Category: Events

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

PHOTOS OF THE YEAR

East Boston resident Kim Poliquin skied through the streets in the middle of winter storm Juno on Jan. 27 in Boston. A six-week-plus snow siege hit the city resulting in a record accumulation of 110.6 inches. ANN HERMES/STAFF

A young boy got help from his dad during the Strolling of the Heifers parade on June 6 in Brattleboro, Vt. MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN/STAFF

Market Closes for December 18^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17128.55	-367.29   -2.10%
S&P 500	2005.55	-36.34   -1.78%
NASDAQ	4923.082	-79.471   -1.59%
TSX	13024.30	+14.37
		+0.11%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18986.80	-366.76
		-1.90%
HANG SENG	21755.56	-116.50
		-0.53%
SENSEX	25519.22	-284.56
		-1.10%
FTSE 100	6052.42	-50.12
		-0.82%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.400	1.433
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.122	2.161
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2040	2.2287
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9220	2.9314

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.71659	0.71671
US $	1.39550	1.39527
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.51653	0.65940
US $	1.08673	0.92019

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1062.50	1049.40
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	34.73	34.95

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Allison McNeely

     (Bloomberg) — The Canadian dollar tumbled to a 11-year low on declining oil prices, one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to boost interest rates highlighted the divergent tracks of the two economies.

     The currency weakened against most of its major peers as the price of crude traded near the lowest since February 2009 on surging U.S. inventories. The U.S. central bank raised its key interest rate target by 0.25 percentage point on Wednesday.

     “With the lurch lower in oil prices, we were anticipating C$1.40 by the end of Q1, but we might get C$1.40 later this afternoon,” said Daragh Maher, New York-based head of U.S. foreign-exchange strategy at HSBC Holdings Plc. “One of the difficulties you have at the moment is that liquidity is so thin it doesn’t take much flow to go through to suddenly prompt quite a big move.”

     The loonie has tumbled 17 percent this year amid a rout in oil that has sent Canada’s second-largest export below $40 a barrel. The U.S. interest-rate move begins a period of monetary- policy divergence between Canada and its biggest trading partner, after the Bank of Canada cut its benchmark rate twice this year to boost economic growth.

     The currency, nicknamed for the aquatic bird on the C$1 coin, fell 1.1 percent to C$1.3934 per U.S. dollar as of 10:25 a.m. in Toronto, the weakest level since May 2004.

     U.S. two-year government note yields exceeded similar- maturity Canadian debt by 0.45 percentage point, the most since 2007.

US

By Jeremy Herron and Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks tumbled to their lowest level in two months, while the dollar trimmed a weekly gain as investors focused on prospects for a slowdown in global growth and continued to adjust to the end of near-zero interest rates in America.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index pushed its worst two-day slide since Sept. 1 to 3.3 percent and erased its gain for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 350 points Friday. Government bonds rallied as West Texas Intermediate crude traded near a six-year low, damping inflation expectations. Brazil’s real and stocks fell amid speculation that the president will name a new finance minister.

     The S&P 500 extended declines in the final 15 minutes of trading and volume soared Friday because of a quarterly event known as quadruple witching, when futures and options contracts on indexes and individual stocks expire. More than 12.5 billion shares changed hands across American exchanges, 71 percent above the three-month average and the most since the height of the summer selloff on Aug. 24.

     “It’s a sloppy market,” Bernie Williams, chief investment officer at San Antonio-based USAA Federal Savings Bank, said by phone. “The world economy is slowing and China has taken some of the oil demand off the table so you’ve seen a huge wipe out in commodity stocks. Investors are wondering if this is really indicative of slowing economy or if there is something deeper here.”

     While this week’s Fed rate decision removed a measure of uncertainty on financial markets and added to optimism that the world’s largest economy is on firm footing, it did little to allay concern that global growth remains vulnerable to a slowdown in China and a related rout in commodities. Oil continues to trade near levels last seen during the global financial crisis, stoking worry that junk-rated energy producers won’t be able to remain solvent.

     The S&P 500 fell 1.8 percent at 4 p.m. in New York, as it lost 0.3 percent for the week. The index yesterday erased Wednesday’s post-Fed gains as crude oil slid and commodities deepened a drop. It’s fallen 3.6 percent in December and is down 2.6 percent in 2015.

     The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 1 percent. The equity benchmark cut its first weekly advance in three to 1.5 percent and is set for its worst December since 2002. After a 14 percent jump from its September low through end-November, the gauge lost more than 6.3 percent this month amid disappointing stimulus measures from the European Central Bank and a deepening of the rout in commodities.

     Japan’s Topix sank the most in two weeks and its 10-year bond yield dropped to the lowest since January as the BOJ announced a new program of exchange-traded fund purchases and plans to extend the maturities of its government debt holdings.

     A gauge of the dollar had its best week since the start of November as the Fed’s decision prompted traders to bring forward expectations since last Friday for the next increase. The U.S. currency strengthened against 12 of 16 major peers this week as futures traders raised to 49 percent the odds of an April rate increase. 

     Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said during a panel discussion in North Carolina that the economy has stabilized and is in a good position going forward.

     The U.S. currency was at $1.087 per euro, 1.1 percent higher this week.

     The Canadian dollar fell to C$1.39 per U.S. dollar the first time since 2004 after economic data continued to trail forecasts, stoking speculation the Bank of Canada may have to do more to bolster growth.

     Japan’s currency jumped 1 percent to 121.29 per dollar after the BOJ kept its main monetary stimulus target unchanged while outlining operational changes.

     The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which measures the returns on 22 raw materials, rose 1.1 percent after recording its lowest close since March 1999. The index retreated 1.2 percent in the week.

     Industrial metals climbed, paring weekly losses, after a report by industry consultancy SMM that Chinese copper producers plan to hold a meeting Saturday to discuss building inventories of the metal. Copper futures surged 3.3 percent to $2.111 a pound. Gold climbed 1.4 percent.

     Oil in New York lost 1.1 percent, after rallying as much as 1.8 percent, to fall back below $35 a barrel, after Baker Hughes Inc. reported that the number of active oil rigs in the U.S. climbed this week. Futures capped a third weekly drop with a 2.5 percent slide.

     The yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell two basis points to 2.20 percent. The rate climbed eight basis points in the week, with all of the advance coming in the first three days.

     Treasuries volatility fell to the lowest this year as the Fed’s decision removed uncertainty from fixed-income markets. Bank of America Corp.’s MOVE Index, which measures price swings in U.S. government debt, slid to 67.67 basis points Thursday, the least since December 2014.

     Brazil’s real tumbled against other emerging market currencies, while the Ibovespa stock gauge fell 3 percent amid speculation that President Dilma Rousseff will name Planning Minister Nelson Barbosa to replace Joaquim Levy as finance minister.

     Emerging-market stocks fell for the first time in four days, paring a weekly gain, while currencies advanced as investors increased bets that the Fed will tighten gradually.

     The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped 1.1 percent, trimming its weekly increase to 2.1 percent, the best since Nov. 20. Valuations for the benchmark gauge are just below their 10- year average even as analysts’ projections for earnings have fallen to a six-year low.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

 

As ever,
 

 “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.” Buddha

Karen

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

This Day in History:

On Dec. 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful man-powered airplane flight, near Kitty Hawk, N.C.

1969 – The U.S. Air Force closed its Project “Blue Book” by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

1989 – The animated TV series “The Simpsons” premiered on Fox.

1992 – President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies.

2005 – President George W. Bush acknowledged he’d personally authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. following Sept. 11.

Gary and I are heading out to New Zealand (sailing 🙂 ) for the holidays, so let me again wish all of you – and yours – the very best of the season.  May peace and prosperity reign in the New Year.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A giant illuminated Santa Claus is seen on the Promenade Des Anglais as part of holiday season decorations in Nice, France, Monday.

A member of the ‘Sibspas’ Siberian search and rescue group dressed as Santa Claus, shakes hands with his teammate, dressed as Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, as they climb to the rock named ‘The Fourth Stolb’ (the Fourth Pillar) at the Stolby National Nature Reserve during a training session of the Russian Emergencies Ministry outside Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia on Tuesday. Ilya Naymushin/Reuters

Market Closes for December 17^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17495.84	-253.25   -1.43%
S&P 500	2042.97	-30.10   -1.45%
NASDAQ	5002.555	-68.578   -1.35%
TSX	13029.52	-136.56
		-1.04%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19353.56	+303.65
		+1.59%
HANG SENG	21872.06	+170.85
		+0.79%
SENSEX	25803.78	+309.41
		+1.21%
FTSE 100	6102.54	+41.35
		+0.68%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.433	1.513
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.161	2.225
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2287	2.2960
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9314	3.0039

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.71671	0.72548
US $	1.39527	1.37839
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.50963	0.66241
US $	1.08196	0.92425

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1049.40	1075.25
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	34.95	35.52

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks tumbled, halting a two-day rally, as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increase spurred a rally in the greenback that added to a selloff in commodities.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index slid 1.2 percent to 13,009.93 at 4 p.m. in Toronto after turning in its biggest two-day gain since August. The gauge slumped on Monday to its lowest level since October 2013 and is now down 11 percent for the year.

     With the Fed’s rate decision out of the way, a Bloomberg basket of prices for natural resources from copper to oil and gold extended its decline this year. Canada’s equity benchmark – – 30 percent of which is commodity producers — has had the third-worst returns year to date of all developed nations, only faring better than Greece and Singapore.

     Raw-materials producers lost 3.7 percent after the Fed’s rate decision bolstered the value of the dollar, the currency used around the world to buy and sell most commodities. Goldcorp Inc., Barrick Gold Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. sank at least 6.6 percent. The metal decreased the most since March, while copper led losses among industrial metals. The S&P/TSX gauge of commodity producers has fallen 25 percent in 2015.

     Energy producers in the S&P/TSX slid 1 percent as crude oil fell back below $35 a barrel after three days above the threshold. Penn West Petroleum Ltd. and Bankers Petroleum Ltd. declined more than 4 percent, while Encana Corp. slipped to its lowest level since April 2000.

     Phone companies in the Canadian equity gauge fell 4.1 percent. Telus Corp. lost 6.7 percent, the most in more than two years, after Shaw Communications Inc. bought Wind Mobile in a move that could boost wireless competition in Canada, especially in Telus’s home turf in the West of the country.

US

By Anna-Louise Jackson

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks dropped, ending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s three-day rally, as investors moved past the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increase and returned their focus to weakness in commodities and prospects for global growth.

     A stronger dollar in the wake of the Fed’s move weighed on energy and raw-material shares, as crude tumbled below $35 a barrel. General Mills Inc. sank 3.3 percent after its quarterly results missed estimates, and Oracle Corp. slumped after its revenue fell short of forecasts. FedEx Corp. gained 2 percent after beating profit targets.

     The S&P 500 fell 1.5 percent to 2,041.89 at 4 p.m. in New York, erasing Wednesday’s post-Fed gains, and paring gains this week of as much as 3 percent. The index slipped below its average prices during the past 50 and 200 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 253.25 points, or 1.4 percent, to 17,495.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 1.4 percent. About 8 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 9.4 percent above the three-month average.

     “The kind-of euphoria aside over the Fed finally doing something, rates going up doesn’t mean good things for stocks,” said Malcolm Polley, who oversees $1.4 billion as president and chief investment officer at Stewart Capital Advisors LLC in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “In my mind, there’s nothing good that comes out of a Fed rate hike except they’re finally off zero.”

     The S&P 500 surged 1.5 percent Wednesday following Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s message that the economy is performing well and the central bank is in no rush to raise rates again. However, the rout today in commodities has rekindled concern that global growth remains tepid.

     Policy makers have made it clear that the pace of future rate increases will depend on progress in economic data. A report today showed fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign of persistent strength in the labor market. A separate report showed an index of leading indicators rose more than estimated in November.

     The S&P 500 has declined 1.9 percent in December, bucking a trend of strong performance. Historically, the bulk of the final month’s gains arrive around the same time as Santa Claus and last through the end of the year. For the same thing to happen in 2015, investors will have to remain at peace with the first rate hike in more than nine years and navigate concerns ranging from weakness in commodities to stress in junk bonds.

     “Investors are focusing on some of the lingering issues with regard to stocks — falling price of oil and global weakness,” said Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, who helps manage $17 billion as a senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. “To the extent that there’s doubt about earnings increases next year, that’s going to cause some concerns in the market.”

     Earnings had some influence on Thursday’s trading, with Oracle sinking the most in two years after revenue missed analysts’ estimates for the 10th time in 12 quarters. The company has been pressured as customers transition from the traditional model of buying software installed on corporate computer systems to products delivered over the Internet.                        

     General Mills had its biggest slide since September after the maker of Cheerios and Lucky Charms posted results that missed estimates, hurt by sluggish demand for breakfast cereals in the U.S. FedEx gained 2 percent after its earnings beat estimates and the package delivery giant said growth in e- commerce is resulting in record holiday shipments so far this season.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index rose 6.1 percent Thursday to 18.94, after tumbling 15 percent yesterday amid the post-Fed rally. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX is down 22 percent this week after a 65 percent surge last week, which was the most since August.

     Nine of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries retreated, with energy and raw-materials shares losing more than 1.9 percent. Technology, financial and consumer discretionary companies drop at least 1.5 percent, while utilities rose for a fourth day, their longest streak in more than a month.

     Marathon Oil Corp. and Williams Cos. dropped more than 7.2 percent to lead declines among energy producers. The group is down 10 percent in December. West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid 1.6 percent to settle at $34.95 a barrel, trading near levels last seen during the global financial crisis on signs a record surplus will worsen.

     While energy was the hardest-hit sector in today’s selloff, three of the S&P 500’s best-performing stocks were from the group, with Consol Energy Inc., Marathon Petroleum Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. up at least 2.1 percent.

     Raw-materials stocks fell 1.9 percent. Newmont Mining Corp. and Freeport-McMoran Inc. both tumbled more than 7.7 percent as gold and copper prices fell amid the stronger dollar. A rising U.S. currency cuts the appeal of metals and other commodities as stores of value.

     CVS Health Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. both fell more than 2.1 percent, helping to drag consumer-staples companies down as much as 1.3 percent. Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. slipped 4.4 percent, the most in four months, after trimming its first- quarter guidance.

     Financial companies slipped 1.6 percent, with Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. pacing the selloff. Aon Plc fell 3.8 percent, the most in three months, while State Street Corp. declined 3.2 percent after saying it incorrectly invoiced at least $200 million in asset servicing expenses to clients.

     Comcast Corp. and Walt Disney Co. weighed the most on consumer-discretionary companies with declines of at least 1.5 percent. Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Nordstrom Inc. were the group’s worst performers, losing more than 5 percent.

     Among other companies moving on corporate news, Polaris Industries Inc. lost nearly 11 percent, its steepest drop in seven years to a more than two-year low. The maker of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles cut this year’s earnings and sales estimates, citing weak demand, in part because of relatively warm weather.

     Pier 1 Imports Inc. tumbled 20 percent to the lowest since February 2010 after third-quarter sales and profits missed analysts’ estimates. The furniture chain also cut its earnings forecast, citing a decline in “casual” in-store shoppers.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Thought is crooked

because it can invent anything

and see things that are not there.

It can perform the most extraordinary tricks,

therefore it cannot be depended upon.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

                                                                         -Sidney Poitier, 1927-

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Good News:

Indonesia “Loon balloons” could bring the Internet to at least 250 million people.  Alphabet, Google’s corporate parent, announced last month that it has secured a deal with three major Indonesian telecom firms to begin trials in 2016.  The project, developed in Google’s labs, is aimed at using helium balloons – at least somewhat controllable – to allow wireless service to penetrate remote rural areas. –MIT Technology Review.

Massarosa, Italy: Cycling to work can pay, literally, under a yearlong pilot program in this city north of Pisa.  The city council, using funds generated by traffic tickets, will be paying 50 commuters a small per-kilometer stipend – as much as 50 euros a month – for switiching from cars to bicycles.  A smartphone application is used to record the distance travelled daily. –BBC.

Numbers:

45 Billion: Value (in US dollars) of the Facebook stock that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have pledged to donate to philanthropy and public advocacy causes during their lifetimes.

217:  Number of Michelin stars awarded to restaurants in Tokyo, according to Michelin’s just published 2016 guide, thus reaffirming that city’s status as the world’s culinary capital.

On This Day In History:

1770- Beethoven was born.

1773 – The Boston Tea Party happened on this day in 1773. A group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three British tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.

1775 – Jane Austen was born.

On Dec. 16, 1950, President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism.”

1809 – Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.

1944 – The Battle of the Bulge during World War II began as German forces launched a surprise counterattack against Allied forces in Belgium.

1985 – Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.

1990 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti in the country’s first democratic elections.

1998 – President Bill Clinton ordered a sustained series of airstrikes against Iraq by American and British forces in response to Saddam Hussein’s continued defiance of U.N. weapons inspectors.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

HERE WE ARE AT OUR 2015 OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY, THE BENGAL LOUNGE, EMPRESS HOTEL:

 
Carolann, Karen, Bonnie & Leyla – December 4^th, 2015

A good time was had by all!

Market Closes for December 16^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17749.09	+224.18   +1.28%
S&P 500	2073.07	+29.66   +1.45%
NASDAQ	5071.133	+75.776   +1.52%
TSX	13166.08	+246.51
		+1.91%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19049.91	+484.01
		+2.61%
HANG SENG	21701.21	+426.84
		+2.01%
SENSEX	25494.37	+173.93
		+0.69%
FTSE 100	6061.19	+43.40
		+0.72%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.513	1.490
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.225	2.223
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2960	2.2676
U.S. 30 Year Bond	3.0039	2.9904

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.72548	0.72809
US $	1.37839	1.37346
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.49953	0.66687
US $	1.08789	0.91921

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1075.25	1061.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	35.52	37.35

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks surged the most since September, as the end of seven years of near-zero interest rates in the U.S. bolstered confidence that the economy of Canada’s largest trading partner is on a steady growth path.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index advanced 1.9 percent to 13,166.08 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the biggest gain in 11 weeks. The gauge slumped on Monday to its lowest level since October 2013.

     Equities rallied as the Federal Open Market Committee boosted rates today for the first time since 2006. All 10 groups in the benchmark advanced today, with health-care stocks leading gains. Raw-material producers advanced 3.9 percent, as gold, silver and copper prices rallied. OceanaGold Corp., Barrick Gold Corp. and Lundin Mining Corp. rose as much as 7.8 percent.

     Canadian commodity and financial shares tumbled after the Fed didn’t raise rates in September, partly due to a slowdown in China, the world’s largest consumer of commodities. The concerns have weighed on Canada’s resource-rich equity gauge, making it third worst performer this year among developed-nation benchmarks.

     Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. rose 2.9 percent after raising its takeover offer for Norfolk Southern Corp. The company is attempting to persuade Norfolk Southern to accept a proposal to create a transcontinental railroad.

     Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. jumped 8.1 percent as it attempted to restore confidence during an investor conference Wednesday. The drugmaker said that the fallout with Philidor Rx Services will cut hundreds of millions of dollars from earnings this quarter and next year.

US

By Oliver Renick and Lu Wang

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rallied as the Federal Reserve ended seven years of near-zero interest rates, and assured investors that the world’s largest economy is resilient enough to withstand future increases in borrowing costs at a gradual pace.

     Equities extended gains following the central bank’s move, pushing the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest three-day rally since Oct. 5 as the benchmark rebounded from its worst weekly drop since August. Gains were widespread with nine of the gauge’s 10 main industries rising more than 1 percent after Fed Chair Janet Yellen expressed confidence in the economic outlook.

     The S&P 500 jumped 1.5 percent to 2,073.07 at 4 p.m. in New York, rising for three consecutive days for the first time since October and erasing losses for the year. The benchmark surged above its average prices during the past 50 and 200 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 224.18 points, or 1.3 percent, to 17,749.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.5 percent. About 8.6 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 18 percent above the three-month average.

     “This is a very dovish rate increase,” said Stephen Wood, who helps manage $237 billion as chief market strategist for North America at Russell Investments in New York. “It came right in in line with expectations and markets appear to like that. It’s the Fed giving its seal of approval on the economy and financial conditions, but also the Fed didn’t surprise with a more aggressive future path.”

     The Fed raised rates in a widely telegraphed move while signaling that the pace of subsequent increases will be “gradual” and in line with previous projections. The Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to set the new target range for the federal funds rate at 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, up from zero to 0.25 percent.

     Policy makers separately forecast an appropriate rate of 1.375 percent at the end of 2016, the same as September, implying four quarter-point increases in the target range next year, based on the median number from 17 officials.

     “The committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise, over the medium term, to its 2 percent objective,” the FOMC said in a statement. The Fed said it raised rates “given the economic outlook, and recognizing the time it takes for policy actions to affect future economic outcomes.”

     The action ends an era of unprecedented monetary stimulus that pushed stocks higher by more than 200 percent and added $15 trillion in value during the 6 1/2 year bull market. Investors will now find out how much stocks are worth in the absence of Fed support, and how high borrowing costs will be without the central bank stoking growth as aggressively.

     For equities, history suggests two immediate consequences from tightening: higher volatility and lower valuations, meaning earnings and ultimately the economy are left to drive prices.

     Investors have spent the second half of 2015 coping with the first correction in four years and an increase in volatility that by some measures was a record. From plunging oil to emerging-market turmoils and the selloff in junk bonds, anticipation of the Fed’s retreat added to anxiety that’s already pushed a measure of volatility above levels at the start of past Fed liftoffs.

     “This was probably the most expected rate change in the history of the Fed,” said Larry Peruzzi, managing director of international equities at Mischler Financial Group Inc. in Boston. “Markets had pretty fairly readjusted their pricing on the equity and fixed-income side going into this, and the optimism now is in the wording warranting gradual interest rate increases as opposed to measured ones.”

     While policy makers have deemed the economy ready for higher borrowing costs, they continue to stress that progress in data will dictate the ultimate pace of rate increases. A report today showed new-home construction rebounded in November, led by gains in single-family dwellings. Work began on the most stand- alone houses since January 2008, and permits for similar projects reached an eight-year high.

     A separate gauge showed manufacturing stagnated last month, held back by less production of durable goods such as automobiles and metals that reflects weak global demand.                         

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index fell 15 percent Wednesday to 17.86, extending its decline this week to 27 percent, on track for the steepest drop since July. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX surged 65 percent last week, the most since a record monthly jump in August.

     Nine of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries rose, with utilities up 2.6 percent, the group’s biggest advance in nine months. Phone companies and consumer staples rose at least 1.9 percent. Energy shares fell along with crude oil.

     CVS Health Corp. climbed 5.4 percent, the most in four years, to lead consumer staples. The biggest provider of prescription drugs in the U.S. raised the low end of its 2016 earnings forecast and increased its dividend. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. added 3.2 percent.

     Honeywell International Inc. jumped 5.7 percent, its strongest gain in more than three years. The maker of jet engines and gas detectors forecast sales and earnings above analysts’ expectations, defying an industrial slump as it cuts costs and markets new products. General Electric Co. rallied 2.2 percent to a seven-year high after projecting the return of about $26 billion in cash to investors through dividends and stock repurchases in 2016.

     Sustainable energy power generator NextEra Energy Inc. jumped 5 percent, the most in six years, to help boost the utilities group. U.S. lawmakers agreed to extend a key federal tax credit and also provided a five-year retroactive extension for the production tax credit, which benefits wind-power developers and expired at the end of 2014.

     First Solar Inc. added 9.7 percent and SolarCity Corp. soared 34 percent, the most in two years, following the extension on the tax credits, and as California regulators upheld policies that promote the use of rooftop solar panels.

     West Texas Intermediate crude-oil futures lost 4.9 percent, dragging energy producers down for the first time in three days. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. fell 7 percent, while Marathon Oil Corp. and Devon Energy Corp. dropped at least 4 percent. A report today showed U.S. crude inventories climbed to the highest level for this time of year since 1930.
 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

The state of mind is a vicious circle.  It creates problems for itself, and then tries to resolve them.

Swami Prajnanpad

As ever,

Carolann

 

I never wanted to be famous.  I only wanted to be great.

                                          -Ray Charles, 1930-2004

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

FALL SONG

  By Joy Harjo

It is a dark fall day.
The earth is slightly damp with rain.
I hear a jay.
The cry is blue.
I have found you in the story again.
Is there another word for “divine”?
I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.
If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.
Slightly overcast
Yellow leaves
Your jacket hanging in the hallway
Next to mine.

This Day In History:

On Dec. 15, 1916, the French defeated the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun.

1939 – The movie “Gone With the Wind” had its world premiere in Atlanta.

1944 – Bandleader Glenn Miller’s U.S. Army plane disappeared over the English Channel.

1961 – Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli court.

1966 – Movie producer Walt Disney died at age 65.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A flock of starlings flies in the dusk sky over Rome, Italy on Tuesday. Tony Gentile/Reuters

A dog is reflected in the water of a fountain as it runs by a Ferris wheel on the place Massena as part of Christmas holiday season illuminations in Nice, France, Tuesday. Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Market Closes for December 15^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17524.91	+156.41   +0.90%
S&P 500	2043.41	+21.47   +1.06%
NASDAQ	4995.355	+43.127   +0.87%
TSX	12919.57	+224.08
		+1.77%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18565.90	-317.52
		-1.68%
HANG SENG	21274.37	-35.48
		-0.17%
SENSEX	25320.44	+170.09
		+0.68%
FTSE 100	6017.79	+143.73
		+2.45%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.490	1.471
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.223	2.212
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2676	2.2217
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9904	2.9525

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.72809	0.72844
US $	1.37346	1.37280
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.50215	0.66571
US $	1.09370	0.91433

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1061.50	1068.25
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	37.35	36.31

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rebounded from a two-year low, joining a rally in global equities as tensions on credit markets eased and oil held onto gains from a six-year low, while Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. rallied the most in a decade.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index advanced 1.8 percent to 12,919.57 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the biggest gain in a month. The gauge is still down by 12 percent in this year and on Monday slumped to its lowest level since October 2013.

     Equities rebounded Tuesday as investors piled into risk assets a day before the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006. The loss of stimulus comes amid ongoing concern that slowing growth in China may spread. Worries that the world’s largest consumer of resources has sent for raw materials tumbling, and pushed Canada’s resource-rich equity benchmark to the the third worst returns this year among developed nations.

     Those concerns dissipated, at least for a day, as energy- related companies rose 2.3 percent Tuesday as a selloff in crude halted amid signs that the U.S. may lift an export ban for the first time in 40 years. West Texas Intermediate climbed 2.8 percent, adding to Monday’s 1.9 percent gain.

     While traders are pricing in a 78 percent probability that the Fed will raise rates, almost all economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict that the Bank of Canada will hold interest rates steady next year. It would be a rare break between the major central banks as prices plunge for oil, copper and other commodities that Canada produces.

     Valeant rose 16 percent, its biggest gain since 2005, after agreeing to cut some drug prices in a distribution pact with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. The drugmaker, under scrutiny for its drug-pricing practices, will trim prices by 10 percent for branded prescription-based skin and eye products.

     A Canadian index measuring 429 micro-cap companies slid for a seventh consecutive day to a record low. The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index sank below 500 for the first time yesterday, declining 1.2 percent.

US

By Anna-Louise Jackson

     (Bloomberg) — The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index capped its first back-to-back gains in more than a month as energy companies led a rally with crude oil, while Federal Reserve officials started a two-day meeting at which they’re widely expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006.

     Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. gained more than 3.8 percent, taking their two-day advances to at least 6.8 percent. Financial shares increased as concern over turmoil in high-yield bonds abated, with banks rallying the most in seven weeks on the eve of what most believe will be the end of the Fed’s zero interest rate policy. 3M Co. fell 6 percent, weighing on industrials after cutting its profit forecast.

     The S&P 500 climbed 1.1 percent to 2,043.41 at 4 p.m. in New York, marking its first consecutive increases since Nov. 3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 156.41 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,524.91, even as 3M’s retreat amounted to about 63 points off the index. The Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 0.9 percent. About 8.1 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 12 percent above the three-month average.

     “What’s happening today is a realization that we ended up with a sizable rally in oil yesterday,” said Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Global Investors, which oversees $333 billion. “I think maybe the market is looking for some stabilization in oil and materials to put a bottom in some of the anxiety that’s hanging around the market.”

     Prospects for the first U.S. rate increase since 2006 and a deepening oil rout had sparked a selloff in riskier assets in December. The S&P 500’s 1.8 percent decline is bucking the historical trend of gains in the final month, with the equity gauge on track for its worst December in 13 years and the biggest annual drop since 2008. It has slipped 4.1 percent since a May record.

     Fed officials announce their rate decision tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Washington, and traders are pricing in a 78 percent chance of a liftoff. Data today reinforced expectations for a gradual increase in rates, with the cost of living holding steady in November, underscoring scant inflation that is well below the Fed’s goal. Among the other few economic cues before the rate announcement are reports on housing starts and industrial production Wednesday.

     “I think the Fed will be comfortable with a rate hike tomorrow,” said Brian Jacobsen, who helps oversee $242 billion as the chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. “They’ll certainly want to convincingly signal that they’re going to follow a very shallow path in future rate hikes.”

     While an improving U.S. economy has helped equities recover from a summer selloff and kept the Fed on track to raising borrowing costs, investors remain in a quandary as China’s slowdown threatens to weigh on global growth, a risk which continues to be reflected by weakness in commodity prices. Despite oil’s climb today, the Bloomberg Commodity Index extended further into 16-year lows.

     Amid Tuesday’s rally there were signs of easing bond-market anxiety that had leaked into equities after Third Avenue Management last week froze redemptions at a high-yield mutual fund. The SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF rose 1.2 percent, and the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF surged 1.6 percent, the most in almost a year.

     Another gauge of investor nervousness, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, fell 7.8 percent Tuesday to 20.95, extending its two-day decline to 14 percent. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX surged 65 percent last week, the most since a record monthly jump in August.

     All of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries climbed today, led by energy’s 2.9 percent jump. Financial and health-care companies added more than 1.3 percent.

     Ensco Plc rose almost 8 percent to lead the energy group, while Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. and Transocean Ltd. added at least 4.7 percent. Exxon Mobil had its strongest gain in more than three months. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled 2.8 percent higher, up for a second day amid signs the U.S. may allow unfettered exports for the first time in 40 years.

     Banks surged, rising along with Treasury yields amid speculation that higher interest rates will lift profits. Comerica Inc. rallied 4.3 percent, while Regions Financial Corp. and Huntington Bancshares Inc. gained at least 3.6 percent. The KBW Bank Index climbed 3.1 percent as it recovered half of its worst weekly drop since August. Among other financial companies, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased more than 3 percent.

     Gains among biotechnology companies boosted the health-care group, with the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index jumping 2.8 percent. Illumina Inc. and Endo International Plc added more than 6 percent. Celgene Corp., Amgen Inc. and Biogen Inc. climbed at least 2.3 percent. Pharma giant Johnson & Johnson gained 1.9 percent.

     Walt Disney Co. rose 2.6 percent, the most since Oct. 22. The entertainment company paced gains among consumer discretionary shares just days before “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” opens in theaters nationwide. Disney and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. also announced a multiyear licensing agreement for a device that will deliver Disney and Pixar movies, games and travel services in China.

     Media companies in the S&P 500 increased, with News Corp. and CBS Corp. advancing at least 1 percent. The group had declined more than 8 percent during the previous three weeks.

     Among other consumer shares, online travel companies Priceline Group Inc., TripAdvisor Inc. and Expedia Inc. all climbed at least 1.9 percent. Ford Motor Co. added 1.8 percent, the most in a month.

     Industrial companies in the benchmark were the day’s smallest gainer, thanks to the drag from 3M’s 6 percent drop. The maker of Post-it Notes and industrial products slid the most since in four years after cutting its 2015 earnings forecast for the second time in as many months, blaming sluggish growth in the world economy.

     Agco Corp. lost 6.8 percent, the most in a year. The world’s third-largest agricultural machinery maker projected lower-than-expected sales and profit for next year. Competitor Deere & Co. slipped 2.1 percent.
 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!
 

No one can understand the sound of a drum,

without understanding both the drum and the drummer.

No one can understand the sound of a conch shell,

Without

without understanding both the lute and the one who plays it.

As there can be no water without the sea, no touch without the skin,

no thought without the mind, no work without hands, and no walking without feet,

so there can be nothing without the soul.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

                                                              –Thomas Huxley, 1825-1895

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

The Poem

Selected by Natasha Tretheway, NY Times, December 13^th, 2015:  Reading this poem, I thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s notion that “poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”  Here, the less-than-lovely pigeons – “huddled” scavengers “the color of sullied steel” – suddenly ascend to the sublime.

PIGEONS
     -by Danusha Laméris

Because they crowd the corner
of every city street,
Because they are the color
of sullied steel,
because they scavenge,
eating every last crust,
we do not favor them.

They raise their young
huddled under awnings
above the liquor store

circle our feet, pecking at crumbs
pace the sidewalk
with that familiar strut.

None will ever attain greatness.
Though every once in a while
in a tourist’s blurry snapshot
of a grand cathedral

they rise into the pale gray sky
all at once.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

On Dec. 14, 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967.

1861 – Prince Albert, husband of Britain’s Queen Victoria, died suddenly in London at the age of 42, propelling the Queen into lifelong mourning.

1911 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole.

1946 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

1979 – The album “London Calling” by the Clash was released.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The Eiffel Tower is engulfed in early morning fog in Paris Monday. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Christmas lights and a lit Christmas tree adorn the Vittoriano monument, the tomb of the unknown soldier, in downtown Rome Monday.Gregorio Borgia/AP

Market Closes for December 14^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17368.50	+103.29   +0.60%
S&P 500	2021.97	+9.60   +0.48%
NASDAQ	4952.230	+18.765   +0.38%
TSX	12694.25	-95.70
		-0.75%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	18883.42	-347.06
		-1.80%
HANG SENG	21309.85	-154.20
		-0.72%
SENSEX	25150.35	+105.92
		+0.42%
FTSE 100	5874.06	-78.72
		-1.32%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.471	1.413
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.212	2.164
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2217	2.1358
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9525	2.8817

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.72844	0.72773
US $	1.37280	1.37413
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.50886	0.66275
US $	1.09911	0.90988

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1068.25	1072.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	36.31	35.62

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell to their lowest level in more than two years as commodity prices continued to decline ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate hike decision on Wednesday.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index declined 0.7 percent to 12,695.49 at the close in Toronto, its lowest since Oct. 8, 2013. The gauge tumbled 4.3 percent last week, its third consecutive week of declines.

     As the Fed’s decision on Wednesday looms closer, a Bloomberg basket of prices for natural resources from copper to oil and gold extended its decline this year to 25 percent. Canada’s equity benchmark — 30 percent of which is commodity producers — has had the third worst returns year to date of all developed nations, only faring better than Greece and Singapore.

     Raw-materials producers lost 5 percent after Macquarie Group Ltd. said there are still doubts over improving demand for metals. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Centerra Gold Inc. and Teck Resources Ltd. sank at least 6 percent. Gold decreased 1 percent, while copper lost 0.5 percent. The S&P/TSX gauge of commodity producers has fallen 25 percent in 2015.

     Energy producers in the S&P/TSX slid 0.7 percent even as oil rebounded after prices fell below $35 a barrel in New York for the first time since 2009. Encana Corp. and Enerplus Corp. lost more than 7.2 percent. Baytex Energy Corp. fell 5 percent to a record low, while Bankers Petroleum Ltd. decreased 4.1 percent to its lowest level since February 2009.

     Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. climbed, as an index of S&P/TSX health-care companies rose 0.7 percent higher. Rogers Communications Inc. gained 1.1 percent, as Canadian phone companies advanced 1.3 percent.

US

By Anna-Louise Jackson

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, surging in the final minutes of trading as a rebound in crude oil overshadowed credit market turbulence and weakness in commodity shares before the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index wiped out a 1 percent drop that briefly took the benchmark to its lowest since Oct. 6, as Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. rallied more than 2.2 percent. Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. added at least 2 percent to help pace Monday’s advance.

     The S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent to 2,021.94 at 4 p.m. in New York, rebounding from its worst week since August. Equities erased earlier declines as crude oil rose 1.9 percent after swinging between gains and losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 103.29 points, or 0.6 percent, to 17,368.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.4 percent. About 8.9 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 24 percent above the three-month average.

     “Right now the focus is macroeconomic, the Federal Reserve and commodities prices,” said John Carey, a fund manager at Pioneer Investment Management Inc. in Boston, which oversees $244.1 billion globally. “We’re on hold until Wednesday.”

     Stocks worldwide have sputtered this month, as the prospects for a Fed rate increase as soon as Dec. 16 and a drop in oil sparked a selloff in riskier assets. The deepening rout on commodities markets amplified concern that struggling resource producers won’t be able to stay solvent, while weakness in high-yield credit markets has sparked fear of contagion.

     Bond market anxiety has caught the notice of equity investors after Third Avenue Management froze redemptions at a high-yield mutual fund last week, and Lucidus Capital Partners liquidated its entire high-yield portfolio. The SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF slipped 0.8 percent, trimming an earlier 1.4 percent drop, after its biggest one-day drop in four years on Friday. The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF fell 0.9 percent to its lowest since 2009.

     The S&P 500 slid to a two-month nadir on Friday, rounding off its first weekly drop in four as commodity and financial shares led the retreat. Asset managers extended declines today after a rout Friday following Third Avenue’s move to freeze redemptions in its $789 million Focused Credit Fund. Franklin Templeton Funds parent Franklin Resources Inc. lost 2.9 percent, while Legg Mason Inc. declined 3.4 percent.

     Nerves were further frayed just after 10 a.m. in New York when benchmark indexes such as the S&P 500 and Dow average briefly surged and retreated. In two minutes starting at 10:14 a.m., the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust exchange-traded fund jumped about 1 percent on volume of about 10 times the day’s earlier rate. Then it erased the move.

     “It’s clear somebody had a mistake, whether it’s a computer or a human,” said Michael Antonelli, an institutional equity sales trader and managing director at Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee. “In these kind of illiquid market days when everybody’s just kind of nervous, it can disjoint the market for an instant. It’s something we deal with a lot these days.”

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index fell 6.8 percent Monday to 22.73, reversing an earlier 10 percent climb. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX surged 65 percent last week, the most since a summer market swoon led the gauge to a record monthly jump in August.

     The 2.8 percent decline for the S&P 500 in December is so far proving an exception to a historical trend of strong performance for the month, and would mark the worst end to a year since 2002. The benchmark is 8.3 percent above an August low, after rebounding as much as 13 percent from a summer selloff. Its recent drop has dragged the gauge closer to levels that chart analysts call oversold. Its relative-strength index is the lowest since September.

     Next year isn’t looking too bright for U.S. equity investors, with valuations likely to contract after the Fed’s rate increase. Past hikes have almost always put a ceiling on S&P 500 price-earnings ratios, and this would come at a time when profits are already in decline. Such a combination hasn’t occurred in five decades.

     Traders are pricing in a 78 percent chance that the Fed’s meeting will confirm Chair Janet Yellen’s belief that the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand the first increase in borrowing costs since 2006. Investors have wavered between optimism about the U.S. and concern that a slowdown in China will damp global growth prospects.

     There will be few economic cues to go on before the Fed’s announcement Wednesday, with reports on U.S. housing starts and industrial production scheduled for the day of the decision.

     FedEx Corp., Oracle Corp., General Mills Inc. and homebuilder Lennar Corp. are due to report quarterly results this week. With a little more than two weeks left in the fourth quarter, analysts forecast a 5.8 percent drop in S&P 500 companies’ profits for the period, after a 3.8 percent decline last quarter.

     In Monday’s trading, nine of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries climbed, led by phone, energy and consumer staples companies. Raw-materials shares lost 1.4 percent as the group fell for a third consecutive day to the lowest level in two months.

     “There are a lot of fireworks here coming down to the wire with the Fed,” said Jim Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management Inc. “Oil seems to be the big story today. If oil does show some stability, you’ve got people who would buy on a bounce.”

     Oil and gas producers advanced as crude rebounded on speculation hedge funds were buying back some of their record bearish bets after prices dropped below $35 a barrel in New York for the first time since 2009. ConocoPhillips and Chevron climbed more than 2.9 percent, after losing at least 2.2 percent on Friday. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. led the group with a 3.6 percent gain.

     Technology shares erased an earlier drop as Apple Inc. pared its decline after losing as much as 3 percent. Morgan Stanley cut its 2016 iPhone sales outlook while JPMorgan Chase & Co. noted signs of weakness in the company’s supply chain. Facebook Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. added at least 1.6 percent.                    

     Financial companies closed little changed. In addition to the retreat among asset managers, American International Group Inc. and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc fell at least 1.4 percent. Those declines were offset as CME Group Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. rose more than 1.5 percent.

     DuPont Co. and Dow Chemical Co., which last week agreed on the largest-ever chemicals merger, lost more than 3.5 percent. Dan Loeb, the founder of hedge fund Third Point which holds a 2 percent stake in Dow, is calling for the removal of Dow Chemical Co. Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris. Loeb supports the merger.

     Newmont Mining Corp. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. fell at least 4 percent as gold and copper prices declined.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The like and dislike is the result of my culture, my training, my associations,

my inclinations, my acquired and inherited characteristics.

It is from that center that I observe and make my judgments,

and the observer is separate from the thing he observes.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Success is getting what you want.  Happiness is wanting what you get.

                                                       -Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955

 

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

‘Use More Expressive Words!’ Teachers Bark, Beseech, Implore

To encourage lively writing, instructors put certain words to rest; no more ‘fun’

By 

JAMES R. HAGERTY

English teachers were once satisfied if they could prevent their pupils from splitting infinitives. Now some also want to stop them from using words like “good,” “bad,” “fun” and “said.”

“We call them dead words,” said (or declared) Leilen Shelton, a middle school teacher in Costa Mesa, Calif. She and many others strive to purge pupils’ compositions of words deemed vague or dull.

“There are so many more sophisticated, rich words to use,” said (or affirmed) Ms. Shelton, whose manual “Banish Boring Words” has sold nearly 80,000 copies since 2009.

Her pupils know better than to use a boring word like “said.” As Ms. Shelton put it, “ ‘Said’ doesn’t have any emotion. You might use barked. Maybe howled. Demanded. Cackled. I have a list.”

So does the Powell River Board of Education in British Columbia. Its website provides a list of 397 alternatives to the dreaded “said.” They include “emitted,” “beseeched,” “continued,” “sniveled,” and “spewed.”

The goal is livelier writing. The result can be confusion.

Megan Riley, a sixth-grader in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., recently joined her classmates in chanting the words that their English teacher has pronounced dead: “Good, bad, nice, a lot, OK, fun, thing and stuff.” Later, the students were told, they might hold a mock funeral to bury those words.

“I think it’s very sad they have passed,” Megan deadpanned. “I grew up with them.”

Some seventh-grade teachers at her middle school have much longer lists. One contains 40 humdrum words including “walk,” “run,” “happy,” “talk”, “go” and “see.”

A spokeswoman for the Mt. Lebanon school district clarified: “It is a lighthearted project where kids have to explore more expressive ways to say words such as ‘said,’ ‘good,’ or ‘bad.’ ”

Megan’s father, Jack, recently asked her to explain why the words were off limits.

“To make your writing sound—I don’t know—more sophisticated,” Megan posited.

Mr. Riley, an architect, was skeptical. “They’re perfectly fine words, and they have their place,” he proclaimed. “I suppose the emphasis should be on using them correctly.”

Students do their best to cope. One of Megan’s schoolmates, looking for a permissible way to say “big,” came up with “anti-microscopic.”

Bonnie Dougherty, another Mt. Lebanon parent, endorses the exercise. “It has forced my kids to search harder for more descriptive words,” she enthused.
 

 

Her son Josh, a ninth-grader, and daughter Josie, who is in sixth grade, agree. Josh considered the mock funeral a “silly little activity” but thinks his writing was improved by having dozens of terms “drilled into my head as words that you are 100% not allowed to use.” In sixth grade, a teacher docked him seven points for slipping in a few of them.

Now he automatically hunts for more picturesque language. “Rather than saying, ‘This soup was good,’ you can say something like, ‘The soup was delectable,’ which really enhances it,” Josh instructed. “It gives it sort of this extra push.”

One recent afternoon after school, Josie and Josh agreed to take a stab at editing famous authors, starting with the closing words of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: “….yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Head down, her pigtails brushing the paper, Josie examined the phrase and then suggested a small amendment: “…yes I hollered yes I will Definitely.”

Josh decided to let “said” stand, given Joyce’s reputation. He did, however, insert the commas neglected by Joyce.

In “A Farewell to Arms,” Ernest Hemingway refers to cars “going very fast.” Josie revised that to “going at a superior speed.” Josh went with “lightning speeds.”

Second-guessing famous authors was tricky, Josh cautioned: “It’s almost as though they’re given a free pass” to flout the rules. Josie submitted that she wasn’t sure they should get that pass.

Her brother winced: “You’ve got to remember,” he lectured, “most of these guys are dead.”

The search for synonyms dates to ancient times, and Peter Mark Roget published his thesaurus in 1852. It is unclear, though, when or where the dead-words approach originated. Teachers say it has been percolating through lesson plans for more than a decade. Pinterest and other websites overflow with helpful lists, including “200 Ways to Say Went.” They include “wormed” and “peregrinated.”

The movement has even peregrinated into popular music. Four years ago, Garrett Hollowell of Fort Worth, Texas, named his punk rock band Dead Words, with a nod to a wall of them he recalled from ninth grade. “I try to stay away from using too many simple words,” explained Mr. Hollowell, 23 years old. His lyrics feature words rarely heard in punk rock, such as “desensitized” and “narcissistic.”

Some teachers dislike the concept. “How in the world is a word dead that people use every day?” asked Shekema Holmes Silveri, a veteran English teacher in Atlanta who is developing a new charter school. Sometimes, Ms. Silveri asseverated, “ ‘she said’ is just the very best way to say that.”

Jennifer Walters, a fifth-grade teacher in State College, Pa., produced her own list a few years ago. Rather than writing that one thing is like another, she suggested, pupils might use “commensurate” or “agnate,” which means related through male descent or on the father’s side.

Since then, Ms. Walters has ditched the list. “Kids were just randomly selecting words, picking the ones they ‘thought sounded the coolest,’ and not thinking about their piece in particular,” she recounted in an email.

Robert C. March, a writing teacher at Atkins High School in Winston-Salem, N.C., stands by his list. He has banned “I,” “you,” “we,” “why” and “it,” among others. Mr. March makes clear on his Web page that he means business: “Any banned word, or contraction, that appears in a work submitted to me will count as -5 (minus five) points off the total grade.”

When students note that those words frequently have wormed their way into Great Literature, Mr. March has his answer ready: “When you get to the level of Charles Dickens, you can do with words whatever you want.”  -Wall Street Journal

Today in history:

On Dec. 11,

1936 – Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson.

1941 – Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.

1943 – John Kerry was born.

1946- UNICEF  founded.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

An aircraft passes over houses at it lands at Heathrow Airport near London, Friday. Neil Hall/Reuters

 

The Arc de Triomphe roundabout painted with yellow by activists, Friday. The protest is one of many activist actions linked to the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Greenpeace/AP

From left, the man known as AK47, the leader of an underground group of arto-political humorists called ‘Art Kieda’ returns artist Banksy’s sculpture ‘The Drinker’ more than ten years after stealing it in London, Friday. Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP

Market Closes for December 11^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17265.21	-309.54   -1.76%
S&P 500	2012.33	-39.90   -1.94%
NASDAQ	4933.465	-111.707   -2.21%
TSX	12773.30	-243.29
		-1.87%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19230.48	+183.93
		+0.97%
HANG SENG	21464.05	-240.56
		-1.11%
SENSEX	25044.43	-207.89
		-0.82%
FTSE 100	5952.78	-135.27
		-2.22%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.413	1.485
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.164	2.237
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.1358	2.2288
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.8817	2.9659

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.72773	0.73359
US $	1.37413	1.36317
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.51076	0.66192
US $	1.09943	0.90956

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1072.50	1071.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	35.62	36.76

With respect to trading Sugar futures, if they give it away for free at restaurants you probably don’t want to be trading it.

                 -John L. Person, (Professional trader, author, speaker, Commodity Trader’s Almanac, national futures.com, 2/22/11, TradersExpo.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian equities slumped, posting the worst weekly decline in more than three months as oil fell for a sixth day.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index dropped 1.7 percent to to 12,789.95 points at 4 p.m. in Toronto, it’s lowest level in two years. This gauge slid back below 13,000 after rebounding above the level earlier in the week.

     Energy-related companies dragged the benchmark down, falling 3.2 percent, reversing an earlier weekly gain. Oil had its biggest weekly decline in a year, amid speculation that OPEC’s decision to effectively scrap production targets will fuel the supply glut.

     As the Federal Reserve’s decision next week looms closer, shares in developing nations had their longest slump since June. Canadian equities have seen the third worst returns year to date of all developed nations, only faring better than Greece and Singapore.

     All 10 groups in the benchmark sank today. Health-care and telephone fell more than 2 percent. Materials posted the smallest decline.

     Among the worst performers, financials lost 1.6 percent after Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced that Canada would raise minimum down payments on some government-insured mortgages. That move is aimed at curbing the risk of a housing crash in Canadian cities where high prices leave families at risk of heavy debt loads. Mortgage-lenders Home Capital Group Inc. and Canadian Western Bank fell more than 3.2 percent to their lowest level since September. Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. dropped 3.9 percent.

     Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. sank 2 percent after the railroad controlled by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said it is open to making a competing bid for Norfolk Southern Corp. The company had been the target of a $27 billion takeover effort by Canadian Pacific Railway.

US

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks capped their worst week since the August selloff as optimism over the economy’s strength gave way to anxiety over the Federal Reserve just as commodities and credit markets flashed signs of danger.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 3.8 percent in the five days to end at a two-month low. Energy shares plunged as the cheapest crude oil since 2009 rekindled anxiety over deflation before the Fed’s Dec. 16 policy decision. Financial shares, the ostensible beneficiaries of any rate hike, tumbled 5.4 percent, as asset managers were routed after a high-yield mutual fund suspended redemptions.

     Optimism that the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand higher rates transformed into anxiousness, as a commodity selloff clouded the prospects for a global recovery and rekindled deflation concerns. The benchmark U.S. equity gauge ended at its lowest level since October amid concern that a rout in high-yield credit markets will spread at the same time that money managers must cope with shifting monetary policy.

     “We have the continued decline in oil prices related to excess supply, and there’s market anxiety relating to the commodity complex due to the ongoing China unknown,” said Alan Gayle, senior strategist for Atlanta-based Ridgeworth Investments, which has about $42.5 billion in assets. “These factors have more than offset the relative strength of November economic data.”

     The S&P 500 slipped to 2,012.37 in the five days, erasing a gain for the year. The index saw its biggest loss since September on Friday, falling 1.9 percent and breaking below its 100-day moving average on a closing basis for the first time since Nov. 13.

     The prior Friday saw equity investors in a far different mood. The S&P 500 surged 2.1 percent on Dec. 4 for its biggest gain in three months after a government jobs report emboldened speculation the economy is strong enough to withstand higher rates.

     That optimism faded, with a measure of investor anxiety rising by the most since August. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index surged 65 percent, including a 26 percent spike on the last session that pushed the gauge to its highest level since Sept. 30.

     Volatility has returned to global financial markets just days before the Fed is anticipated to raise rates for the first time in more than a decade. With commodity prices at a 16-year low adding to concern that weakness in China’s economy will spread, investors are seeking havens. Adding to investor worry Friday was news that Third Avenue Management took the unusual step of freezing withdrawals from a credit mutual fund.

     The August swoon in equities that sent the S&P 500 into its first correction in four years was partly credited with forcing the Fed to delay raising rates. While traders are still pricing in a 72 percent chance that the central bank will act next week, that’s down from 78 percent on Dec. 7. The S&P 500 has fallen 4.6 percent since Nov. 3, when it reached its highest level since July.

     “We would need very severe market dislocations on the order of 8 to 10 percent, or something like that, to get the Fed to reconsider,” Julian Emanuel, executive director of U.S. equity and derivatives strategy at UBS Group AG in New York, said Friday on Bloomberg Television. “The other aspect of that is the messaging of not hiking could pressure the markets even further. There’s a lot more volatility and that’s something that investors need to be prepared for.”

     All 10 main groups in the S&P 500 fell at least 1.8 percent, as energy shares were the biggest decliners with a 6.5 percent loss. West Texas Intermediate had its worst week in a year amid estimates that OPEC’s decision to scrap production limits will keep the market oversupplied.

     Financial companies dropped the most since the period ending Aug. 21. Asset managers from T. Rowe Price Group Inc. to Legg Mason Inc. led losses, after Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue took the rare step of freezing withdrawals on Dec. 9.

     Junk bonds are poised for their first annual loss since 2008. With the Fed expected to raise borrowing costs next week, raw material prices have slumped and defaults by the commodity industry are forecast to accelerate. BlackRock’s iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, the largest fund of its kind, fell to the lowest levels since 2009.

     To David Herro of Harris Associates LP, the selling of interest rate-sensitive stocks such as utilities is an overreaction. U.S. companies are more insulated from rate risk than investors realize, and are actually undervalued in some cases, he said.

     “It’s funny how so much red on the screen is due to fear of interest rates going up,” Herro, head of international stocks at Harris, said in an interview Friday with Bloomberg radio. “What’s going to happen? This has very little impact on how we value businesses. There’s a reason to be a little optimistic given prices and I don’t think value is collapsing. In fact, prices are deflated.”

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.
 

Be magnificent!

Life is very real- life is not an abstraction –

our problems begin when we encounter it only through images.

Krishnamurti

As ever,
 

Carolann

 

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

                                                              -Les Brown, 1945-

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Numbers:

50 MILLION Amount (in US$) that the still unreleased “Star Wars:  The Force Awakens” has already generated in presold tickets.  The movie opens December 18^th.

3 Northern white rhinos left in the world, all in captivity, after the death last month in San Diego of Nola, a female.

4.9 Time, in seconds, it took Lucas Eitter (age 14) to solve a Rubik’s Cube puzzle.  He is the first to do so in under five seconds in a sanctioned competition.

1,000 Community libraries to be established in India to commemorate the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who was president of India from 2002-2007.

1 BILLION Estimated amount (in US dollars) that US pharmaceutical company Pfizer would save in income taxes if its proposed $152 billion merger with Irish drugmaker Allergan comes to pass.

This day in 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace in Stockholm, Sweden. The ceremony was on the fifth anniversary of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel’s death.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A waiter taking a break sits in a cafe in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy. The Galleria is one of the world’s oldest shopping malls.Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Student Zheng Xiaowen flies in Snowstorm Thursday. Snowstorm is a personal flying machine built by a group of engineering students from the National University of Singapore. The prototype sports 24 motors, each driving a propeller 76cm in diameter. It can bear the load of a single person for a flight time of about five minutes. The flight control system provides automated flight controls similar to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as well as manual control by the pilot. Edgar Su/Reuters

Market Closes for December 10^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17574.75	+82.45   +0.47%
S&P 500	2052.23	+4.61   +0.23%
NASDAQ	5045.172	+22.307   +0.44%
TSX	13016.59	+79.00
		+0.61%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19046.55	-254.52
		-1.32%
HANG SENG	21704.61	-99.15
		-0.45%
SENSEX	25252.32	+216.27
		+0.86%
FTSE 100	6088.05	-38.63
		-0.63%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.485	1.490
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.237	2.238
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2288	2.2112
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9659	2.9635

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.73359	0.73701
US $	1.36317	1.35684
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.49143	0.67050
US $	1.09409	0.91400

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1071.00	1081.00
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	36.76	37.16

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for a second day, as BlackBerry Ltd. jumped the most since January and commodities companies continued a rebound after pledging deeper cutbacks to stem a global glut.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index advanced 79 points, or 0.6 percent, to 13,016.59 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The gauge had tumbled below 13,000 for the first time since 2013 earlier this week.

     BlackBerry jumped 7.7 percent to pace gains among technology shares in the index. An industry website reported the company’s newest phone is being sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. added 3.3. percent to contribute the most to gains in the broader index.

     Raw-material stocks were among the best-performing groups in the measure today, rallying 0.6 percent. Switzerland’s Glencore Plc said it would scale back operations to combat a rout in commodity prices. Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. gained 4 percent after joining Glencore in agreeing to reduce output. Timber companies also advanced, with Interfor Corp. and Canfor Corp. gaining at least 5.6 percent.

     The world’s biggest mining companies, particularly those that loaded up on debt, are restructuring their businesses and fighting declining profits as commodity prices keep falling. A combination of slowing economic growth in China and a rally in the U.S. dollar in anticipation of an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve have weighed on prices of resources. Canadian raw-material companies, which account for 10 percent of the S&P/TSX, have tumbled this year.

     While oil extended a decline below $37, energy producers advanced for a third day. The group added as much as 1.3 percent, after falling on Monday to its lowest level since March 2009.

     Westshore Terminals Investment Corp. plunged 20 percent to it’s lowest level since 2009, after cutting its dividend Wednesday. The coal storage company cited declining coal prices without any foreseeable price improvements in the near term.

US

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose to halt a three-day slide, as beaten-down energy shares climbed for a second session from their lowest level since September and airlines led transportation companies off a three-month low.

     Weakness in energy and industrial shares has helped restrain equities from any meaningful advance since the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index reached a more than three-month high in early November. Airlines boosted industrials today, while Chevron Corp. added 1.9 percent to bolster energy after cutting its 2016 spending plans. A rally in biotechnology shares lifted the health-care group.

     The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 2,052.23 at 4 p.m. in New York, below its average price during the past 50 days after earlier rising as much as 1 percent. The gauge remains on track for its first weekly decline in four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 82.45 points, or 0.5 percent, to 17,574.75, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.4 percent. About 6.7 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 5.2 percent below the three-month average.

     “Energy has been the most volatile sector in a broader market over the last couple weeks and U.S. equities seem to be tracking it,” said Joe Bell, a Cincinnati-based senior equity analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research Inc. “We bounced back off yesterday’s lows and today we’re right at the lows for December, and that area is holding. We’re in a waiting period here ahead of the Fed meeting.”

     With the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting meeting less than a week away, the S&P 500’s performance this December is proving an exception to the historical trend for the month — typically the strongest for global equities. An early rally fizzled yesterday as Apple Inc. paced technology-share declines, while renewed worries about the pace of global growth erased all the benchmark index’s 2015 gains.

     Fed Chair Janet Yellen has recently signaled the economy is ready for higher borrowing costs. Still, investors are caught between optimism about U.S. growth and concern that a slowdown in China and the consequent tumble in commodities will damp global growth prospects. Oil prices remained at six-year lows Thursday after OPEC said crude output rose to the highest in more than three years in November.

     While policy makers have emphasized a gradual pace for future interest-rate increases, investors are watching economic data to decipher how deliberate the Fed might be. A report today showed filings for unemployment benefits jumped to a five-month high, interrupting steady labor-market progress. Even with the increase, applications are holding close to four-decade lows. Separate data showed import prices in November fell less than expected.

     Reports tomorrow on retail sales and producer prices will probably show stronger growth for November, while a gauge of consumer sentiment is expected to improve compared to last month, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The data aren’t expected to alter the Fed’s anticipated move on rates, with traders pricing in a 76 percent chance that the central bank will lift off on Dec. 16.

     The S&P 500 is 3.7 percent away from its all-time high set in May, after coming within 1.4 percent of the record last week. The index is heading for its strongest quarter in two years, right after its worst since 2011. Following an 8.3 percent surge in October, the S&P 500 has made little headway, going 26 sessions without back-to-back gains. The record is 28 days set back in 1970, equaled in April 1994 and again last March.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index fell 1.4 percent Thursday to 19.34. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX surged 32 percent during the three previous days, the biggest such increase since the bottom of the summer selloff on Aug. 25.

     The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 0.6 percent, trimming an earlier 1.3 percent rally, after sliding yesterday to its lowest since Aug. 25. Delta Air Lines Inc., United Continental Holdings Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. gained more than 1.6 percent. A Bloomberg index of U.S. carriers climbed 2.2 percent, rebounding from its steepest two-day drop in more than three months.

     Eight of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries gained on Thursday, with health-care, energy and industrial shares performing the best, up at least 0.4 percent. Utilities lost 1.7 percent.

     Consol Energy Inc. rose 10 percent, the most in more than a month to lead energy companies, while Apache Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. increased more than 2.1 percent. The strength in energy shares outweighed a decline for crude oil. The resource fell 1.1 percent to extend its five-day skid to 11 percent.

     Drugmakers Mylan NV and Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. added at least 2.4 percent to lead health-care companies higher. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index rose 1.2 percent, paring most of yesterday’s 1.6 percent retreat. Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Universal Health Services Inc. rose more than 1.9 percent.

     The KBW Bank Index closed 0.5 percent higher, after increasing as much as 1.7 percent. The gauge snapped a three-day streak of losses totaling 4.4 percent that sent it to a one- month low. KeyCorp and Regions Financial Corp. added more than 1.2 percent.

     Semiconductors led an advance among technology shares, rising for the first time in four days. Micron Technology Inc., Qorvo Inc. and Avago Technologies Ltd gained at least 1.1 percent. Among other tech companies, HP Inc. and Xerox Corp. increased more than 1.5 percent.

     Seritage Growth Properties, the real estate investment trust spun off from retailer Sears Holding Corp., soared 17 percent after billionaire Warren Buffett invested in the company. He reported a passive holding of 2 million shares, representing an 8 percent stake, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

     Men’s Wearhouse Inc. plummeted 17 percent to the lowest since 2009. The company warned that its struggling Jos. A. Bank unit could force it to miss a forecast, the latest sign the merger of the two menswear chains is faltering.

     Navistar International Corp. slumped 19 percent to an 18- year low. The truckmaker that counts Carl Icahn as its biggest investor dropped after Morgan Stanley cut its price target for the stock amid questions about whether the company has enough cash.

     Dow Chemical Co. retreated 3.6 percent from an all-time high, after soaring 12 percent yesterday following reports that it’s in late-stage talks to merge with DuPont Co. Dow’s decline dragged raw-materials in the S&P 500 down 0.8 percent.
 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say,

‘That is an oak,’ or ‘that is a banyan tree,’

the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind

that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree?

To enter in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it

and the word will not help you touch it.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

                                    -Mohammad Ali, 1942-

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Interesting article in The New York Times yesterday:

Exercise May Help the Brain Learn, a Study Says

Moderate levels of exercise may increase the brain’s flexibility and improve learning, a new study suggests.

The visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information, loses the ability to “rewire” itself with age, making it more difficult for adults to recover from injuries and illness, said Claudia Lunghi, a neuroscientist at the University of Pisa and one of the study’s authors.

In a study in the journal Current Biology, she and Alessandro Sale asked 20 adults to watch a movie with one eye patched while relaxing in a chair. Later, the participants exercised on a stationary bike for 10-minute intervals while watching a movie.

When one eye is patched, the visual cortex compensates for the limited input by increasing its activity level. The researchers tested the imbalance in strength between the participants’ eyes after the movie — a measure of changeability in the visual cortex.

  The differences in strength between the eyes were more pronounced after exercise, Dr. Lunghi and Dr. Sale found, suggests that exercise somehow increases the brain’s plasticity.

    Written by SINDA N. BHANOO

This day in history:

On Dec. 9, 2000, the United States Supreme Court voted, 5 to 4, to stop the vote counting in Florida, ending Vice President Al Gore’s presidential hopes.

1992 – Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation. (They divorced in 1996.)

1993 – The Air Force destroyed the first of 500 Minuteman II missile silos marked for elimination under an arms control treaty.

2000 – The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt in the Florida presidential vote count.

2002 – United Airlines filed the biggest bankruptcy in aviation history after losing $4 billion in the previous two years.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

 

Hot air balloons fly over Dubai during the World Air Games 2015 as part of the Dubai International Balloon Fiesta event in the United Arab Emirates Wednesday. Karim Sahib/Reuters

Chinese police officers question performance artist Kong Ning Wednesday as she wears a gown with glowing red lights and stop signs to raise awareness of the smog enveloping Beijing. Residents stayed indoors, schools were closed and limits on cars, factories and construction sites kept pollution from spiking even higher, the second of three days of restrictions triggered by the city’s first red alert for smog. Ng Han Guan/AP

Market Closes for December 9^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17492.30	-75.70   -0.43%
S&P 500	2047.62	-15.97   -0.77%
NASDAQ	5022.867	-75.376   -1.48%
TSX	12937.59	+15.12
		+0.12%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19301.07	-191.53
		-0.98%
HANG SENG	21803.76	-101.37
		-0.46%
SENSEX	25036.05	-274.28
		-1.08%
FTSE 100	6126.68	-8.54
		-0.14%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.490	1.508
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.238	2.238
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2112	2.2200
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9635	2.9588

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.73701	0.73614
US $	1.35684	1.35843
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.49611	0.66840
US $	1.10265	0.90691

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1081.00	1072.10
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	37.16	37.51

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks ended little changed near the lowest level in two years, as a rally in commodity prices boosted resource producers, while technology shares tumbled.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index added 15.12 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,937.59 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The gauge erased an early rally of 1.6 percent. It had plunged 3.3 percent in the prior days, tumbling below 13,000 for the first time since 2013.

     Even though oil extended a decline as investors discounted a decline in U.S. crude inventories, energy producers advanced for a second day. Material and industrial shares also advanced Wednesday, with each group adding at least 0.6 percent, as resources pared losses from earlier in the week. A Bloomberg commodity index added 0.1 percent for the first gain in three days. That gauge slumped the most since July on Monday.

     Energy and raw-materials producers, which account for 30 percent of the broader index, have fallen at least 20 percent this year to lead declines in the S&P/TSX. A combination of slowing economic growth in China and a rally in the U.S. dollar in anticipation of an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve have crimped commodities prices.

     Six of 10 groups in the S&P/TSX advanced Wednesday. Health- care and financial shares were little changed, adding 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively. Technology and consumer discretionary stocks lagged, losing at least 1.7 percent.

     Laurentian Bank of Canada slid 3.6 percent, the most in a year, after posting a fiscal fourth-quarter loss that included C$78.4 million ($58 million) in costs tied to restructuring and impairments, and selling shares to bolster its balance sheet.

US

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell for a third day as Apple Inc. paced declines among technology shares, overshadowing a rebound in commodity companies amid merger talks between two chemical industry giants.

     Equities erased an early advance as a rally in crude oil withered in the midst of lingering concerns about slowing global growth. Apple sank 2.2 percent, the most in more than three weeks. Costco Wholesale Corp. fell 5.4 percent after its earnings disappointed. Raw-materials surged as Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. were said to be in late-stage talks to combine, with the two companies rising at least 11 percent.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.8 percent to 2,047.62 at 4 p.m. in New York, after rising as much as 0.8 percent. The gauge hasn’t had back-to-back gains since Nov. 3, a span of 25 sessions, and is down 0.6 percent for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 75.70 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,492.30, even as DuPont added about 53 points to the upside. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.5 percent, weighed on by Costco and Apple.

     “The market in general seems to be following commodities, specifically oil, and when it rolled back over into negative territory the market seemed to follow,” said Walter Todd, who oversees about $1.1 billion as chief investment officer for Greenwood Capital Associates in South Carolina. “The market is struggling to find a direction with very little out there that’s actionable beyond the Fed meeting.”

     Oil resumed its slide as investors discounted a U.S. crude supply decline, with West Texas Intermediate futures wiping out an earlier 4 percent rally. The contract closed at its lowest since February 2009.

     Commodity shares have succumbed recently as attention has refocused on signs of sluggish global growth. Stocks fell Tuesday as weak trade data from China rekindled worry the slowdown there will spread — a concern that sparked the summer rout in equities. Before today’s gains, raw-material companies were the second-worst performers so far this month behind energy.

     Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates one week from today for the first time since 2006. Traders are pricing in an 78 percent chance the central bank will lift off at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Dec. 16.

     Investors are watching economic data for evidence that the U.S. recovery is sturdy enough to withstand higher borrowing costs. A report today showed wholesale inventories unexpectedly fell in October. Data on retail sales, producer prices and consumer sentiment are due at the end of this week.

     “Investors are now prepared for a rate hike and it is discounted and the economy can handle it,” said Patrick Spencer, equities vice chairman at Robert W. Baird & Co. in London. “That will put confidence back in the market and the economy will continue to do well in 2016.”                      

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index jumped 11 percent Wednesday to 19.61. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX has surged 32 percent in three days, the biggest such increase since the bottom of the summer selloff on Aug. 25. About 8.1 billion shares traded hands on U.S exchanges, 13 percent above the three-month average.

     The S&P 500 is 3.9 percent away from its all-time high set in May, after coming within 1.4 percent of the record last week. The benchmark has rebounded more than 9 percent from the August low, bolstered by gains in technology and consumer discretionary shares, today’s worst performers.

     Seven of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries fell Wednesday, with tech and consumer discretionary companies losing more than 1.2 percent. Raw-material shares rose 3.1 percent, the most since in three months, while energy companies gained 1.3 percent despite oil’s drop.

     Apple’s drop was the biggest drag on the technology group, which declined the most since Nov. 13. South Korean regulators will investigate Apple’s relationships with local phone repair companies to determine whether they violate consumers’ rights. Electronic Arts Inc. slumped 5.5 percent after GameStop Corp. cut prices on the video-game maker’s “Star Wars: Battlefront.” Microsoft Corp. declined 1.5 percent.

     Yahoo! Inc. lost 1.3 percent, trimming a drop of as much as 4.9 percent, after scrapping its long-planned spinoff of shares in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Instead, the Web portal will consider a plan to package all of its other assets into a new publicly traded company. F5 Networks Inc. lost 3 percent after Nomura Securities International Inc. cut its rating on the shares to the equivalent of sell.

     Whirlpool Corp. and H&R Block Inc. led declines in consumer discretionary companies, falling more than 4.8 percent. Amazon.com Inc. and Home Depot dropped at least 1.5 percent.

     Costco had its steepest decline in three years, leading the drop among consumer staples after quarterly revenue and profit missed analysts’ estimates. Retailers in the S&P 500 had their worst day since Nov. 13. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast a gain in November retail sales when the government’s report is released on Friday.

     Financial shares in the benchmark retreated for the fifth time in six days. CME Group Inc. and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. declined more than 3.4 percent. The KBW Bank Index fell at least 1.2 percent for a third day, led by slides of more than 2.4 percent in State Street Corp. and Northern Trust Corp.

     Dow Chemical surged to an all-time high, while DuPont posted its biggest gain ever to lead materials shares higher. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. added 3.7 percent. The copper miner announced measures extended spending and production cutbacks as it battles to preserve cash. Eastman Chemical Co. and Alcoa Inc. increased more than 2.5 percent.

     Williams Cos. and Kinder Morgan Inc. rose more than 6.9 percent to pace the gain in energy, while Spectra Energy Corp. climbed 7.4 percent, the most since June 2013. Kinder slashed its full-year dividend by 74 percent to preserve cash it needs to keep growing while it repays $41 billion of debt. Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. added 1.3 percent.

     Baker Hughes Inc. advanced 7.4 percent, the strongest climb in three months. General Electric Co. is in advanced talks to buy the drill-bits and drilling-services divisions of Halliburton Co., which is divesting assets to win antitrust approval for its takeover of Baker Hughes, according to people familiar with the matter.

     Wynn Resorts Ltd. gained 13 percent, the most in the S&P 500, after founder Steve Wynn purchased 1 million shares of the company. That boosted Wynn’s personal holdings in the stock to 11.07 million shares, or almost 11 percent of the total, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The shares are down 53 percent this year.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

There is a little stump of a tree.  What does the child see?

A ghost, with hands stretched out, ready to grab him.

Suppose a man comes from the corner of the street, wanting to meet his sweetheart;

he sees that stump of the tree as the girl.  A policeman coming from the street corner sees the stump as thief.

The thief sees it as a policeman.  It is the same stump of a tree that was seen in various ways.

The stump is the reality, and the visions of the stump are the projections of the various minds.

There is one Being, this Self.  It neither comes nor goes.

Swami Vivekananda

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

                                                  -Confucius,  551BC-479 BC

 

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Finally went to see the latest James Bond movie, Sceptre, last Sunday night and really enjoyed it.  If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out.

Recently finished reading The Secret Book of Grazia Dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park and I also recommend it.  It is the story of an Italian Jewish scribe in the 1500s written almost as a confession to her son.  It is an interesting  (and accurate) depiction of life in Italy during the Renaissance.  A really good read.

I’ve now moved on to Peter Thiel’s (Paypal cofounder) & his Stanford student, Blake Master’s latest,  entitled Zero to One.   I’m really enjoying it and highly recommend it.

In the music department, our latest favourite is Adele’s new CD, 25.   Her voice is amazing!

This day in history:

This day in 1980, English singer and songwriter and former member of the Beatles John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York City apartment by an obsessed fan.

On Dec. 8, 1941, the United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Japan one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1987 – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

1991 – Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declared the Soviet national government dead, forming a new Commonwealth of Independent States.

1993 – President Bill Clinton signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A rainbow is seen through the London Eye in central London Tuesday. Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Memorabilia and flowers are seen Tuesday at the ‘Imagine’ mosaic in the Strawberry Fields section of New York’s Central Park to mark the 35th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Lucas Jackson/Reuters

A huge, 16-meter-tall Christmas tree erected by Hello Wood, a Budapest-based international educational platform of design and architecture and a design studio, stands after its inauguration in a square in central Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday. The tree was built with 40 tons of firewood that will be distributed among the poor after the holiday. Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI/AP

Market Closes for December 8^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17568.00	-162.51   -0.92%
S&P 500	2063.59	-13.48   -0.65%
NASDAQ	5098.242	-3.569   -0.07%
TSX	12922.47	-120.36
		-0.92%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19492.60	-205.55
		-1.04%
HANG SENG	21905.13	-298.09
		-1.34%
SENSEX	25310.33	-219.78
		-0.86%
FTSE 100	6135.22	-88.30
		-1.42%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.508	1.580
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.238	2.300
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2200	2.2711
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9588	3.0103

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.73614	0.74034
US $	1.35843	1.35073
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.48015	0.67561
US $	1.08960	0.91777

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1072.10	1075.80
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	37.51	37.65

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks slid to the lowest close since 2013, as industrial companies and miners tumbled after weak Chinese trade data fueled concern over global growth.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 120.36 points, or 0.9 percent, to 12,922.47 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The gauge dipped below 13,000 in August, but hadn’t closed below that level since October 2013. The index has lost 12 percent in 2015, topping only Singapore and Greece among developed-nation markets.

     Industrial shares paced declines Tuesday, after data showing China’s imports slumped for a record 13th straight month rekindled worry the slowdown there will spread — a concern that precipitated the summer rout on global financial markets. 

     Energy and raw-materials producers have fallen at least 22 percent this year to lead declines in the S&P/TSX. The two groups account for 30 percent of the broader index by weighting. A combination of slowing economic growth in China and a rally in the U.S. dollar in anticipation of an interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve have crimped commodities prices.

     Oil has plunged about 40 percent in the past year while iron ore trades at a record low, clouding the prospects for rebounds in the U.S. and Europe as spending wanes and inflation holds below central-bank targets.

     Seven of 10 groups in S&P/TSX declined Tuesday. Industrial and utility shares lost at least 1.7 percent. Raw material companies lost 1.2 percent, extending a year-to-date drop to 22 percent.

US

By Joseph Ciolli and Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks declined, tracking a selloff in equity markets around the world, on renewed worries about the prospects for global growth.

     Data showing another month of weakening Chinese trade highlighted the slump in global demand that’s driven a rout in energy and commodity prices this year. Industrial and raw- material companies led today’s retreat, with Caterpillar Inc. and Boeing Co. down at least 2.3 percent, while Alcoa Inc. sank 5.8 percent.

     The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.7 percent to 2,063.59 at 4 p.m. in New York, trimming an earlier 1.2 percent drop as the gauge fluctuated near its average price during the past 200 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 162.51 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,568. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.1 percent. About 7.5 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 6 percent above the three-month average.

     “The Chinese data that came out pushed us down this morning,” said Larry Peruzzi, managing director of international equities at Mischler Financial Group Inc. in Boston. “Prior to the past couple of days, we were looking at how data was going to influence the Fed and rates and now the energy story is really dictating the market. It’s all commodity-driven.”

     The weak China data rekindled worry the slowdown there will spread — a concern that precipitated the summer rout on global financial markets. Imports slumped for a record 13th straight month, albeit at a slower-than-estimated pace. The drop is a drag on other economies as the Asian nation’s flagging industrial plants need less raw materials while robust consumer demand hasn’t picked up fast enough to offset those declines.                        

     Anxiety over the world’s second-largest economy abated in the previous two months as the government took steps to boost growth and support its stock market. The S&P 500 rallied more than 12 percent from late September into early November as China calmed and commodity shares rebounded from a summer swoon.

     “The U.S. economy has been looking pretty good, but other regions like China have come into play and showed that growth around the world may not be as strong,” said Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co., which oversees $2 billion.

     A selloff in energy and raw-material companies yesterday dragged the S&P 500 further away from a May peak, after a Dec. 1 rally brought it within 1.4 percent of the record. The benchmark is coming off a week that featured moves of at least 1 percent in four consecutive days, the longest stretch since August. The index has not had back-to-back gains since Nov. 3.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index rose 11 percent Tuesday to 17.60. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX posted its steepest drop in more than two years on Friday, as equities rallied more than 2 percent.

     Strong employment data last week increased speculation that the economy is healthy enough to handle higher borrowing costs, with traders pricing in an 80 percent chance of an interest-rate increase when Federal Reserve officials conclude a two-day meeting on Dec. 16. Reports on retail sales, producer prices and consumer sentiment are due at the end of this week.

     Nine of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries dropped Tuesday, with industrial, raw-material and energy shares down more than 1.4 percent. Health-care shares rose, bolstered by gains in biotechnology companies.

     Southwest Airlines Co. decreased 9 percent, the most since May 20, to lead industrial shares lower. The airline abandoned its forecast for a possible increase in a benchmark revenue gauge this quarter, stoking investors’ concern that the industry is still struggling to prop up airfares. United Rentals Inc. and Ingersoll-Rand Plc fell more than 3.3 percent.

     A Bloomberg index of U.S. airlines dropped 4 percent, its biggest decline since Oct. 6. Spirit Airlines Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Continental holdings fell at least 2.9 percent as all 11 companies in the gauge decreased.

     The Dow Jones Transportation Average sank 2.8 percent, the most in more than three months to the lowest since the bottom of the August selloff. Norfolk Southern Corp. tumbled 5.7 percent, its steepest drop in three years, after rejecting Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s latest takeover offer. CSX Corp. and Kansas City Southern declined 3.4 percent.

     Kinder Morgan Inc. and Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. lost more than 3.5 percent to lead the drop in energy, while Anadarko Petroleum Corp. fell to its lowest level since September 2010. The energy group rallied 22 percent from an almost four-year low in August to a three-month high on Nov. 3. Since then, the sector is down almost 15 percent. West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 0.4 percent to $37.51, the lowest settlement since February 2009.

     Copper miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc. sank 6.8 percent to its lowest level since November 2002, leading a drop among raw- material shares. Alcoa fell the most in two months. The Bloomberg Commodity Index declined for a second day to linger at a 16-year low.

     Financial companies in the S&P 500 slipped 1.3 percent. Asset manager Franklin Resources Inc. fell 3.7 percent after Barclays Plc downgraded the shares to the equivalent of sell. Fifth Third Bancorp and Zions Bancorporation lost more than 3.1 percent. The KBW Bank Index dropped 1.8 percent, down for the fourth time in five days.

     Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. lost 1.7 percent, extending its five-day skid to 6.6 percent amid an E. coli outbreak that has sickened dozens of customers. In the latest sign of trouble, the company temporarily closed a restaurant in Boston after more than two dozen Boston College students, including members of the men’s basketball team, reported getting ill after eating there.

In that case, health officials are leaning toward norovirus as the culprit, not E. coli, Chipotle said.

     Avon Products Inc. slumped 8.2 percent, after surging 35 percent in the previous seven sessions. Recent gains have come amid a report that the cosmetics company was in talks to sell its North American business and an equity stake to Cerberus Capital Management. Activist investor Barington Capital Group then urged the company to reject such a deal at a “fire sale” price. Barington was said to be scheduled to meet with Avon management yesterday.

     Investors bid up a pair of auto-parts retailers Tuesday. AutoZone Inc. advanced 5.8 percent, its strongest gain in 22 months, after fiscal first-quarter profit and comparable sales exceeded analysts’ estimates. Meanwhile, Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack, the auto-parts chain that previously accepted a takeover offer from Bridgestone Corp., rose 1.5 percent after saying a rival $15.50-a-share bid from billionaire Carl Icahn is probably a “superior proposal.”

     Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. rallied 5.3 percent, the most since Oct. 15, to lead health-care higher. The biotech company’s drug for a rare and deadly genetic disease won approval from regulators, its first U.S.-cleared treatment from its $8.4 billion deal this year for Synageva BioPharma Corp. Celgene Corp. and Biogen Inc. added more than 2.4 percent, while the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index increased 1.9 percent.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

It is necessary that this be the aim of our entire life.

In all of our thoughts and actions,

we must be conscious of the infinite.

Rabindranath Tagore

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

               –William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811-1863

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Hanukkah  (Hebrew “consecration”) began at sunset yesterday.  The Jewish Festival of Light commemorates the purification and rededication of the Temple at Jerusalem in 165 BC  by Judas Maccabeus after its pollution  by the Syrians.  It begins on the 25^th day of Kislev and lasts eight days.  Candles are lit on an eight-branched candlestick or menorah and oily potato pancakes – latkes – traditionally eaten.   The oil is more important than the potato – the recounting of the miracle of one night’s oil lasting eight nights in the temple over 2,000 years ago. 

This is a great recipe for latkes, with mashed potato replacing the traditional grated potato:

MASHED POTATO LATKES WITH DILL AND SHALLOTS

3 large baking potatoes (2 –  2 ½ lbs)
1 cup minced shallots
½ cup coconut or vegetable oil
¼ cup freshly chopped dill
¼ cup freshly chopped parsley
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
1 cup bread crumbs, more as needed

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees, pierce potatoes with a fork and place directly on rack.  Bake for 1 hour or until a knife easily pierces potatoes.  Meanwhile, sauté shallots in 1 tbsp or so of coconut oil until tender.  Add dill and parsley and set aside.
2. Peel potatoes; cut in several pieces and put in a medium bowl; use a potato masher or ricer to break them up.  Mix in egg, shallots and herbs, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Refrigerate for 2 hours or up to overnight.
3. Taking about ½ cup of filling at a time, form 10 patties about ¼ inch thick and 3 inches in diameter.  Pour bread crumbs into a wide bowl or plate, and coat the latkes in  the crumbs on both sides.
4. Heat a nonstick frying pan and add a thin film of oil, about 1/8 inch deep.  When hot, slide in pancakes and cook over medium heat for about 3-5 minutes on one side, pressing down to gently flatten.  Flip latkes and cook for 3-5 more minutes, or until crisp and deeply golden.  You can make them in advance, placing parchment paper between each layer of patties and reheating in a 350-degree oven for about 10 minutes or until heated through.

Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes, plus 2 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Yield: 10 latkes.

This Day in History:

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, drawing the United States into World War II. More than 2,300 Americans were killed.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Italy’s Mount Etna, Europe’s tallest and most active volcano, spews lava as it erupts on the southern island of Sicily, Italy, Monday. Antonio Parrinello/Reuters

Dr. Hiroya Sugano of Japan (l.) and Japanese American Yoshie Tanabe, who was 10-years-old and living in Hawaii when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, put their hands into the hand print of the recovered canteen of a US B29 bomber pilot that crashed in Japan during World War Two, during the “Blackened Canteen” ceremony aboard the USS Arizona Memorial honoring the 74th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Honolulu, Hawaii, Sunday. Hugh Gentry/Reuters

Market Closes for December 7^th, 2015

Market Index	Close	Change
Dow Jones	17730.51	-117.12   -0.66%
S&P 500	2077.07	-14.62   -0.70%
NASDAQ	5101.813	-40.458   -0.79%
TSX	13042.83	-315.94
		-2.37%

International Markets

Market Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	19698.15	+193.67
		+0.99%
HANG SENG	22203.22	-32.67
		-0.15%
SENSEX	25530.11	-108.00
		-0.42%
FTSE 100	6223.52	-14.77
		-0.24%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous  % Yield
CND. 10 Year Bond	1.520	1.580
CND. 30 Year Bond	2.238	2.300
U.S.    10 Year Bond	2.2341	2.2711
U.S. 30 Year Bond	2.9643	3.0103

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.74034	0.74841
US $	1.35073	1.33616
Euro Rate 1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian $	1.46333	0.68337
US $	1.08336	0.92306

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold Fix	1075.80	1079.25
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	37.65	39.97

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Dani Burger

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks tumbled the most in two months as crude oil sank to a six-year low and iron ore slumped below $40 a metric ton to lead declines in the resource-rich benchmark index.

     Energy shares dropped 5.4 percent to the group’s lowest level since March 2009, as crude extended losses below $38 a barrel in New York. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries effectively abandoned its production target on Friday, fueling speculation a record global glut will continue. Raw- materials producers lost 3.3 percent on weakening demand in China and rising low-cost supply from the world’s top miners. Commodities producers make up about 30 percent of the Canadian benchmark.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 315.94 points, or 2.4 percent, to 13,042.83 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the most in two months. The gauge has declined for two consecutive weeks and has now lost 11 percent this year.

     A volatility gauge for 60 of the largest, most liquid Canadian stocks jumped 9.7 percent after falling for three consecutive weeks.

     The Bloomberg Commodity Index, a basket of prices for natural resources from copper to oil and gold, dropped 2.7 percent.

     Hudbay Minerals Inc., First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Teck Resources Ltd. sank at least 9.4 percent. Paramount Resources Ltd. tumbled 22 percent, its biggest drop in 28 years. Penn West Petroleum Ltd. and Baytex Energy Corp. fell at least 17 percent. Energy companies have fallen 28 percent this year.

     Canadian airlines jumped on the cheaper oil prices. Air Canada gained 2.6 percent, it’s biggest gain since Nov. 6, while WestJet Airlines Ltd. gained 0.9 percent. Macquarie Research also raised WestJet to the equivalent of buy from neutral.

     Among the S&P/TSX’s best performers, ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. rose 6.6 percent. The biopharmaceutical company said its trial for a coagulation disorder drug met safety metrics, while patients showed an immediate therapeutic response.

US

By Joseph Ciolli

     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks retreated as tumbling oil prices weighed on energy and raw-material companies, sparking a selloff after equities posted their biggest one-day gain in three months.

     Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. fell more than 2.6 percent as energy producers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slumped for a fourth day. Keurig Green Mountain Inc. surged 72 percent after agreeing to be acquired by a JAB Holding Co.-led investor group for about $13.9 billion in cash. Airlines rallied for a second session amid crude’s drop.

     The S&P 500 fell 0.7 percent to 2,077.07 at 4 p.m. in New York, trimming an earlier drop of as much as 1.2 percent, after jumping 2.1 percent on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 117.12 points, or 0.7 percent, to 17,730.51. The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.8 percent. About 7.4 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, 4.8 percent above the three- month average.

     “Equity markets have basically treaded water this year as economic data has been fairly weak, particularly as it relates to the global scene,” said Kevin Caron, a market strategist and portfolio manager who helps oversee $170 billion at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Florham Park, New Jersey. “As we come into this period of time where the Fed is going to begin raising interest rates, we continue to be confronted with slow global growth, which is going to continue to be a challenge.”

     Crude prices extended losses after falling 2.7 percent Friday amid speculation a record global glut will be prolonged as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries effectively abandoned its long-time strategy of limiting production to control prices. West Texas Intermediate futures fell 5.8 percent Monday to $37.65 a barrel, the lowest close since February 2009.

     Oil’s plunge of more than 40 percent in the past year has hampered recoveries in the U.S. and Europe as capital spending has waned and inflation has remained below central-bank targets.

     U.S. stocks are coming off their most volatile week since the summer as investors were faced with releases from the Labor Department, the European Central Bank and speeches by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The S&P 500’s rally on Friday left it little changed for a second straight week after a report showed U.S. employers added more jobs than forecast in November, increasing speculation that the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs — something that Yellen has signaled.

     Traders are pricing in a 78 percent chance of liftoff before the Fed’s interest-rate decision on Dec. 16. Investors will have little data this week to assess the strength of the economy. Reports on retail sales, a measure of producer prices and the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index are due, though not until the end of the week.

     “Weak oil is the story today,” said Stephen Carl, principal and head equity trader at Williams Capital Group LP. “The lack of economic numbers today is compounding the effect of energy losses. The Fed rate hike is imminent, and people are trying to square up heading into year-end.”

     The selloff in equities today extended a stretch of whipsaw trading to a fifth day. The main U.S. equity index moved at least 1 percent in the previous four days, the longest stretch since August, kicking off what is usually the second-best month of the year. The S&P 500 has not had back-to-back gains in more than a month.

     The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index rose 7 percent Monday to 15.84, after its steepest drop in more than two years Friday. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX has declined for three consecutive weeks and four of the past five.                       

     Seven of the S&P 500’s 10 main industries dropped, with energy losing 3.7 percent, the most in more than three months. Raw-materials shares were down 1.8 percent, their largest slide in three weeks. Phone companies, utilities and consumer staples advanced.

     Consol Energy Inc. and Williams Cos. lost more than 13 percent to lead the drop in energy, with Williams down the most in seven years. ConocoPhillips and Schlumberger Ltd. lost at least 2.5 percent. The energy group rallied 22 percent from an almost four-year low in August to a three-month high on Nov. 3. Since then, the sector is down 13 percent.

     Copper miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc. sank 7.9 percent, the biggest drop in more than two months, to lead the slide among raw-materials. Dow Chemical Co. and Nucor Corp. fell more than 1.9 percent. U.S. Steel Corp. decreased 8.8 percent to a 24-year low, as iron ore sank on rising low-cost supply from the world’s top miners and weakening demand in China. Mining-equipment makers Joy Global Inc. and Caterpillar Inc. declined more than 2.3 percent, with Joy at its lowest since 2004.

     Financial companies in the S&P 500 slipped 0.9 percent. Comerica Inc. was the sector’s biggest decliner, falling 4.4 percent, while Zions Bancorporation and Regions Financial Corp. lost more than 2.2 percent. Meanwhile, the 10-year U.S. Treasury note’s yield decreased 1.6 percent, extending its two-day decline to 3.4 percent. The KBW Bank Index dropped 1.3 percent.

     Staples Inc. lost 14 percent, its biggest decline since March 2014, to lead consumer discretionary companies in the benchmark lower. The retailer will face a challenge by U.S. antitrust officials, who said for the second time in 20 years that the office supply chain’s proposed takeover of Office Depot Inc. will squelch competition and should be blocked. Office Depot plunged 16 percent.

     Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. fell 1.7 percent, and earlier as much as 8.2 percent after rescinding its 2016 forecast in the wake of an E. coli outbreak. Among other consumer shares, Netflix Inc. and Macy’s Inc. declined more than 1.9 percent.

     Airlines rallied for a second day amid speculation that the drop in crude will help boost profitability. A Bloomberg index of U.S. airlines added 2.2 percent after a 3.9 percent climb Friday. JetBlue Airways Corp., Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Continental Holdings Inc. advanced more than 2.6 percent.

     Food retailers were also one of the market’s few bright spots Monday. Whole Foods Market Inc. gained 4 percent, the most in two months. Kroger Co. rose 2.2 percent to a record for a third straight day, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc. climbed 1.4 percent to lead the Dow.

     Gunmaker Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. surged 7.6 percent to its highest level since October 2007, amid speculation that gun enthusiasts will purchase more pistols and rifles as calls for restrictions increase. The company is scheduled to report quarterly results on Tuesday.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

Meditation is movement without any motive, without words, and the activity of thought.

It must be something that is not deliberately set about.

Only then is it a movement within the infinite, measureless to man, without a goal, without an end,

without a beginning.  And that has a strange action in daily life, because all life is one,

and then becomes sacred.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Work while you have the light.  You are responsible for the talent

that has been entrusted to you.

                                        -Henri-Frederic Amiel, 1821-1881

 

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

 

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7