, may already be partially thawed. Read More.

Einstein’s predictions mean rare ‘gravitational lasers’ could exist throughout the universe, new paper claims
A new study combining two of Albert Einstein’s famous predictions suggests that ripples in space-time can combine into “gravitational lasers” that fire out of black holes in random directions across the cosmos. Read More.

Scientists may have accidentally found mystery magma reservoir in volcano less region of Alaska
While tracking seismic activity on Denali, scientists stumbled upon an anomaly that could indicate the presence of magma. Read More.

From the Late Night hosts:
“According to the latest numbers, Sunday night’s Super Bowl surpassed the moon landing to become the most-watched U.S. broadcast of all time. And it can’t be a coincidence that the two biggest broadcasts of all time were faked by the C.I.A.” — SETH MEYERS

“In the same statement, former President Trump said that his daughter-in-law Lara Trump should be the co-chair of the R.N.C. and that her husband Eric should be ‘ambassador to wherever’s farthest.’” — SETH MEYERS

“They’re entrusting the party’s future to the wise judgment of someone who married Eric.” — JIMMY FALLON

“I say, why stop with Lara? A future Trump administration could have Jared as chief of staff, Ivanka as ambassador to the U.N., and Don Jr. as the head of the D.E.A., the Drug Enjoyment Agency.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Inverclyde, Scotland
A rainbow arches across the sky behind Perch Lighthouse in the Clyde at Port Glasgow
Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA
Nong Nooch, Thailand
Couples ride elephants during a Valentine’s Day celebration at a botanical garden
Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
California, US
‘Lassen volcanic national park. Photo taken from our house in the foothills east of Redding following recent snowfall.’
Photograph: Ed Condit
Market Closes for February 14^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38424.27	+151.52
		+0.40%
S&P 500	5000.62	+47.45
		+0.96%
NASDAQ	15859.15	+203.55
		+1.30%
TSX	20889.40	+304.43
		+1.48%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	37703.32	-260.65
		-0.69%
HANG SENG	15879.38	+132.80
		+0.84%
SENSEX	71822.83	+267.64
		+0.37%
FTSE 100*	7568.40	+56.12
		+0.75%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.557	3.651
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.422	3.471
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.2554	4.3143
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4346	4.4628

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7385	0.7371
US $	1.3541	1.3567

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4534	0.6881
US $	1.0733	0.9317

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1996.10	2015.20
Oil
WTI Crude Future	77.87	77.87

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1946, the first general purpose computer was unveiled. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was hailed by the New York Times as “an amazing machine which applies electronic speeds for the first time to mathematical tasks hitherto too difficult and cumbersome for solution.”
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 1.5% at 20,889.40 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since rising 2% on Dec. 13 and follows the previous session’s decrease of 2.3%.
Today, financials stocks led the market higher, as 10 of 11 sectors gained; 169 of 225 shares rose, while 48 fell.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 4.2%.
Goeasy Ltd. had the largest increase, rising 8.0%.
Insights
* In the past year, the index had a similar or greater gain five times. The next day, it advanced four times for an average 0.5% and declined 0.5% once
* The index advanced 0.9% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 20% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 1.7% below its 52-week high on Jan. 31, 2024 and 11.8% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 0.4% in the past 5 days and fell 0.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.2 on a trailing basis and 15.8 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year * The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.26t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 11.52% compared with 10.63% in the previous session and the average of 9.78% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 111.0389| 1.7| 26/1
Industrials | 72.6955| 2.4| 21/5
Information Technology | 63.7624| 3.4| 10/0
Consumer Staples | 25.9624| 2.9| 7/4
Consumer Discretionary | 13.3061| 1.7| 13/0
Utilities | 11.5523| 1.5| 14/1
Real Estate | 8.6988| 1.8| 19/1
Materials | 8.3000| 0.4| 36/13
Communication Services | 3.6689| 0.5| 4/1
Health Care | 0.5890| 0.9| 3/0
Energy | -15.1290| -0.4| 16/22
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | 37.2400| 4.2| 35.8| 5.9
RBC | 24.6100| 2.0| -22.1| -2.2
Intact Financial | 18.7400| 7.2| 158.6| 9.6
Suncor Energy | -1.4490| -0.4| 81.4| 0.6
Barrick Gold | -1.7180| -0.7| 22.4| -20.5
CAE | -6.1870| -9.8| 261.7| -10.5
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — A renewed wave of dip buying sent stocks and bonds higher, following a slide triggered by an unexpected pickup in US inflation.
As investors awaited the next few economic reports that will be key in shaping the Federal Reserve’s rate path, Treasuries rebounded — led by gains in shorter maturities.
Equities closed near session highs, with big tech leading the way.
Nvidia Corp. topped Alphabet Inc.’s market value as the chip giant’s rally shows no signs of cooling.
Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — the VIX — tumbled after a surge fueled by a reset in traders rate-cut bets.
“The stock market never moves higher without fits and starts along the way,” said Jeremy Straub at Coastal Wealth.
“The economy remains strong and isn’t in need of lower interest rates, which is ultimately supportive of stock prices.”
The S&P 500 reclaimed its 5,000 mark, while gains in the Nasdaq 100 topped 1%.
In late hours, Cisco Systems Inc., the largest maker of computer networking equipment, said it plans to cut thousands of jobs after a slowdown in corporate technology spending wiped out its sales growth.
Two-year US yields fell eight basis points to 4.58%.
Bitcoin climbed above $51,000. Matt Maley at Miller Tabak + Co. says the stock-market bounce is giving investors a lot of relief from Tuesday’s “scare.” However, he points out that Treasury yields remain at or very-near their recent highs.
“Therefore, if those yields do not roll over very quickly, it’s something that could finally create somewhat impactful headwinds for the stock market,” Maley noted.
A Bloomberg index of global debt has dropped 3.5% this year, wiping out all of its gains since Dec. 12, the day before the Fed announcement that month.
Slower-than-forecast UK inflation numbers for January offered some relief to Treasuries on Wednesday, lowering the US 10-year yield after Tuesday’s 14-basis-point surge.
To Chris Senyek at Wolfe Research, the market remains a “show me” story.
“For the overall market to experience an official correction, we believe investors will need to see additional evidence that the Fed won’t cut in-line with expectations and/or the growth outlook is decelerating fast enough to spark
recession fears,” he noted.
“The ‘hot’ inflation data do not change our base case for a soft landing of slower growth, falling inflation, and 100 bps of Fed rate cuts this year, likely starting in the second quarter,” said Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management. “But we are continuing to monitor the incoming data and the start of rate cuts could be delayed should the economic prints remain strong.”
The reversal in bond yields Wednesday also favored a rebound in big tech, the group that has powered the stock-market resurgence.
A day after the Nasdaq 100 popped above 18,000 for the first time, investors are once again grappling with what the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates means for tech valuations that are back at levels exceeded only during the pandemic-era rebound and the dot-com bubble.
Yet the Nasdaq’s 1.6% slide Tuesday was only the worst in two weeks, and a measure of implied volatility on the index remained firmly in calm territory.
But the prospect of sticky inflation leaves bulls clinging to a Goldilocks scenario that sees the American economy continue to thrive — without generating pricing pressures that force the Fed back into rate hikes.
From a technical perspective, Dan Wantrobski at Janney Montgomery Scott says there will possibly be further “choppy back-and-forth action” this week as more Fed officials are expected to chime in on inflation data ahead of the producer price index on Friday.
He’s keeping a close eye on the 4,920 level for the S&P 500, which was the pivot point from Tuesday’s session.
“A break below this threshold would trigger more selling pressures ahead,” he noted.

Corporate Highlights:
* Uber Technologies Inc. will buy back as much as $7 billion in shares to return capital to shareholders after reporting its first full year of operating profit and consistent positive free cash flow in 2023.
* Lyft Inc. issued a massive correction to its outlook for earnings margin in 2024, saying its margin is expected to expand by 50 basis points — not the 500 basis points written into an earnings presentation released earlier on Tuesday.
* Airbnb Inc. ended 2023 stronger than analysts’ had expected but suggested that demand in the current quarter wouldn’t be as robust as the last.
* Robinhood Markets Inc. reported revenue that topped estimates and executives said deposit growth is outpacing that of last year.

Key Events This Week:
* Japan GDP, industrial production, Thursday
* US Empire manufacturing, initial jobless claims, industrial production, retail sales, business inventories, Thursday
* ECB President Christine Lagarde speaks, Thursday
* Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks, Thursday
* Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks, Thursday
* ECB chief economist Philip Lane speaks, Thursday
* US housing starts, PPI, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday
* Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr speaks, Friday
* ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel speaks, Friday
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 1% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.2%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.7%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2%
* The euro rose 0.2% to $1.0727
* The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.2564
* The Japanese yen rose 0.1% to 150.60 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 4.2% to $51,661.01
* Ether rose 5% to $2,763.94
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined five basis points to 4.27%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 2.34%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined 11 basis points to 4.04%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.6% to $76.62 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,990.66 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Edward Bolingbroke and Garfield Reynolds.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
You don’t love because, you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults. –William Faulkner, 1897-1962.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Shrove Tuesday.

February 13^th, 1633: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before Inquisition for professing belief that earth revolves around the Sun.
1741: First magazine published in the U.S.
1945: Fire bombing of Dresden.
2005:  Ray Charles won eight posthumous Grammy awards for his final album, “Genius Loves Company.” Go to article >>

Peter Gabriel, b. 1950.

11,000-year-old submerged stone wall discovered off Germany was once used to trap reindeer
The wall may be among the oldest hunting structures on Earth and one of the largest Stone Age structures ever found in Europe. Read More.

Medieval iron glove, likely worn by a knight, discovered near Swiss castle
The right-handed glove would have been worn by a knight in the 14th century. Read More.

Is it possible to have too many antioxidants?
Antioxidants have long been touted as disease-fighting molecules, and it’s easy to assume that the more of them you eat, the healthier you will be. But research shows that larger doses can actually be harmful.
Full Story: Live Science (2/12).

Watch the 1st X-class solar flare of 2024 erupt from the sun in explosive fashion
An X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar flare, erupted from the sun on Feb. 9. Lucky Earth wasn’t in the firing line. Read More.

Retailers are working to meet Valentine’s Day demand
Cocoa prices are soaring. Will it affect your Valentine’s Day chocolate?

Tiger Woods launches new apparel partnership
The golf star is aligning with a new clothing company after ending a 27-year Nike partnership.

This underwater wall was built more than 11,000 years ago
Scientists say this Stone Age megastructure wasn’t formed by nature, but rather by hunter-gatherers who lived thousands of years ago.

Greenland has lost ice 36 times the size of New York
Swaths of the country that were once covered in ice and snow have been transformed into wetlands or shrub areas. View photos here

Jon Stewart is back on ‘The Daily Show’
Monday marked the first night that Jon Stewart returned to hosting “The Daily Show” after more than eight years away. Here’s how the show went.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Lake District, UK
A hidden heart shape is revealed at the Elterwater Quarry after water levels dropped, exposing the romantic geographical feature filled with turquoise water caused by the chemical compounds in the 500-year-old volcanic rock
Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Binche, Belgium
Revellers at the Binche Carnival, one of the most ancient and UNESCO listed traditions.
Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Doha Port, Qatar
Ginni van Katwijk, of the Netherlands, competes in the preliminary round of the women’s 20 metre high diving event during the 2024 World Aquatics Championships
Photograph: Sébastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images
Market Closes for February 13^th, 2024

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	38272.75	-524.63
		-1.35%
S&P 500	4953.17	-68.67
		-1.37%
NASDAQ	15655.60	-286.95
		-1.80%
TSX	20584.97	-482.33
		-2.29%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	37963.97	+1066.55
		+2.89%
HANG SENG	15746.58	-131.49
		-0.83%
SENSEX	71555.19	+482.70
		+0.68%
FTSE 100*	7512.28	-61.41
		-0.81%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	3.651	3.581
CND. 30 Year Bond	3.471	3.442
U.S.    10 Year Bond	4.3143	4.1793
U.S. 30 Year Bond	4.4628	4.3798

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.7371	0.7432
US $	1.3567	1.3455

 

Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.4534	0.6880
US $	1.0713	0.9334

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	2015.20	2023.50
Oil
WTI Crude Future	77.87	76.84

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1990, junk-bond giant Drexel Burnham Lambert sought bankruptcy protection following years of legal troubles. Only days earlier, its Chief Executive Fred Joseph had told The Wall Street Journal, “I see daylight. The worst is behind us.”
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 2.3% at 20,584.97 in Toronto.
The move was the biggest since falling 2.7% on Sept. 23, 2022 and follows the previous session’s increase of 0.3%.
Today, information technology stocks led the market lower, as all sectors lost; 212 of 225 shares fell, while 13 rose.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 12.5%.
SSR Mining Inc. had the largest drop, falling 53.5%.
Insights
* The index declined 0.6% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 19% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 3.1% below its 52-week high on Jan. 31, 2024 and 10.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 1.8% in the past 5 days and fell 1.9% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.1 on a trailing basis and 15.7 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.34t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 10.63% compared with 8.00% in the previous session and the average of 9.70% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology| -142.4529| -7.0| 0/10
Financials | -122.7276| -1.9| 2/25
Materials | -71.1033| -3.4| 1/51
Energy | -54.5412| -1.5| 4/37
Industrials | -24.6360| -0.8| 3/23
Utilities | -18.7275| -2.3| 0/15
Consumer Discretionary| -18.6802| -2.4| 0/13
Communication Services| -13.4429| -1.7| 0/5
Real Estate | -10.3414| -2.0| 1/20
Consumer Staples | -5.0502| -0.6| 1/10
Health Care | -0.6279| -1.0| 1/3
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
| Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Shopify | -126.7000| -12.5| 102.5| 1.6
RBC | -28.8300| -2.2| -63.7| -4.1
Brookfield Corp | -20.2900| -3.7| 49.6| -0.2
Couche-Tard | 0.3070| 0.1| 65.1| 3.3
TMX Group | 0.6400| 1.0| 51.8| 7.3
Waste Connections | 8.5030| 2.3| 138.3| 7.3
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street got a reality check on Tuesday, with hotter-than-estimated inflation data triggering a slide in both stocks and bonds.
Equities pushed away from their all-time highs as the consumer price index topped estimates across the board.
Treasuries sold off, with two-year yields hitting the highest since before the December central bank “pivot.”
Swap traders ratcheted down their expectations for a Fed cut before July.
The stock market’s “fear gauge” — the VIX — surged the most since October.
And a measure of perceived risk in the US investment-grade corporate bond market soared — with three issuers getting sidelined.
“It is too early to declare victory over inflation,” said Torsten Slok at Apollo Global Management. “Maybe the ‘last mile’ was indeed more difficult.”
The CPI data came as a disappointment for investors after a recent downdraft in price pressures that helped build expectations for rate cuts this year.
The numbers also gave credence to the wait-and-see approach highlighted by Jerome Powell and a chorus of Fed speakers.
The S&P 500 fell 1.4%, dropping below 5,000 in its worst CPI day since September 2022.
Rate-sensitive shares like homebuilders and banks sank, while Tesla Inc. led losses in mega-caps.
The Russell 2000 of small caps slumped about 4%.
US 10-year yields climbed 14 basis points to 4.31%.
The so-called real yield hit 2%.
The dollar rose, driving gold under $2,000.
“If Powell and other Fed members hadn’t already thrown cold water on the prospects for a March rate cut a few weeks ago, today’s CPI report might have done that,” said Jason Pride at Glenmede. “Evidence of still-sticky services inflation is likely to give the Fed pause before cutting rates too quickly.”
Pride says rate cuts are likely still on the table for this year, but they may begin later than the market may be anticipating.
Swap contracts referencing Fed policy meetings — which as recently as mid-January fully priced in a rate cut in May and 175 basis points of easing by the end of the year — were roiled.
The odds of a May cut dropped to about 32% from about 64% before the inflation data, with fewer than 90 basis points anticipated this year.
“While the door for a March cut had already been effectively shut given the recent Fed commentary and the jobs reports, the Fed has now locked the door and lost the key,” said Greg Wilensky at Janus Henderson Investors.
Much of the unanticipated increase in CPI was concentrated in what looks like a “noisy jump” in Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) — a shelter price indicator, according to Tiffany Wilding at Pacific Investment Management Co.
While that will likely revert, the details were consistent with the Fed having a “last mile problem” — and not cutting rates until midyear or later, she added.
The January CPI report is a reminder that inflation is a difficult, not-well-understood problem that doesn’t move in a straight line, according to Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance.
“Bonds are too expensive if inflation is still a problem and the stock market can’t keep rallying if rates are going to be higher-for-longer – especially if the assumption that the Fed is completely done raising rates is incorrect,” he added.
Andrew Brenner at NatAlliance Securities expects more volatility for the rest of the week “as the bears have the upper hand and the bulls are grasping.”
To Jeffrey Roach at LPL Financial, while the data wasn’t exactly what the Fed wanted to see, investors will have to wait until later this month for a more comprehensive look at consumer prices.
“Just as the Fed said it wouldn’t rush to cut rates even after several months of encouraging economic data, they’re not going to immediately reverse course just because of one hotter-than-expected CPI reading,” said Chris Larkin at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. “Until proven otherwise, the longer-term cooling inflation trend is still in place. The Fed had already made clear that rate cuts weren’t going to happen as soon as many people wanted them to. Today was simply a reminder of why they were inclined to wait.”
The disinflation process is not a straight line — and one hot print on its own after an extended string of more favorable releases does not represent a new trend, said Josh Jamner at ClearBridge Investments.
The surprise jump in the January consumer price index probably will be less pronounced in the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge and potentially less alarming to central bank officials as they weigh when to cut interest rates.
Based on the latest CPI figures, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy — due from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Feb. 29 — probably rose 0.29% last month, Morgan Stanley economists said.
“The CPI data has disrupted the string of Goldilocks growth and inflation data that had helped to lift the S&P 500 over 5,000,” said Brian Rose at UBS Global Wealth Management. “But it doesn’t change our positive fundamental outlook for 2024 of solid growth, further disinflation, and the start of Fed rate cuts in Q2 that is supportive of risk assets.”

More Comments on CPI:
* Skyler Weinand at Regan Capital: “Getting to the Fed’s magical 2% inflation target may prove more difficult than expected and result in elevated interest rates for a longer period of time.”
* Rob Swanke at Commonwealth Financial Network: “This is certainly not the news that the Fed will be looking for in order to begin cutting rates. So we may be on hold for several more months.”
* Paul Toft at Key Private Bank: “We remain aligned with the Fed’s comments of being more cautious in when to start cutting rates, and we believe the first rate cut will not come until the June or July meeting.”
* Neil Birrell at Premier Miton Investors: “We are not at the stage of worrying about inflation reaccelerating, but we are not out of the woods yet either.”
* Quincy Krosby at LPL Financial: “The ‘last mile’ – as expected – is proving to be stickier and more stubborn inhibiting even the most dovish wing of the FOMC.”
* Bryce Doty at Sit Investment Associates: “From the Fed’s perspective, economic growth is strong enough that there isn’t a sense of urgency on cutting rates. In the meantime, bond investors will get to enjoy higher yields a
little while longer than many thought.”
* Jim Baird at Plante Moran Financial Advisors: “There’s still a viable path to a soft landing, but the January inflation report is a reminder that getting there won’t be a walk in the park.”
* Lauren Goodwin at New York Life Investments: “Though the timing of a Fed rate cut is uncertain, most investors are betting that a cut is the next move. Investors can consider locking in higher policy rates before Treasuries
reflect lower rates in the coming months.”
* Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo at Goldman Sachs Asset Management: “A delayed Fed means a focus on cash rich companies that benefit from higher real wages and a strong consumer, rather than on cyclicals that have indebtedness in floating rate form.  For rates, we have kept dry powder for better entry points into the market as it reprices the central bank delay and valuations are more appealing with better risk/reward.”
Well ahead of the CPI report, Bank of America Corp. clients posted the largest outflows from US equities in five weeks in the period ended last Friday.
Clients were net sellers of US equities last week, withdrawing $1.9 billion from the asset class — the most in five weeks, BofA quantitative strategists led by Jill Carey Hall said.
Investors are going “all in” on US technology stocks as they turn the most optimistic about global growth in two years, according to a separate survey by BofA.
Allocation to tech is now at the highest since August 2020.
Exposure to US equities more broadly has also risen, while easing macro risks prompted investors to trim cash levels by 55 basis points from January.
Previous such declines in cash levels were followed by stock market gains of about 4% in the following three months, strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note.
US equity futures had a sharp turn to bullish flows in the middle of last week, ending it with $18 billion new longs in S&P 500 futures, according to Citigroup Inc. strategists.
Nasdaq 100 futures also had $7.4 billion new longs, and long positioning on the benchmark is very extended and completely one-sided, a team led by Chris Montagu wrote.

Corporate Highlights:
* Boeing Co. plans to build its 737 Max aircraft at a slower pace during the first half of this year as it tackles quality issues and supplier glitches under the close supervision of US aviation regulators, Chief Financial Officer Brian West said.
* Krispy Kreme Inc. said it’s expecting double-digit price increases in some of the ingredients for its doughnuts, highlighting the cost pressures facing US companies.
* Coca-Cola Co. gave a 2024 organic revenue outlook that beat expectations, with a diverse group of products expected to boost results.
* GlobalFoundries Inc., the largest US maker of made-to-order semiconductors, gave a lackluster revenue forecast for the current quarter, indicating that a glut in industrial and automotive components is still weighing on orders.
* AutoNation Inc., one of the biggest car dealership chains in the US, beat analysts’ fourth-quarter profit and sales expectations.
* Marriott International Inc. reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped estimates as the company benefited from demand growth outside the US.
* Biogen Inc. reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ expectations as the company’s multiple sclerosis drugs continued to decline.
* Shopify Inc. reported sales and profit for the fourth quarter that narrowly beat analysts’ estimates, suggesting the Canadian e-commerce giant fended off competition from Asian shopping platforms like Temu, Shein and TikTok.
* Activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a 9.91% stake in JetBlue Airways Corp., calling the stock undervalued, and said he’s had talks with management about the possibility of representation on the board.
* ASML Holding NV dropped in the first minutes of trading before quickly recovering, with traders blaming the unexpected slump on an erroneous trade.

Key Events this Week:
* Eurozone industrial production, GDP, Wednesday
* BOE Governor Andrew Bailey testifies to House of Lords economic affairs panel, Wednesday
* Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks, Wednesday
* Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr speaks, Wednesday
* Japan GDP, industrial production, Thursday
* US Empire manufacturing, initial jobless claims, industrial production, retail sales, business inventories, Thursday
* ECB President Christine Lagarde speaks, Thursday
* Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks, Thursday
* Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks, Thursday
* ECB chief economist Philip Lane speaks, Thursday
* US housing starts, PPI, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks, Friday
* Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr speaks, Friday
* ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.4% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.6%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%
* The MSCI World index fell 1.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.6%
* The euro fell 0.6% to $1.0707
* The British pound fell 0.3% to $1.2589
* The Japanese yen fell 1% to 150.78 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 0.9% to $49,400.8
* Ether fell 0.1% to $2,629.74
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced 14 basis points to 4.31%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 2.39%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 4.15%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.1% to $77.78 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 1.4% to $1,992.54 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alexandra Semenova, Felice Maranz, Jessica Menton, Elena Popina, Bre Bradham, Carly Wanna, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Matthew Boesler and Christopher DeReza.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity. –George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950.

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
St. Andrew’s Square,
Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Tel: 778.430.5808
(C): 250.881.0801
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com