Category: Newsletters

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

That month of sounds, that month of scents,

That sensuous month when every sense

Ripens, and yet is young;

Th’  external world, by which we judge

And sterner rules of reason grudge;

That dear misleading framework of our faith,

Truth in untruth, that picture slung

From such precarious nail, that nectarous breath

Of music, when the senses grow confused

And each might be the other; when, bemused,

We stray through thickets of the honeyed air.

But, Wanderer, then beware

Of beanfields amorous to strolling lovers,

Too dangerous (they say) to dally there

Along the hedgerow by the serried coverts

Where murmuring cushats hint that love is fair,

No sweeter load was ever laid at eve

Across the shoulders of the country’s sweep

Mantled in June that, drowsing, seem asleep

But stir to greet the dream that all believe.

-V. Sackville-West,  from The Garden

Photos of the Day –June 14^th, 2013

A double rainbow is seen during a heavy rainfall over Djurgarden and Nacka in Stockholm, Sweden. Johan Nilsson/Scanpix Sweden/AP

A dog passes by an ice-cream van by an empty beach at Brighton in southern England. Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Market Closes for June 14^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15070.18	-105.90    -0.70%
S&P 500	1626.73	-9.63    -0.59%
NASDAQ	3423.555	-21.810    -0.63%
TSX	12187.36	-89.77
		-0.73%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	12686.52	+241.14
		+1.94%
HANG  SENG	20969.14	+82.10
		+0.39%
SENSEX	19177.93	+350.77
		+1.86%
FTSE 100	6308.26	+3.63
		+0.06%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.120	2.139
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.678	2.692
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1295	2.1489
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3046	3.3168

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.98318	0.98432
US   $	1.01711	1.01593
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35738	0.73671
US  $	1.33454	0.74935

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1390.74	1386.67
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	97.85	96.69
BRENT	105.95	104.73

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Katie Brennan

June 14 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, capping a third straight weekly loss for the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index, as the International Monetary Fund cut its 2014 U.S. growth forecast and manufacturing data trailed estimates.

Nine out of 10 groups in the S&P/TSX retreated today, with health-care and raw-material stocks leading losses. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., Canada’s largest drugmaker, dropped 1.7 percent. Niko Resources Ltd. slid 5.2 percent, pacing declines among energy stocks. Utility companies were the only industry to rise, increasing 0.6 percent.

The S&P/TSX fell 89.77 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,187.36 in Toronto. The benchmark gauge for Canadian equities lost 1.5 percent in the past five days as declines of at least 0.9 percent on June 11 and 12 overshadowed a 1.4 percent rebound on June 13.

“It’s a pause after a fairly volatile week with a big down day on Wednesday, followed by a big up day on Thursday,” Bob Decker, fund manager with Aurion Capital Management, said by telephone from Toronto. His firm manages C$6 billion ($5.9 billion). “People are scratching their heads as to what the true direction of the market is.”

Investors continue to weigh data from around the world to determine the strength of economic growth. The International Monetary Fund lowered its forecast for U.S. gross domestic product in 2014, while leaving unchanged its prediction for this year.

A report today showed U.S. consumer confidence in June eased from a six-year high. Separate data showed industrial production was unchanged and wholesale prices rose in May for the first time in three months.

A Canadian economic report indicated factory sales fell at the fastest pace in more than three years in April. The Bank of Canada predicts the economic expansion will rotate to exports and investment from consumer and government spending even amid what it calls the slowest export recovery since World War II.

Canada’s benchmark equities gauge rallied 1.4 percent yesterday even as government reports from China showed industrial production and exports trailed economists’ estimates in May, fueling concerns the world’s second-largest economy is slowing. The World Bank cut it growth forecast for China, the biggest consumer of commodities and a key destination for Canadian exports.

The S&P/TSX dropped in nine of the past 11 sessions, erasing 4.4 percent since May 30. The gauge is down 2 percent this year.

Health-care companies fell 1.8 percent as a group today, while raw-materials stocks declined 1.6 percent. Valeant Pharmaceuticals dropped 1.7 percent to C$85.69.

Niko, an oil and gas explorer, dropped 5.2 percent to C$7.89. Energy companies fell 0.4 percent, even as the price of crude oil rose 1.2 percent to a four-month high of $97.85 a barrel.

Sears Canada Inc. rallied 14 percent to C$10.76. The department-store operator raised C$191 million from the sale of two Toronto-area stores to mall landlords.

US

By Lu Wang

June 14 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, after yesterday’s rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as the International Monetary Fund cut its 2014 outlook for America and urged the central bank to carefully manage its exit from stimulus plans.

DuPont Co. and American Express Co. slipped at least 2.2 percent after analysts cut their recommendations. Edwards Lifesciences Corp. slid 2.7 percent after losing a patent- infringement case against Medtronic Inc. GameStop Corp. and Groupon Inc. jumped more than 3.9 percent amid analyst upgrades.

The S&P 500 fell 0.6 percent to 1,626.73 at 4 p.m. in New York, ending the week down 1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 105.90 points, or 0.7 percent, to 15,070.18 today. About 5.5 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 13 percent below the three-month average.

“We’re hitting a period of higher volatility,” Bryan Novak, who helps oversee about $650 million at Chicago-based Astor Asset Management LLC, said in a telephone interview.

“Interest rates need to rise, but while you have an economic picture, where growth is around 2 percent, you don’t have a lot margin of error to work with in terms of interest rates. That has a meaningful impact on the futility of the economy at this point. The market is going to focus heavily on every word that the Fed says.”

The Washington-based IMF lowered its U.S. growth forecast for 2014 to 2.7 percent, from 3 percent predicted in April. It left its predication for this year unchanged at 1.9 percent. The IMF sees the Federal Reserve maintaining large monthly bond purchases until at least the end of this year and urged the central bank to carefully manage its exit plan to avoid disrupting financial markets.

The S&P 500 rallied 1.5 percent yesterday on better-than- estimated economic reports and speculation the Federal Open Market Committee will maintain record low interest rates. The Fed will hold its two-day policy meeting next week, with Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke scheduled to speak after the central bank’s decision on June 19.

Investors have been scrutinizing economic data to determine whether growth is strong enough to prompt the Fed to scale back stimulus measures.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan June preliminary index of consumer sentiment fell to 82.7 from a final reading of 84.5 the prior month, a report showed today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey was unchanged at 84.5. Other reports showed U.S. industrial production was unchanged in May and wholesale prices climbed for the first time in three months, reflecting an increase in fuel and food prices that failed to filter through to other goods.

The S&P 500 has slid 2.5 percent since May 21 as Bernanke said the central bank may scale back bond buying if the U.S. labor market “improves in a real and sustainable way.” Three years of earnings growth and stimulus from the Fed has helped push the gauge up 140 percent from its bear-market low in 2009.

“All eyes are on the Fed in terms of what policy might be like three to six months from now,” Eric Thorne, who helps oversee about $6 billion at Bryn Mawr Trust Co. in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview. “The Fed is unlikely to step in with any kind of potential damper. The fundamentals are improving, but the markets have improved so much quickly that we may need to see some consolidation, some sideways movement in the market before the next major uptrend.”

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, rose 4.5 percent today to 17.15. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, reached a six-year low in March and has since surged 52 percent.

Nine of 10 main industries in the S&P 500 declined today.

Financial and energy companies dropped the most, sinking at least 1 percent. Utilities had the only gain among the groups, adding 0.1 percent.

The Russell 1000 Index of large companies retreated 0.5 percent while the Russell 2000 Index, a gauge of stocks with smaller market value, slipped 0.8 percent.

Russell Investments, whose global stock indexes are used by investors with $4.1 trillion in assets, was set to announce its preliminary list of changes for indexes after the close of U.S. trading today.

DuPont dropped 2.2 percent to $52.68. Bank of America Corp. lowered its rating on the largest U.S. chemical company by market value to neutral from buy.

American Express declined 3 percent to $72.97. The biggest credit-card issuer by purchases was reduced to equal weight, an equivalent of neutral, from overweight at Barclays Plc on valuation.

Edwards Lifesciences slid 2.7 percent to $70. The biggest- maker of aortic heart valves implanted with a catheter lost a patent-infringement case against Medtronic in a German court.

Medtronic rose 0.3 percent to $52.92.

Coal stocks tumbled amid concern over Walter Energy Corp.’s finances. After the close of regular trading, the producer of steelmaking coal said it canceled a proposed loan refinancing.

The company added it has no material debt principal payments due until 2015.

Walter Energy plunged 17 percent to $12.13 before trading was halted. Peabody Energy Corp. declined 3.4 percent to $16.78 while Consol Energy Inc. fell 1.5 percent to $31.95.

Myriad Genetics Inc. tumbled 14 percent to $27.59.

Companies like Ambry Genetics and the University of Washington are moving to offer cheaper and broader genetic testing for breast cancer risk to a growing group of women, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended Myriad’s monopoly over DNA that vastly raises odds for the disease.

GameStop gained 3.9 percent to $39.01. The world’s largest video-game retailer was raised to outperform from market perform at Oppenheimer & Co. GameStop will benefit from new consoles being released by Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. before the year-end holidays, according to analyst Brian Nagel.

Groupon rallied 12 percent to $7.65. Deutsche Bank AG upgraded the daily-deal website to buy from hold, citing optimism that mobile applications would expand use of the service.

Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. added 5.2 percent to $9.78.

The gunmaker posted preliminary earnings of 44 cents a share in the fourth quarter, beating estimates that called for 40 cents.

Cable stocks rallied after CNBC reported Time Warner Cable Inc. has discussed with billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. about an industry consolidation, including a potential merger between Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications Inc., in which Liberty Media bought a 27 percent stake.

Time Warner Cable has no interest in being acquired by Charter, CNBC said.

Time Warner Cable advanced 8.1 percent to $103.93. Charter climbed 5.2 percent to a record $116.61. Cablevision Systems Corp., which is selling its Optimum West unit to Charter, increased 3.6 percent to $14.68.

 

Have  a wonderful weekend everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Man must understand that when he cuts himself off from all stimulating and purifying contact with infinity,

and no longer relies on it for his subsistence and his health, he risks madness;

he tears himself asunder, and divorces himself from his very substance.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1901

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

I never learn anything talking.  I only learn things

when I ask questions.

-Lou Holtz, 1937-

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1966, the landmark Miranda rights were established, ruling that suspects must be informed of their rights before being questioned by police:  “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during questioning.  If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense”

Also on this day, in 1865, one of the world’s most beloved poets, William Butler Yeats was born:

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

~William Butler Yeats

Apoem is never finished, only abandoned. –Paul Valery

Photos of the Day –June 13^th, 2013

A staff member of the Japanese toy and home appliances maker CCP Co. operates a ‘Nano-Falcon,’ the world’s smallest infrared remote-controlled helicopter, at the Tokyo Toy Show in Tokyo. The toy helicopter measures 8 centimeter (3.1 inches) in length while weighing 11 grams (0.39 ounces). It’s now on sale at 4,704 yen ($50) on the domestic market. Koji Sasahara/AP

A laborer walks in water after setting up a scaled replica of the rubber duck, by Dutch conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman, on an artificial lake in Luoyang, Henan province , China. Reuters

Market Closes for June 13^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15176.08	+180.85    +1.21%
S&P 500	1636.36	+23.84    +1.48%
NASDAQ	3445.365	+44.935    +1.32%
TSX	12277.13	+167.24
		+1.38%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	12445.38	-843.94
		-6.35%
HANG  SENG	20887.04	-467.62
		-2.19%
SENSEX	18827.16	-213.97
		-1.12%
FTSE 100	6304.63	+5.18
		+0.08%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.139	2.206
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.692	2.744
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1489	2.2307
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3168	3.3751

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.98432	0.97934
US   $	1.01593	1.02109
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35796	0.73640
US  $	1.33666	0.74817

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1386.67	1389.82
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	96.69	95.88
BRENT	104.73	103.13

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 13 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose the most in seven weeks as technology and consumer shares gained after better-than-expected U.S. data offset a World Bank forecast for slower growth in China.

Empire Co. soared 11 percent after a unit agreed to buy Safeway Inc.’s Canadian assets in a $5.7 billion deal.

BlackBerry added 5.8 percent after Societe Generale SA advised clients to buy the stock. Lundin Mining Corp. jumped 8.8 percent after agreeing to buy a nickel mine from Rio Tinto Group.

Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. lost 1.9 percent as the precious metal’s price dropped.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 167.24 points, or 1.4 percent, to 12,277.13 at 4 p.m, the biggest advance since April 24. The gauge snapped a two-day losing streak that had erased 2.2 percent. Trading volume was 11 percent lower than the 30-day average.

“When you look at the World Bank reducing GDP estimates, that was more related to the emerging markets and Europe,” said Anish Chopra, a fund manager with TD Asset Management Ltd. in Toronto. He helps manage C$204 billion ($201 billion). “The data in North America, whether in Canada or the U.S. with retail sales above forecast and jobless claims decreasing, that’s all positive. And when you put the two together that’s positive for North America, which is why you’re getting the reaction you’re seeing.”

Data today showed retail sales in the U.S. rose 0.6 percent last month, surpassing the median forecast of 0.4 percent in a Bloomberg survey. A separate report indicated fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week. U.S equities rallied, with the S&P 500 gaining 1.5 percent.

Data from Statistics Canada showed industrial companies’ use of production capacity rose in the first quarter, as oil and gas companies boosted output.

Global equities slumped after the World Bank said in a report released yesterday that the world economy will expand 2.2 percent this year, less than a January forecast for 2.4 percent growth.

The growth forecast for China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner, was cut to 7.7 percent from 8.4 percent, the bank said. China is the world’s biggest consumer of industrial metals and energy.

All 10 industries in the S&P/TSX rose, with technology stocks adding 3 percent and producers of consumer staples gaining 2.3 percent.

BlackBerry, formerly Research In Motion Ltd., climbed 5.8 percent to C$14.68. Andy Perkins, an analyst with Societe Generale, raised his rating for the stock to buy from sell.

Sales of BlackBerry’s latest smartphones are doing well, with the touchscreen Z10 estimated to sell 4 million units and the Q10, which boasts a physical keyboard, to sell just under 1 million units.

Empire soared 11 percent to a record C$74.77. Its Sobeys Inc. will have 213 grocery stores in Western Canada and 199 in- store pharmacies in a bid to compete with Loblaw Cos., the largest grocery retailer in Canada. Loblaw added 3.9 percent to C$48.29.

Lundin Mining jumped 8.8 percent to C$4.33 after agreeing to buy Rio Tinto’s Eagle nickel and copper project in northern Michigan for about $325 million. Construction at the mine is just over 50 percent complete and output is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2014, Lundin said in a statement.

Alacer Gold Corp. soared 12 percent to C$2.60 after Chief Executive Officer David Quinlivan said in an interview with Bloomberg the company plans to sell its two mines in Australia within eight months due to high labor costs.

Dorel Industries Inc. slumped 8.7 percent to C$35.40, the biggest drop in 13 months. The Montreal-based maker of bicycles and car seats said bad weather and widespread discounting hurt its second-quarter expectations for earnings in its cycling unit. Full-year earnings from that business will not exceed 2012 levels, and Dorel is cutting 50 jobs as a result.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, slipped 0.8 percent to C$20.02 and Kirkland Lake Gold retreated 1.9 percent to C$5.05. Gold futures for August delivery declined 1 percent to settle at $1,377.80 an ounce in New York.

US

By Lu Wang

June 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rallied, giving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index its biggest gain since January, on better-than-forecast economic data and speculation the Federal Reserve will signal plans to maintain record low interest rates.

Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, jumped 34 percent after agreeing to buy Belo Corp. for about $1.5 billion. Belo surged 28 percent. Safeway Inc. soared 7.4 percent as the second-largest U.S. grocery chain agreed to sell its Canadian stores. DuPont Co. slid 0.7 percent after cutting its forecast.

The S&P 500 rose 1.5 percent to 1,636.36 at 4 p.m. in New York. The index had tumbled 1.9 percent over the previous three days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 180.85 points, or 1.2 percent, to 15,176.08. About 6.3 billion shares traded hands today, in line with the three-month average.

“It’s undeniable that the series of data are getting better,” Chris Bertelsen, chief investment officer at Global Financial Private Capital, a Sarasota-based private wealth firm with about $2 billion in assets under management, said in a phone interview. “The only issue for the market is we’re in a vacuum month. In other words, there are no earnings, there is nothing to latch onto other than an occasional number here and there and people are worried about the Fed tapering.”

Retail sales in the U.S. rose 0.6 percent last month, the biggest increase in three months, Commerce Department figures showed today. The median forecast of 83 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.4 percent advance. Data from a separate report indicated fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week.

Investors have been scrutinizing economic data to determine whether growth is strong enough to prompt the Federal Reserve to scale back stimulus measures. The S&P 500 has slipped 2 percent since May 21 as Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may scale back bond buying if the U.S. labor market “improves in a real and sustainable way.” Three years of earnings growth and stimulus from the Fed has helped push the gauge up 142 percent from its bear-market low in 2009.

U.S. equities extended gains today after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Fed may “push back” on market expectations of higher interest rates. Bernanke has repeatedly said a reduction in the Fed’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases wouldn’t mean an end to record easing.

Equities fell earlier as the World Bank said in a report the global economy will expand 2.2 percent this year, less than a January forecast for 2.4 percent growth and slower than last year’s 2.3 percent. It lowered its projection for developing economies and said the euro area’s gross domestic product will fall 0.6 percent.

Stocks in Asia plunged, erasing the MSCI Asia Pacific Index’s 2013 advance and dragging Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average into a bear market. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Hong Kong-listed mainland firms slid 2.7 percent, and the Nikkei 225 tumbled 6.4 percent.

“The economy around the globe is slowing down so U.S. investors are certainly watching the data and hopefully see signs that the U.S. is not joining their friends in Europe and emerging markets,” Wayne Wilbanks, chief investment officer at Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management LLC in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees $2.5 billion, said by phone. “As markets get higher and higher, they can’t decide, ‘is the game over?’ Everybody wants to take their profits in this market, but they don’t want to miss the last 100 points.”

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, slipped 12 percent today to 16.41. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, reached a six-year low in March and has since surged 45 percent.

Stock gains accelerated after the S&P 500 recovered from a brief dip below its average price in the past 50 days, a measure that’s watched by some analysts to gauge the market’s trend. The S&P 500 has closed above the threshold on all trading days so far this year, except for April 18.

All 10 industries in the S&P 500 gained. Financial and consumer-discretionary companies climbed the most, rising at least 1.8 percent. Investors bought shares of companies most tied to economic growth, sending the Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index up 3.1 percent, its biggest one-day gain since September.

An S&P gauge of homebuilders also rose, surging 4.9 percent.

Gannett rallied 34 percent to $26.60 and Belo soared 28 percent to $13.77. Both stocks hit five-year highs. Gannett will pay $13.75 per Belo share in cash, plus the assumption of $715 million in debt, according to a statement. The acquisition will make Gannett the fourth largest owner of major network affiliates, the company said. It will almost double Gannett’s broadcast portfolio to 43 stations from 23.

Safeway jumped 7.4 percent to $25.82 after agreeing to sell its Canadian stores to Empire Co.’s Sobeys Inc. unit for about C$5.8 billion ($5.7 billion) in cash. Proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down $2 billion in debt and buy back stock, Safeway said.

PVH Corp. climbed 10 percent to $122.60. The owner of the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands said that excluding some items it earned $1.91 a share in the first quarter. That beat the average analyst estimate of $1.37 in a Bloomberg survey.

DuPont slipped 0.7 percent to $53.88. The largest U.S. chemical company by market value cut its first-half earnings forecast after cool, wet weather in North America and Europe affected revenue and costs at its agriculture and nutrition and health units.

Williams Cos. fell 1 percent to $33.70, after an explosion and fire at a chemical plant in Geismar, Louisiana. At least one person died and scores were injured, Governor Bobby Jindal said.

The cause of the explosion isn’t known, Williams said.

Coty Inc. declined 0.8 percent to $17.36 on the first day of trading. The maker of perfumes endorsed by Beyonce and Heidi Klum raised about $1 billion on behalf of existing holders in an initial public offering yesterday.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Order is the very essence of the universe –

the order of birth and death and so on.  It is only man that seems to live in disorder, confusion.

He has lived that way since the world began.

Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give

ourselves the gift of living well.

-Voltaire, 1694-1778

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Sweet June, Is she of Summer or of Spring,

Of adolescence or of middle-age?

A girl first marveling at a touch of lovers

Or else a woman growing ripely sage?

Between the two she delicately hovers,

Neither too rakish nor, as yet, mature.

She’s not a matron yet, nor fully sure;

Neither too sober nor elaborate;

Not come to her fat state.

She has the leap of youth, she has the wild

Surprising outburst of an earnest child.

Sweet June, der month, while yet delay

Wistful reminders of a dearer May;

June, poised between, and not satiate…

-V. Sackville-West

from The Garden, 1946

Photos of the Day –June 12^th, 2013

Visitors walk past the sculpture ‘Le Corbusier (Bust)’ by French artist Xavier Veilhan part of the exhibition ‘Architectones’ at the MaMo art center in Marseille, France. The MaMo contemporary art center is installed on the restored rooftop terrace of Le Corbusier’s 1947 Cite Radieuse (Radiant City) and created by French designer Ora-Ito. Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters

People take part in a yoga class across the Hudson River from New York’s Lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in a park in Hoboken, New Jersey. Gary Hershorn/Reuters

Market Closes for June 12^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	14995.23	-126.79    -0.84%
S&P 500	1612.53	-13.60    -0.84%
NASDAQ	3400.430	-36.519    -1.06%
TSX	12109.61	-113.96
		-0.93%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13289.32	-28.30
		-0.21%
HANG  SENG	21354.66	-260.43
		-1.20%
SENSEX	19041.13	-101.87
		-0.53%
FTSE 100	6299.45	-40.63
		-0.64%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.206	2.176
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.744	2.723
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.2307	2.1846
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3751	3.3141

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.97934	0.98125
US   $	1.02109	1.01911
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.36178	0.73433
US  $	1.33365	0.74982

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1389.82	1378.72
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	95.88	95.38
BRENT	103.13	102.11

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 12 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, sending the benchmark index to the lowest since April 23, as energy and phone companies slumped and investors weighed prospects for economic growth and the pace of U.S. stimulus efforts.

Dollarama Inc., the dollar-store retailer, fell 3.4 percent after earnings missed analyst estimates. Bonavista Energy Corp. dropped 5.5 percent to lead a decline in energy shares. BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. retreated at least 1.3 percent after Canada’s top broadcast regulator said he will look more closely at ownership transactions for competition concerns. Pretium Resources Inc. and Gabriel Resources Ltd. climbed at least 3 percent as gold producers rallied.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 113.68 points, or 0.9 percent, to 12,109.89 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has tumbled 2.6 percent this year, the third-worst performance among developed markets. Trading volume was 9.5 percent lower than the 30-day average at this time of the day.

“We’ve finished earnings season and now we’re just waiting for economic data,” said Jeffrey Bradacs, a fund manager with Manulife Asset Management Ltd. He helps oversee about C$1.50 billion ($1.47 billion) with his team. “The key for the market these days is to see how strong the economy is and to see whether the Fed tapers stimulus.”

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said May 22 that the Fed could scale back stimulus efforts if the employment outlook shows “sustainable improvement.”

Telecommunications stocks slumped 1.9 percent as a group as nine of 10 industries retreated in the S&P/TSX.

BCE, which is attempting to acquire Astral Media Inc. for C$3.7 billion after having an earlier agreement scuttled by regulators, dropped 1.3 percent to C$43.95, the lowest since January. Telus, which had its own deal for Mobilicity blocked by the government, retreated 1.7 percent to C$33.67.

Jean-Pierre Blais, chairman of the Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission, said in a speech today in Banff, Alberta, that he will be applying a tougher public interest test on ownership transactions.

“That was clear from our response to the initial application made by BCE to acquire control of almost all of Astral’s holdings,” Blais said. “Our decision last fall sent a clear signal that the public interest is paramount.”

Dollarama, based in Montreal, sank 3.4 percent to C$70.13, the biggest decline since August 2011. The company reported adjusted first-quarter earnings of 62 Canadian cents a share, short of the median analysts’ estimate of 67 cents according to a Bloomberg survey.

The company had topped analysts’ estimates on a per-share basis for 14 straight quarters since Dollarama went public in October 2009.

Bonavista Energy lost 5.5 percent to C$14.50 as the S&P/TSX Energy Index fell to the lowest level since April, with 48 of 58 members declining.

Penn West Petroleum Ltd. jumped 3.9 percent to C$11.33, the highest close since March 25. The stock has jumped 8.8 percent over three days, after the company last week named a new chief executive officer and board leadership and said it will explore options to increase returns.

Pretium Resources jumped 6.6 percent to C$8.45 and Gabriel Resources added 3 percent to C$1.38 as the price of gold rallied 1.1 percent to settle at $1,392 an ounce in New York. The U.S. dollar declined a third day, increasing demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.

US

By Lu Wang

June 12 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its first three-day losing streak this year, as investors weighed prospects for economic growth and the pace of Federal Reserve stimulus measures.

All 10 main industries in the S&P 500 retreated. Utility stocks fell 1.1 percent, extending a six-week decline to 11 percent. Biogen Idec Inc. slipped 7.4 percent as Citigroup Inc. cut its recommendation on the stock. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. soared 41 percent after agreeing to be acquired by Apollo Tyres Ltd. for about $2.57 billion.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.8 percent to 1,612.52 at 4 p.m. in New York. The gauge erased a 0.7 percent rally earlier today and recorded its biggest three-day decline since April 17. The Dow lost 126.79 points, or 0.8 percent, to 14,995.23. The index has slipped 1.7 percent in the past three days, its longest retreat since Dec. 28.

“Markets are having a difficult time holding onto gains of any kind,” Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Knight Capital Group Inc. in Jersey City, New Jersey, said in an interview. “Buying is suddenly becoming less automatic given the backdrop of the Fed narrative. It appears as though whenever the market pops its head up and trades in the green, institutions lighten up, hedge risk and provide supply. It appears as though the easy lifting is behind us.”

Stimulus from the Federal Reserve and better-than-forecast earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. stocks into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 138 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The gauge has fallen 3.4 percent from its record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its bond purchases, known as quantitative easing, if the economy improved in a “real and sustainable way.”

Investors get their next look at the health of the U.S. economy tomorrow, when reports may show initial jobless claims were unchanged last week and sales at retailers rose in May. The S&P 500 rallied June 7 after jobs growth in May beat forecasts.

At the same time, bigger job and wage gains are needed to move the central bank closer to scaling back stimulus. Fed policy makers next meet June 18-19.

Concerns over economic growth and the pace of central-bank bond buying have led to widening swings in U.S. shares. That has prompted options traders to make unprecedented bets on equity volatility, pushing bullish and bearish contracts to records.

Options outstanding on the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN, tracking a gauge of VIX futures, climbed to an all-time high of 3.46 million on June 6, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Markets are wrestling with high volatility and changes, which in my opinion, are disconcerting to a lot of investors,” David Kotok, Sarasota, Florida-based chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors Inc., said in a phone interview. His firm oversees $2.2 billion. “We went from QE, relied upon and predictable, to mixed messages in most of the capital markets of the world,” he said. There will be “more volatility, lots of more, both directions in nearly all markets. Great opportunity if you’re on the right side of it.”

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, a gauge of derivative prices for the S&P 500 known as the VIX, has gained 65 percent from a six-year low in March. The index rose 8.9 percent to 18.59 today, erasing its loss for the year.

Consumer-discretionary and utility stocks dropped at least 1.1 percent, leading losses among 10 S&P 500 groups.

Utilities in the index have fallen 11 percent as a group after reaching a five-year high April 30, as rising bond yields reduce demand for their dividends. Stocks in power providers pay 4.1 percent of their price in dividends for the second highest yield among 10 groups, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Yields on 10-year Treasury notes have added 56 basis points, or 0.56 percentage point, to 2.23 percent since the end of April.

American Express Co. slid 2.4 percent to $74.72, the biggest retreat in the Dow, as financial stocks dropped 1 percent as a group. Legg Mason Inc. slipped 2.7 percent to $32.44, after the money manager was cut to sell from neutral by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Biogen Idec, maker of multiple sclerosis pill Tecfidera, fell 7.4 percent to $206.55. The shares were cut to neutral from buy at Citigroup, after they rallied 52 percent this year through yesterday. The S&P 500 Health Care Index rose 21 percent in the period.

First Solar Inc., the largest U.S. solar manufacturer by shipments, slid 11 percent to $46.66, the biggest decline in the S&P 500. The company said it is offering 8.5 million shares to finance “general corporate purposes.” The offer amounts to almost 10 percent of current stock.

Cooper Tire soared 41 percent to $34.66, the highest in 20 years, after Apollo Tyres, India’s second-biggest tiremaker by market value, agreed to acquire the company. Apollo’s subsidiary will pay $35 a share to stockholders of Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper Tire, 43 percent higher than yesterday’s closing share price of $24.56.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the largest U.S. tiremaker, added 2 percent to $14.89.

Spectra Energy Corp. climbed 11 percent to a record $33.68.

The pipeline operator said it plans to sell some transmission and storage asset to Spectra Energy Partners LP by the end of the year. The completion of the plan will enable the company to boost its dividend by 12 cents a year, up from the current target of 8 cents a share. Spectra Energy Partners advanced 6.2 percent to $39.48.

Hewlett-Packard Co. gained 2.8 percent, the most in the Dow, to $24.91. Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman told CNBC that the personal-computer maker is ahead of its target in the turnaround as the company is halfway done with planned job cuts.

Whitman is eliminating 29,000 jobs through the end of fiscal 2014 to save as much as $3.5 billion a year and shore up profitability as PC demand ebbs.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything

and every being that exists or lives.

Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature.

It will never fail you.

-Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

This article appeared recently in The Globe & Mail:

FIVE WAYS TO BUY JOY

-by Nicholas Hune-Brown

In Happy Money, authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton analyze what spending choices maximize happiness.  Here are some of their suggestions.

1. Buy experiences

Studies have shown that paying for trips or special meals creates more happiness than buying objects.  Even spending a  few dollars to play a video game or hear a song provides more lasting happiness than buying a few trinkets.

2. Make it a treat

Humans adapt to everything, including things that make us happy.  Research shows that we vastly underestimate just how quickly our pleasure will fade.  Instead of cutting out ice cream completely, by limiting to special occasions, we can…. [renew] our capacity for pleasure.

3. Buy time

While wealth theoretically allows us to outsource some of our most hated tasks, most people tend to overvalue money and undervalue time.  Before you make a purchase, think:  “How will this change the way I use my time?”

4. Pay now, consume later

Paying up front and delaying your consumption is one way to increase your happiness on any given purchase.  Vacations make us most happy because of the anticipation.  Studies have shown that even waiting briefly before eating a Hershey’s Kiss makes it taste better.

5. Invest in others

Research shows that spending money on others can make you more happy than spending on yourself.  This is true for Warren Buffett, who famously decided to give away 99 per cent of his wealth, but studies also show that it’s true for Ugandan women buying life-saving malaria medication for a friend.  Earn your money, but to be happiest, it helps to spread it around.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.  –Lao-Tzu

Photos of the Day –June 11^th, 2013

Clouds are reflected in the floodwaters of the river Elbe near Tangermuende, central Germany. Jens Meyer/AP

Munduruku Indians stand on a balcony of Brazil’s Indian affairs bureau (FUNAI) headquarters after storming the building in Brasilia. They are demonstrating against violations of indigenous rights and calling for the suspension of the construction of a hydroelectric plant. Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Market Closes for June 11^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15122.02	-116.57    -0.76%
S&P 500	1626.13	-16.68    -1.02%
NASDAQ	3436.949	-36.818    -1.06%
TSX	12223.57	-159.10
		-1.28%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13317.62	-196.58
		-1.45%
HANG  SENG	21354.66	-260.43
		-1.20%
SENSEX	19143.00	-298.07
		-1.53%
FTSE 100	6340.08	-60.37
		-0.94%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.176	2.203
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.723	2.753
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1846	2.2097
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3141	3.3697

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.98125	0.98096
US   $	1.01911	1.01940
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35657	0.73715
US  $	1.33113	0.75124

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1378.72	1386.90
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	95.38	95.77
BRENT	102.11	103.66

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Inyoung Hwang

June 11 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, sending the benchmark equity gauge to its lowest since April, as commodities producers plunged after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda left a stimulus program unchanged.

Raw-materials stocks slumped the most out of 10 groups in the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index amid investor concern central banks will reduce or refrain from expanding stimulus measures. Lululemon Athletica Inc. tumbled 18 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange after saying Chief Executive Officer Christine Day will leave. Kinross Gold Corp. lost 6.4 percent after deciding to stop developing a mining project in Ecuador.

The S&P/TSX declined 159.10 points, or 1.3 percent to 12,223.57 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The benchmark gauge for Canadian equities has fallen in seven of the last eight trading days to its lowest level since April 26. Volume was 13 percent higher than the 30-day average at this time of day.

“The market gets overbought and looks for a trigger whether it’s Japan or Bernanke talking about tapering quantitative easing,” Keith Richards, a fund manager with ValueTrend Wealth Management in Barrie, Ontario, said by telephone. He helps manage about C$110 million ($108 million).

“The markets up until the middle of May were starting to reach traditional overbought conditions. It had to correct.”

BOJ policy makers refrained from expanding their tools to address bond-market volatility. The central bank left its one- year fixed-rate loan facility unaltered and Kuroda said the BOJ will consider longer funding operations if they become necessary.

The S&P/TSX 60 VIX, a gauge for options to protect against losses in the index of largest stocks in the Toronto Stock Exchange, jumped 7.4 percent to 17.24, the highest level since May 15.

Commodities fell, as the S&P GSCI Index of 24 raw materials slid 0.7 percent for a second day of losses. Gold for August delivery retreated 0.6 percent to settle at $1,377 an ounce in New York, while copper dropped 1.4 for its fourth straight decline. Oil slipped as much as 1.8 percent before settling 0.4 percent lower.

Nine out of 10 groups in the S&P/TSX fell today, led by a 3 percent decline among raw-material stocks. Yamana Gold Inc. erased 5.3 percent to C$11.11. Teck Resources Ltd. lost 1.1 percent to C$24.76 after Canada’s largest diversified miner was cut to neutral from buy by Dundee Securities Corp. equity analyst David Charles.

Kinross slumped 6.4 percent to C$6.03. Canada’s third- largest producer of gold by revenue decided to stop developing the Fruta del Norte mining project in Ecuador after it couldn’t agree with the government on economic and legal terms. The Toronto-based company will take a charge of about $720 million in the second quarter.

Lululemon plunged 18 percent to C$69.22 after saying Day will step down once a replacement is found. The yoga-wear retailer said yesterday that net income for the quarter ended May 5 rose 1.4 percent to $47.3 million, or 32 cents a share, from a year earlier. Analysts projected 30 cents, the average of 25 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Financial companies plunged 1 percent, as 38 of 45 members retreated. Toronto-Dominion Bank slid 1 percent to C$81.67 and Bank of Montreal dropped 0.8 percent to C$60.15.

Health-care stocks were the only group to rise today, increasing 1.9 percent. Catamaran Corp. jumped 4.1 percent to C$54.91. The drug-benefits manager won a 10-year deal with Cigna Corp. to handle prescriptions benefits for the health insurer’s clients.

US

By Lu Wang and Inyoung Hwang

June 11 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower for a second day, after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he sees no need to expand monetary stimulus immediately.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. fell more than 1.6 percent, pacing losses among lenders. Lululemon Athletica Inc. tumbled 18 percent after announcing that Chief Executive Officer Christine Day will leave the company. Sprint Nextel Corp., which agreed in October to a takeover by SoftBank Corp., gained 2.4 percent after the Tokyo-based mobile carrier raised its offer.

The S&P 500 declined 1 percent to 1,626.13 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 116.57 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,122.02. About 6.4 billion shares changed hands, in line with the three-month average.

“The market has almost become addicted to monetary stimulus,” Erik Davidson, deputy chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank in San Francisco, said in a phone interview. His firm oversees $170 billion. “Any sense that the monetary stimulus will slow down or stop, and that by no means is the case in Japan, but just on the margin Japan won’t be more aggressive is the reason for the concern.”

BOJ policy makers refrained from expanding their tools to address bond-market volatility and stuck with an April pledge to increase the monetary base by 60 trillion to 70 trillion yen ($713 billion) a year. The central bank left its one-year fixed- rate loan facility unaltered and Kuroda said the BOJ will consider longer funding operations if they become necessary.

Inventories at U.S. wholesalers rose 0.2 percent in April, slowing from a 0.3 percent gain in the previous month, as sales accelerated, data from the Commerce Department showed today.

Stimulus from the Federal Reserve and better-than-estimated corporate earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 140 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The index has fallen 2.6 percent from its record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85 billion monthly bond purchases if the economy improved in a “real and sustainable way.”

“We’re going through a transition process right now, where better growth offset by higher interest rates is causing a lot of volatility,” David Chalupnik, head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis, said in a phone interview. His firm manages more than $120 billion. “On the longer term basis, higher rates are indicating better economic growth and that’s good for equities.”

Yields on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries touched the highest level in 14 months on concern that the central bank will slow monetary stimulus. Rising bond yields prompted investors to sell telephone and utility stocks that offer the highest dividend payouts. The two groups fell more than 4.9 percent in the past month, the most among the S&P 500’s 10 main industries.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, jumped 11 percent today to 17.07. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, reached a six-year low in March and has since surged 51 percent.

Companies whose growth is most tied to economic swings led the retreat today. Commodity and financial companies fell more than 1.4 percent for the worst performance among S&P 500 groups.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index slid 1.2 percent and the Dow Jones Transportation Average erased 1 percent.

The KBW Bank Index tumbled 1.7 percent as all 24 members dropped. JPMorgan slipped 1.6 percent to $53.49.

Citigroup declined 3.8 percent to $49.95. The bank could lose as much as $7 billion on currency swings, according to Charles Peabody, an analyst with Portales Partners LLC. Peabody, who predicted the mortgage market’s plunge as early as January 2005, said the firm’s reliance on revenue from abroad is now driving his concern that a global economic slowdown will hurt the bank more than U.S. rivals.

Lululemon plunged 18 percent to $67.85 after saying Day will step down once a replacement is found. The yoga-wear retailer yesterday reported quarterly profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

Texas Instruments Inc. fell 3.7 percent to $35.26. The largest maker of analog chips predicted second-quarter profit and sales that may fall short of analysts’ most bullish estimates as some consumer-electronics makers hold off on component purchases.

Corinthian Colleges Inc. tumbled 12 percent to $2.46 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into the for-profit college chain’s student- recruitment practices.

Sprint rose 2.4 percent to $7.35. SoftBank, the Japanese mobile carrier controlled by Masayoshi Son, raised its offer for Sprint by 7.5 percent to $21.6 billion to counter a rival bid from billionaire Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network Corp.

Catamaran Corp., the fourth-largest drug-benefits manager, surged 11 percent to $53.99 after it won a 10-year deal with Cigna Corp. to manage prescription-drug benefits for the health insurer’s clients.

GameStop Corp., the world’s largest video-game retailer, jumped 7.8 percent to $37.72 for the biggest increase in the S&P 500. Sony Corp. said its coming PlayStation 4 will allow unlimited used-game sales.

Dole Food Co. climbed 22 percent to $12.46. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David Murdock, 90, offered about $645 million, or $12 a share, to buy out other shareholders in the fresh fruit and vegetable producer and marketer.

Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc. surged 15 percent to $42.11.

The drugmaker said it paid $60 million upfront for the rights to Novartis AG’s immune drug Synacthen in the U.S.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Man has lost his inner perspective, he measures his greatness by his size

and not by his vital attachment to the infinite; he judges his activity by his own movement

and not by the serenity of perfection, not by the peace that exists in the starry vault,

in the rhythmic dance of incessant creation.

Rabindranath Tagore,1861-1901

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

-Margaret Mead, 1901-1978

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Poem:

Parakeets

-by Maureen Duffy

Walking the dog today in the gardens

where bishops once strolled through their arboretum

I look up at a new commotion, not the usual

blackbirds psalming from the unleaved branches

above the Thames skiffs but among the needles

of immigrant pine and cedar, squabbling

frolicking, raucous, unafraid of the traffic

of human and dog below, jungly brilliant

not on screen or glossy page, but daubed in emerald

and ruby-beaked against the bottle-green spines

ganging together as incomers do, “Talking over”

the natives squawk, “our nesting sites, our grubs

berries, handouts of broken bread, our space

drowning our drab, muted calls

with their un-neighbourly din.”

-From Environmental Studies, (Enitharmon)

Photos of the Day –June 10^th, 2013

Lightning flashes during a thunderstorm over Monterrey, June 9, 2013. Daniel Becerril/Reuters

People visit the Luminarium, an inflatable sculpture of British artist Alan Parkinson, before its opening on the ground of the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva. Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Market Closes for June 10^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15238.59	-9.53    -0.06%
S&P 500	1642.81	-0.57    -0.03%
NASDAQ	3473.766	+4.551    +0.13%
TSX	12382.67	+9.37
		+0.08%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13514.20	+636.67
		+4.94%
HANG  SENG	21615.09	+39.83
		+0.18%
SENSEX	19441.07	+11.84
		+0.06%
FTSE 100	6400.45	-11.54
		-0.18%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.203	2.150
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.753	2.715
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.2097	2.1736
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3697	3.3360

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.98096	0.98092
US   $	1.01940	1.01945
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35150	0.73992
US  $	1.32577	0.75428

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1386.90	1382.40
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	95.77	96.03
BRENT	103.66	104.50

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 10 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for the first time in seven days, ending the longest losing streak in a year, as advances among energy and gold producers offset declines in industrial and health-care stocks.

Onex Corp. gained 1.3 percent after one of its holdings paid it $295 million. E-L Financial Corp. surged 9.5 percent after agreeing to sell a unit to Travelers Cos. for $1.1 billion. TransCanada Corp. climbed 2.4 percent after Canada’s natural resources minister said he is in favor of cross-country pipelines.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index added 9.37 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,382.67 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, after falling as much as 0.4 percent earlier. The index lost 2.9 percent over the previous six sessions.

“A lot of the stocks that were getting pounded over the last week or so seem to be coming back,” said David Cockfield, fund manager with Northland Wealth Management in Toronto. The firm manages C$225 million ($221 million).

Six of 10 industries in the S&P/TSX rose as investors weighed economic data from China and Canadian housing numbers.

Trading volume was 22 percent lower than the 30-day average. TransCanada added 2.4 percent to C$46.83 to pace gains among energy stocks, which rose 0.5 percent as a group.

Joe Oliver, Canada’s natural resources minister, said in Toronto today a pipeline transporting crude oil from Alberta to the eastern provinces is crucial to economic prosperity.

Onex, Canada’s largest publicly listed buyout firm, advanced 1.3 percent to C$46.95. Carestream Health Inc., which Onex acquired in 2007, will make the payment to the company after raising $2.4 billion of debt to fund $725 million in distributions to shareholders.

Bank of Montreal added 0.9 percent to C$60.63 as Canadian housing starts rose at their fastest pace in more than a year in May on a surge in condominium construction. The Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. said work began on 200,178 units at a seasonally adjusted annual pace, up 13.8 percent from April.

E-L Financial, based in Toronto, jumped 9.5 percent to C$647.99 after agreeing to sell its Dominion of Canada General Insurance Co. to New York-based Travelers. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Premier Gold Mines Ltd. rallied 7.5 percent to C$2.44 and Kinross Gold Corp. added 1.1 percent to C$6.44 as the price of gold rose 0.2 percent to settle at $1,386, erasing earlier losses of as much as 0.6 percent.

Taseko Mines Ltd. declined 4.7 percent to C$2.05 and Teck Resources Ltd. fell 2.4 percent to C$25.04 as the price of copper retreated to a five-week low.

The S&P GSCI Index, which tracks prices for a basket of the most commonly traded commodities in the world, fell 0.7 percent after data released over the weekend showed China’s industrial production rose a less-than-forecast 9.2 percent last month, while export gains were at a 10-month low and imports dropped.

China, the world’s biggest consumer of industrial metals and energy, is Canada’s second-largest trading partner.

US

By Lu Wang and Inyoung Hwang

June 10 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks declined, following the biggest two-day gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since January, as investors weighed S&P’s move to boost its outlook for America and Chinese data missed estimates.

Apple Inc. lost 0.7 percent after introducing a music- streaming service. Homebuilders slumped as bond yields surged and JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut its rating on Lennar Corp.

McDonald’s Corp. climbed 1.3 percent on better-than-estimated sales growth in May as the Dollar Menu and breakfast items helped drive the U.S. business. Monsanto Co. jumped 4.5 percent as Argentina said China has agreed to accept imports of the company’s genetically modified Intacta soybeans.

The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1 percent to 1,642.81 at 4 p.m. in New York, after gaining as much as 0.3 percent earlier.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 9.53 points, or 0.1 percent, to 15,238.59. More than 5.5 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges, or 12 percent below the three-month average.

“The S&P upgrading of U.S. debt is certainly good in a sense that it takes the issue off the table,” Derek Sasveld, a New York-based senior portfolio manager for ING Investment Management U.S., which oversees $180 billion, said in a phone interview. “But the market was already aware that government finances were in a better shape, an increasingly better shape.”

U.S. equities rose last week as U.S. companies added more workers to payrolls than economists forecast, signaling the economy continues to expand. The U.S.’s AA+ credit rating outlook was increased today to stable from negative by Standard & Poor’s, which cited receding fiscal risks. S&P, the world’s largest credit rater, cut the U.S. ranking from AAA in August 2011, contributing to a global stock-market rout and sending yields on Treasury bonds to record lows.     Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said inflation below the central bank’s 2 percent target warrants prolonging the “aggressive” use of bond buying to spur growth and bring down unemployment.

While “labor market conditions have improved since last summer,” Bullard said in remarks prepared for a panel discussion in Montreal, “surprisingly low inflation readings may mean the Committee can maintain its aggressive program over a longer time frame.”

Stimulus from the Federal Reserve and better-than-estimated earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 143 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The index is still 1.6 percent below its record high from May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85 billion monthly bond purchases if the economy improved in a “real and sustainable way.”

China’s industrial production rose a less-than-forecast 9.2 percent last month, while export gains were at a 10-month low and imports dropped, data over the weekend showed.

Japan’s Topix index surged by the most in two years today as the government said the economy grew more than initially forecast in the first quarter. Gross domestic product in Japan expanded an annualized 4.1 percent, compared with a preliminary calculation of 3.5 percent, the Cabinet Office said.

Reports this week may show U.S. retail sales climbed in May and business inventories increased in April, according to Bloomberg surveys of economists.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, added 2 percent today to 15.44. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, reached a six-year low in March and has since surged 37 percent.

Five of the 10 S&P 500 industry groups fell as consumer- discretionary and industrial stocks slumped the most, losing at least 0.3 percent. Telephone and raw-material companies had the largest gains.

Apple slid 0.7 percent to $438.89, erasing a gain of as much as 1.7 percent, after unveiling a music-streaming service called iTunes Radio at the company’s annual developers conference in San Francisco. Pandora Media Inc., which offers online-radio service, soared 2.5 percent to $15.49.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook also introduced a new version of Apple’s Mac operating system called Mavericks that’s aimed at delivering tighter integration with iPhones and iPads.

An S&P index of homebuilders slumped 2.3 percent as all its11 members retreated. Yields on 30-year bond climbed to the highest in more than a year, spurring concern rising interest rates will hurt demand in the housing market.

Lennar lost 3.3 percent to $37.31 after being cut to neutral from overweight by JPMorgan. The homebuilder’s stock, trading at a 16 percent premium to peers based on a price-to- earnings ratio, already reflected the company’s growth potential, analyst Michael Rehaut wrote in a note to clients.

D.R. Horton Inc. dropped 2.1 percent to $23.06. PulteGroup Inc. slipped 2 percent to $20.64.

Dynavax Technologies Corp., a drugmaker seeking to bring its first product to market, plunged 43 percent to $1.40, its lowest level since 2010. U.S. regulators asked for a wider study to assess the safety of the company’s hepatitis B vaccine.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. slumped 11 percent to $73.05 in after-hours trading as of 4:55 New York time. The yoga-wear retailer that recently recalled one of its most popular styles of pants said Chief Executive Officer Christine Day will step down once a replacement is found. The board has formed a search committee, and the decision is being announced now so it can have a “healthy transition period,” Vancouver-based Lululemon said today in a statement after the market closed.

McDonald’s increased 1.3 percent to $99.53 during regular trading. The largest restaurant chain said sales at stores open at least 13 months rose 2.6 percent last month. Analysts projected a 1.9 percent increase, the average of estimates compiled by Consensus Metrix.

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, rallied 4.5 percent to $106.25. China approved imports of Intacta soybeans and three other engineered crops, Norberto Yahuar, Argentina’s agricultural minister, said in a June 8 statement. Intacta may add $1.30 a share to Monsanto earnings by 2017 as sales begin in Brazil next year and Argentina the following year, said Cooley May, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. who upgraded the shares to outperform, an equivalent of buy, from hold in a note today.

Facebook Inc. gained 4.5 percent to $24.33 amid speculation that the world’s largest social network may be added to the S&P 500. With a current market value of almost $60 billion, Facebook is likely to join the S&P 500 in the next year, according to Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. He raised Facebook’s stock rating to buy from hold.

Shares of discount brokers are gaining the most since 2003 compared with the S&P 500, a sign that small investors are joining the four-year bull market even after U.S. stocks suffered their biggest losses in six months.

Charles Schwab Corp., TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and E*Trade Financial Corp. have climbed 38 percent on average in 2013, beating the S&P 500 by 23 percentage points and eclipsing returns in financial shares from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Bank of America Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The last times that happened, equity mutual funds received about $91 billion, 24 percent more than the annual average in the two decades before the financial crisis, the data show.

“It says something about an improvement of confidence among our biggest sector of the economy, retail investors and households,” James Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, which oversees more than $340 billion, said in a phone interview.

“When the retail investor finally gets more confident about the future, flows follow.”

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Does a flower, full of beauty, light and loveliness say, ‘I am giving, helping, serving?’

It is!  And because it is not trying to do anything it covers the earth.

Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

You cannot open a book without learning something.

-Confucius, 551-479 BC

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Given the time of year, when so many of us are spending weekends in our gardens, I thought you might enjoy this: Horticultural History ~ How some heritage fruits and vegetables were first described in literature.

-from Heritage Fruits and Vegetables by Toby Musgrave and Clay Perry, Thames & Hudson

Asparagus

The first shootes or heads of Asparagus are a Sallet of as much esteeme with all sorts of persons, as any other whatsoever, being boyled tender, and eaten with butter, vinegar, and pepper, or oyle and vinegar, or as every ones manner doth please. –John Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, 1629.

Carrot

The roote is round and long, thicke above and small below, eyther red or yellow, eyther shorter or longer. –John Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole ParadisusTerrestris, 1629.

Pea

Pease are of divers kinds….the meaner sort of them have been long acquainted with our English Air and Soil; but the sweet and delicate sorts of them have been introduced into our Gardens only in this latter age. – John Worlidge, Systema Horticulurae, 1683, 2^nd ed.

Radish

I do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of a  cheese-paring; when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. –William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II, Act 3, Scene 2

Mulberry

In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a vinous flavor, and the fruit assumes three different colours, being at first white, then red, and ripe when black….It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least improvement of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has been increased. –Pliny, Natural History, 1^st century AD.

Birthday: Paul Gauguin, painter, b. June 7, 1848.

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. –Paul Gauguin

Photos of the Day –June 7^th, 2013

A NASA Black Brant XII suborbital rocket streaks into the night sky following its launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia on June 5, 2013. The rocket carried the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER). Scientists are studying when the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe and how brightly they burned their nuclear fuel. Jamie Adkins/NASA/Reuters

Water is seen splashing off of Belmont Stakes hopeful Orb during his bath after morning workouts at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. The 145th Belmont Stakes, the final leg of racing’s Triple Crown, will be held at Belmont Park on June 8. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Market Closes for June 7^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15248.12	+207.50    +1.38%
S&P 500	1643.38	+20.82    +1.28%
NASDAQ	3469.215	+45.163   +1.32%
TSX	12373.30	-36.03
		-0.29%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	12877.53	-26.49
		-0.21%
HANG  SENG	21575.26	-263.17
		-1.21%
SENSEX	19429.23	-90.26
		-0.46%
FTSE 100	6411.99	+75.88
		+1.20%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.150	2.041
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.715	2.616
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1736	2.0769
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3360	3.2446

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.98092	0.97365
US   $	1.01945	1.02707
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.34754	0.74209
US  $	1.32184	0.75652

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1382.40	1413.78
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	96.03	94.76
BRENT	104.50	103.25

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 7 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a sixth day, giving the benchmark equity gauge the longest losing streak in a year, as metals prices tumbled after jobs data from Canada and the U.S. topped estimates.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. dropped more than 5.6 percent.  as the price of gold slumped the most in seven weeks. Silver Standard Resources Inc. and Endeavour Silver Corp. retreated at least 6.6 percent as the price of the metal sank. Catamaran Corp. jumped 3.4 percent after announcing it had made a prepayment on one of its loans. Athabasca Oil Corp. and Trilogy Energy Corp. rallied the most among oil and gas stocks as crude reached a two-week high.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 36.03 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,373.30 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has tumbled 2.9 percent in the past six days, the longest slump since May 2012.

“Canada’s just the bad boy of the global markets here, it can’t catch a break,” said Ian Nakamoto, director of research with MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier Inc. in Toronto. The firm manages $4 billion. “Canada has got to come back by commodity prices coming back, and I don’t see that. The pressure on gold stocks has been going on for some time now.”

Canadian employment rose by 95,000 in May, the most since August 2002, and the jobless rate fell to 7.1 percent from 7.2 percent even as more Canadians joined the workforce, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa.

U.S. payrolls rose 175,000 last month after a revised 149,000 increase in April that was smaller than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent.

Raw-materials producers sank 3.4 percent as a group, pacing losses in the S&P/TSX. Seven of 10 industries in the benchmark equity gauge advanced, led by health-care and technology stocks.

Trading volume was 10 percent lower than the 30-day average.

Kirkland Lake Gold tumbled 5.6 percent to C$5.38 and Agnico Eagle Mines retreated 7.4 percent to C$31.65. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of gold, lost 4.9 percent to C$20.60 as all 29 members of the S&P/TSX Gold Index declined.

Gold futures for August delivery fell 2.3 percent to settle at $1,383 an ounce, as the jobs data boosted concern the Federal Reserve may scale back monetary stimulus. Silver lost 4.2 percent, as both metals slid the most since April 15.

Silver Standard Resources fell 8.3 percent to C$7.53 and Endeavour Silver retreated 6.6 percent to C$4.22.

Telus Corp. decreased 0.7 percent to C$34.67. The wireless carrier has slumped 3.2 percent in the past three days, after the Canadian government blocked the Vancouver-based company’s bid to acquire smaller competitor Mobilicity in a C$380 million deal.

Athabasca Oil surged 5.2 percent to C$7.48 and Trilogy Energy gained 4.7 percent to C$32.43 as the price of crude rallied 1.3 percent to $96.03 a barrel to settle at the highest since May 21.

Catamaran increased 3.4 percent to C$51.25, the biggest advance in three weeks. The provider of pharmacy benefits management services said in a filing today it made a $100 million prepayment on a term loan on June 3. The company now owes $1 billion in the loan.

US

By Nikolaj Gammeltoft

June 7 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, giving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index its best two-day rally since January, after better-than-forecast growth in employment indicated the economy continues to expand.

Boeing Co., Walt Disney Co. and American Express Co. added more than 2.4 percent, pacing gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a gauge of cyclical stocks rallied. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. added 0.9 percent after approving a new buyback program.

Gap Inc. rose 2.7 percent after reporting same-store sales for May that beat analyst estimates. Iron Mountain Inc. tumbled 16 percent after saying its conversion to a real estate investment trust is being scrutinized by tax regulators.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.3 percent to 1,643.38 at 4 p.m. in New York. The index rallied 2.1 percent in the past two days to finish the week 0.8 percent higher. The Dow jumped 207.50 points, or 1.4 percent, to 15,248.12. More than 6.4 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, in line with the three-month average.

“This report’s in the sweet spot,” Brian Jacobsen, who helps oversee $221.2 billion as chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said by telephone. “It shows investors that the economy is growing but not fast enough for them to be concerned that the Fed is going to start tapering its asset purchase program.”

Federal Reserve stimulus and better-than-expected earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 143 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The index has dropped 1.5 percent since closing at a record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S.

Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85 billion monthly bond purchases if the job market improved in a “real and sustainable way.”

Stocks surged after a Labor Department report showed payrolls rose 175,000 last month from a revised 149,000 increase in April that was smaller than first estimated. The jobless rate climbed from a four-year low as more Americans entered the labor force. Data yesterday showed jobless claims decreased by 11,000 to 346,000.

The improvement in the labor market is a sign companies are looking beyond fiscal restraint this quarter and are optimistic enough about the prospects for demand in the second half of the year. At the same time, bigger job and wage gains are needed to move Fed policy makers closer to scaling back record monetary stimulus.

Bernanke needs to see four months of job growth averaging at least 200,000 to justify reducing the pace of asset purchases, according to Vincent Reinhart, a former director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs. About 194,000 jobs were added on average over the past six months.

“The jobs report provided a sense of relief for a lot of investors,” Robert Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management LLC, said in a phone interview. His firm manages about $250 billion in assets. “Many people had feared it was going to be worse than the estimates, but we remain stuck in the middle. It’s not so weak that you say ’Oh my goodness, the economy,’ and it’s not so strong that you expect the Fed is going to start scaling back bond buying in September.”

Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview that the Fed is unlikely to reduce its asset purchases after the unemployment rate climbed.

Economists estimate the Fed will scale back bond buying to $65 billion at the Oct. 29-30 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey this week. In a similar survey before the Fed’s last meeting, economists forecast the central bank to taper to $50 billion in the fourth quarter. The FOMC next meets June 18-19.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, lost 9 percent to 15.14. The benchmark gauge for American stock options, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, fell for the second day after briefly erasing its loss for the year yesterday. The index has dropped 16 percent this year.

Nine of 10 industries in the S&P 500 advanced, with consumer discretionary and industrial stocks rising more than 1.7 percent to pace gains. Boeing, the world’s largest plane maker, added 2.7 percent to $102.49, the stock’s highest since 2007.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index rose 1.6 percent as companies whose earnings are most tied to economic swings rallied after the jobs data. Disney, the world’s largest theme park operator, added 2.7 percent to $64.85, and American Express, the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, gained 2.4 percent to $78.04. Morgan Stanley, the biggest financial brokerage, surged 6.3 percent to $27, the most in the S&P 500.

“We’re seeing a rotation into cyclicals and a belief that the economy is on stable footing,” Darrell Cronk, the New York- based regional chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank, which oversees $170 billion, said by phone. “We’re still in a buy-the-dips mentality and people continue to look at the value that equities pose.”

Wal-Mart Stores climbed 0.9 percent to $76.33. The new $15 billion buyback program was effective yesterday and replaces the previous $15 billion authorization, which had about $712 million remaining, the world’s largest retailer said in a statement.

Gap advanced 2.7 percent to $42.09 after the largest U.S. specialty-apparel retailer reported a 7 percent increase in total comparable sales for last month. Analysts had projected a 3.7 percent gain, on average, according to researcher Retail Metrics Inc.

Yum! Brands Inc. climbed 3.4 percent to $73.52. UBS AG raised its recommendation for the owner of KFC to buy from neutral and added the company to its U.S. “key call” list, saying sales and profitability in China will start to improve from the impact of recent health scares in the country.

GameStop Corp. rose 6.2 percent to $36.75 for the second- biggest gain in the S&P 500. The world’s largest video-game retailer rose after Microsoft Corp., responding to concerns about trade-in rights on its new Xbox One console, said users may sell titles back to retailers or give them to friends provided they have approval from the publisher.

TiVo Inc. dropped 19 percent to $11.10. The developer of digital-video recorders settled a patent dispute with Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility unit, Cisco Systems Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. for $490 million — less than estimated.

Iron Mountain tumbled 16 percent to $28.95 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500, and Equinix Inc. slumped 5.5 percent to $192.57. The two technology companies said the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is scrutinizing their eligibility to convert to real estate investment trusts.

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

Beauty lies in the total abandonment of the observer and the observed,

and there can be self-abandonment only when  there is total austerity.

There is no ladder to climb; there is only the first step

and the first step is the everlasting step.

Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom

through failure.

-William Saroyan, 1908-1981

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

June 6^th, 1944: D-Day – Allied forces invaded the beaches of Normandy.

1949 – George Orwell’s 1984 was published for the first time.

Gnome

-by Samuel Beckett

Spend the years of learning squandering

Courage for the years of wandering

Through a world politely turning

From the loutishness of learning.

Photos of the Day –June 6^th, 2013

A man walks past a group of art works by Chinese artist Yue Minjun on display outside the Today Art Museum in Beijing, China. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

A farmer carrying a basket on her back walks toward her field at Khokana in Lalitpur, Nepal. Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Market Closes for June 6^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15040.62	+80.03    +0.53%
S&P 500	1622.56	+13.66    +0.85%
NASDAQ	3424.052	+22.576    +0.66%
TSX	12409.33	-34.32
		-0.28%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	12904.02	-110.85
		-0.85%
HANG  SENG	21838.43	-230.81
		-1.05%
SENSEX	19519.49	-48.73
		-0.25%
FTSE 100	6336.11	-83.20
		-1.30%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.041	2.045
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.616	2.620
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.0769	2.0892
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.2446	3.2463

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.97365	0.96662
US   $	1.02707	1.03453
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35999	0.73530
US  $	1.32415	0.75520

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1413.78	1403.30
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	94.76	93.74
BRENT	103.25	102.82

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 6 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a fifth day, erasing gains for the year, as Canadian Western Bank reported lower-than-estimated profit and signs of weakening growth in China and Germany spurred losses in commodity producers.

Canadian Western Bank lost 1.2 percent, reaching a three- week low. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest diversified mining company by market value, slipped 1.4 percent as copper posted the biggest loss in two weeks. Bombardier Inc. climbed 1.2 percent after winning a $771 million contract to supply vehicles for Stockholm’s metro rail network. Trican Well Service Ltd., Canada’s third-largest drilling-services provider by market value, jumped 5.2 percent after predicting a “strong” third quarter.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 34.32 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,409.33 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has fallen 0.2 percent this year. Trading volume was 0.4 percent lower than the 30-day average.

“The trend is down for the market after the overnight news from Asia and Germany,” said Stephen Gauthier, chief investment officer with Fin-XO Securities Inc. in Montreal. His firm manages C$550 million ($532 million). “The economic picture there is not great.”

German factory orders slid more than forecast in April, figures showed today. Export growth in China, the biggest copper consumer, probably grew in May at half the pace of a month earlier, economists said in a Bloomberg survey before data due June 8.

Financial stocks posted the second-biggest decline among industries in the S&P/TSX, losing 0.6 percent as a group as eight of 10 industries retreated.

Canadian Western Bank lost 1.2 percent to C$28.20. The lender reported second quarter adjusted earnings of 55 Canadian cents a share, short of analysts’ forecasts for 57 cents a share.

Artis Real Estate Investment Trust fell 1.2 percent to C$15.53 and Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust rose 1.1 percent to C$61.35. The S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index rose 0.1 percent to snap a seven-day losing streak. The index had declined 6.4 percent in the previous seven days.

Raw-material producers retreated as RBC Capital Markets cut its 2013 forecast for copper prices by 9.3 percent. Copper for July delivery slumped 1.6 percent to settle at $3.319 a pound.

Aluminum, zinc, lead, nickel and tin slid in London.

Rio Alto Mining Ltd., which is developing a copper and gold project in Peru, slumped 3.1 percent. Teck Resources dropped 1.4 percent to C$26.76 and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. slipped 0.9 percent to C$18.36.

Bombardier, the Montreal-based manufacturer of aircraft and rail transportation, advanced 1.2 percent to C$4.92. The company will deliver 96 Movia passenger trains to the Stockholm Public Transport Authority in Sweden, with an option for a further 80 vehicles.

Petrominerales Ltd. rose 3.1 percent to C$6.27. The company said it would give investors the option of receiving shares of the company at a 5 percent discount to the share price.

Investors may also choose to continue receiving their payouts in cash, the company said.

Trican jumped 5.2 percent to C$15.96. The company said in a presentation to investors posted on its website today that activity for the full year will improve compared with 2012.

US

By Nikolaj Gammeltoft and Jonathan Morgan

June 6 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index erasing earlier losses to snap a two-day losing streak, as investors weighed the Federal Reserve’s stimulus plans before a report on employment growth tomorrow.

All 10 industries in the S&P 500 advanced. Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. added at least 1.6 percent as phone stocks gained the most as a group. Banks and health-care companies jumped 1.4 percent. Costco Wholesale Corp. rose 1.8 percent after reporting an increase in sales. VeriFone Systems Inc. plunged 21 percent as the maker of credit-card terminals forecast earnings that missed analysts’ estimates.

The S&P 500 added 0.9 percent to 1,622.56 at 4 p.m. in New York after falling as much as 0.7 percent earlier in the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 80.03 points, or 0.5 percent, to 15,040.62. Almost 6.9 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, 8.7 percent higher than the three-month average.

“The U.S. markets are going through a transition from being liquidity driven to a rally based on fundamental data and that’s a very bumpy ride,” Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist at JP Morgan Funds, where he helps oversee about $400 billion, said via phone. “Investors are trying to figure out whether we are now pricing in earnings and the jobs situation or whether it’s still the Fed leading markets. So we’re slowly taking off the training wheels and that makes things a little wobbly.”

The Fed stimulus and better-than-expected earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 140 percent from a 12-year low in 2009.

The gauge has dropped 2.8 percent since closing at a record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85 billion in monthly bond buying if the job market improves in a “real and sustainable way.”

A Labor Department report tomorrow is expected to indicate employers added 163,000 to non-farm payrolls last month, almost equal to the gain in April. The agency issued data today that showed jobless claims decreased by 11,000 to 346,000 in the week ended June 1. The median forecast of 47 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a drop to 345,000. Data yesterday showed companies in the U.S. hired fewer workers than projected in May.

“It’s wait-and-see before the jobs report tomorrow,” Frank Ingarra, head trader at Greenwich, Connecticut-based NorthCoast Asset Management LLC, said in a telephone interview.

His firm oversees $1.6 billion. “It all depends on how traders will read that data and its effect on the Fed’s decision making.

We need to be assured that the Fed will not taper off monetary stimulus or we need to see significant improvement in the economy to get the next leg up in the rally.”

European equities fell today after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said policy makers left additional stimulus measures “on the shelf.” The euro-area will return to growth by the end of they year, Draghi said at a press conference after the ECB kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low.

“The improving jobless report in the U.S. and Draghi’s statement created fear that the central banks will unwind monetary easing because things are getting better,” Donald Selkin, who helps manage about $3 billion of assets as the chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. in New York, said via phone.

Selling in U.S. equities gained momentum earlier today as the S&P 500 briefly dropped below its 50-day moving average for the first time since April. That level, currently at 1,605.35, is watched by speculators.

The benchmark index plunged 1.4 percent yesterday to the lowest since May 2 and the Dow dropped 217 points for its biggest decline since April 15. The Dow today also slipped below its trading average of 14,923.91 for the past 50 days. That was the first time this year it happened for the 30-stock gauge.

“There’s some trader anxiety lingering from yesterday’s big move down,” Michael James, a managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles, said in an interview. “The market is testing the 50-day moving average on the S&P 500.”

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, fell 5 percent to 16.63. The benchmark gauge for American stock options, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, rose as much as 5.8 percent today, briefly erasing its loss for the year as it traded above the 2012 close of 18.02. The index has fallen 7.7 percent this year and touched a six-year low in March.

Phone stocks surged 2.2 percent. Verizon jumped 3.5 percent to $49.97, its biggest advance since August 2011. AT&T rose 1.6 percent to $35.81.

An S&P index that tracks homebuilders added 3.5 percent, snapping a four-day losing streak, as all 11 members increased.

PulteGroup Inc. rose 4.7 percent to $21.10, and D.R. Horton Inc. gained 2.7 percent to $23.27. Home Depot Inc., the largest home- improvement retailer in the U.S., climbed 2.9 percent to $77.26 for among the biggest jumps in the Dow.

Costco advanced 1.8 percent to $111.09. The largest U.S. warehouse-club chain said comparable-store sales, excluding fuel, increased 5 percent in May, exceeding analyst estimates of 4.9 percent.

Ciena Corp. jumped 17 percent to $19.15. The maker of communications-network equipment for phone carriers and other customers reported third-quarter sales forecasts that topped estimates.

The report helped lift other communications-equipment suppliers. JDS Uniphase Corp. shares surged 8.3 percent to $14.22, the highest since April 11. Finisar Corp. added 4.9 percent to $13.52.

SodaStream International Ltd. increased 2.7 percent to $71.24, paring an earlier gain of as much as 9.7 percent.

Calcalist, an Israeli business website, reported that PepsiCo Inc. is in talks to buy the maker of home soda machines without saying where it obtained the information. PepsiCo Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi said in an interview in Myanmar that it’s the first time she had heard about the talks.

Chevron Corp. dropped 0.8 percent to $120.59 for the biggest loss in the Dow. Intel Corp. slid 0.2 percent to $24.65, as technology companies advanced 0.1 percent for the slimmest gain among S&P 500 groups.

J.M. Smucker Co. fell 3.9 percent to $98.38 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500. The food maker’s fiscal fourth-quarter sales fell short of analyst estimates.

VeriFone sank 21 percent to $17.37 as the company forecast third-quarter adjusted earnings of about 20 cents a share.

Analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg had predicted 51 cents.

Second-quarter profit and sales also missed projections.

VeriFone dismissed Chief Executive Officer Douglas Bergeron in March as diminished demand for credit-card terminals hurt earnings.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

What does it matter if we do not understand the exact meaning of the grand harmony?

Is it not like the bow player who touches a string and at once releases every resonance?  This is the language

of beauty, this is the caress that comes from the heart of the world and goes straight to our hearts.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1901

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn

as if you were to live forever.

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1933, the US officially went off the gold standard in an attempt to discourage hoarding and end bank runs.  –Steven Russolillo, WSJ, 06/05/13.

Also on this day in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

06/05/1981 – AIDS was first noted.

06/05/1878 – Revolutionary Pancho Villa was born.

Don’t  let it end like this.  Tell them I said something. –Pancho Villa.

Of note: In 1983, in Northern Ireland, at the height of the civil disturbances known as the Troubles, a group of photographers created “Belfast Exposed”, a community project and gallery aimed at reclaiming the city’s image.  Thirty years on, the now-renowned gallery is celebrating its anniversary with an exhibition of three decades of photography from Northern Ireland.  The show ranges from shocking and familiar press-commissioned images of violence to a newer, more gallery-influenced style of photography developed by artists such as Paul Graham whose “Union Jack Flag in Tree, County Tyrone, 1985” is featured.

‘Union Jack Flag in Tree, County Tyrone, 1985’

Talking about his “Troubled Land” series, Graham once said: “Each photograph was booby-trapped….with a small device that launched it into a political area.”  Visit www.belfastexposed.org.  –from the FT.

Photos of the Day –June 5^th, 2013

Residents of the village of Mlekojedy sit in front of the flooded road to their homes, near the city of Litomerice, Czech Republic. Petr Josek/Reuters

Gallery employee Charlotte Hogg poses in front of a tapestry by Grayson Perry titled, ‘Expulsion From 8 Eden Close’ during the media preview of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in central London. Andrew Winning/Reuters

Market Closes for June 5^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	14960.59	-216.95    -1.43%
S&P 500	1608.90	-22.48    -1.38%
NASDAQ	3401.477	-43.782    -1.27%
TSX	12443.65	-150.32
		-1.19%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13014.87	-518.89
		-3.83%
HANG  SENG	22069.24	-216.28
		-0.97%
SENSEX	19568.22	+22.44
		+0.11%
FTSE 100	6419.31	-139.27
		-2.12%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.045	2.085
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.620	2.638
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.0892	2.1462
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.2463	3.3114

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.96662	0.96697
US   $	1.03453	1.03415
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35409	0.73850
US  $	1.30889	0.76400

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1403.30	1397.50
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	93.74	93.31
BRENT	102.82	103.25

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 5 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a fourth day, the longest streak in two months, after data showed U.S. jobs and factory orders rose less than forecast and investors weighed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s stimulus plans.

BCE Inc. dropped 1.3 percent to a February low, after Macquarie Group Ltd. said that phone shares are vulnerable amid increased regulation. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. lost 4.4 percent to extend losses to a fourth day after its largest shareholder said it will sell part of its stake. WestJet Airlines Ltd. slid 2.3 percent after a measure of customers on its flights declined. A gauge of real estate investment trust fell for a seventh day, the longest streak in three years.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 1.2 percent to 12,443.65 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has lost 2.4 percent in the past four days and closed at a one-month low.

Trading volume was 13 percent higher than the 30-day average.

“The market in the U.S. and Canada is pausing here, it’s run out of momentum,” said John Kinsey, fund manager with Caldwell Securities Ltd. in Toronto. He helps manage about C$1 billion ($966 million). “The economic numbers, some of them have been disappointing, to put it mildly. There seems to be a difference of opinion among Fed members. When they have a problem, the market has a problem.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher, among the most vocal critics of additional easing, and Fed Bank of Kansas City President Esther George, who has dissented against record stimulus at every policy meeting this year, separately called for a reduction in the central bank’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases yesterday. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said earlier this week that “very mixed” economic data makes him “more cautious” about a near- term reduction.

The 135,000 increase in U.S. employment in May followed a revised 113,000 gain in April that was smaller than initially estimated, the ADP Research Institute reported today. The median forecast of 40 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a May advance of 165,000.

All 10 groups in the S&P/TSX retreated, led by industrial stocks, which sank 2.6 percent as a group for the biggest slide since September. U.S. factory orders rose 1 percent in April as demand for non-durable goods dropped. The median forecast among economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 1.5 percent increase.

Canadian Pacific slid 4.4 percent to C$126. William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP said on June 3 it plans to sell as many as 7 million shares of the company beginning June 10.

The New York hedge fund instigated a turnaround at the company after installing Hunter Harrison as the new chief executive officer last year. The stock has fallen 9.3 percent in the past four days.

Chartwell Retirement Residences sank 2.6 percent to C$10.33 and Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust  declined 0.8 percent to C$31.89. The S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index has fallen seven straight days, dropping 6.4 percent during its longest losing streak since February 2010.

WestJet Airlines lost 2.3 percent to C$22.18. The company’s passenger load factor, which measures the percentage of seats filled on flights, declined to 78.5 percent in May from 79.2 percent a year earlier.

BCE retreated 1.3 percent to C$45.57. The stock has fallen in six of the past seven days, slipping 5 percent in that time.

Canadian regulators yesterday squashed a proposed deal between Telus Corp. and Mobilicity due to competition concerns, and regulators have introduced a code of conduct allowing consumers to break contracts after two years with no penalty.

Greg MacDonald, analyst with Macquarie Group, said in a note today telecommunications stocks will continue to fall through the summer due to the recent regulatory reforms, including a delay of the next wireless spectrum auction until 2014.

Telus decreased 1.9 percent to C$35.14 and Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s largest wireless carrier, fell 1.4 percent to C$45.78.

US

By Lu Wang and Nikolaj Gammeltoft

June 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a one-month low, as jobs and factory data missed estimates and investors speculated whether the Federal Reserve will taper bond purchases.

All 10 S&P 500 industry groups retreated. Alcoa Inc. and Bank of America Corp. dropped at least 2 percent, as raw- materials and financial companies fell the most. An index of homebuilders slumped 1.6 percent as mortgage applications dropped for a fourth straight week. Intel Corp. plunged 2.6 percent for the biggest slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Walgreen Co. climbed 1.3 percent as sales exceeded analysts’ estimates.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.4 percent to 1,608.90 at 4 p.m. in New York, the lowest since May 2. The Dow declined 216.95 points, or 1.4 percent, to 14,960.59. More than 6.9 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, 10 percent higher than the three-month average.

Today’s economic data “may throw some cold water on this economic growth story continuing,” Bill Schultz, who oversees about $1.1 billion as chief investment officer at McQueen Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said by phone. “So you got this contrast in what the Fed should do. All those cross- currents throw on some caution on the whole market. Investors are taking a pause and a more look-and-see approach than they have in the past, where equities are the only place to be.”

Investors considered mixed data today, as a report from ADP Research Institute showed companies in the U.S. hired fewer workers than projected in May amid federal budget cuts and higher taxes. Separate data from the Commerce Department showed U.S. factory orders in April fell short of estimates. A gauge of service industries, which covers almost 90 percent of the economy, rose more than forecast.

Stocks maintained losses after the Fed’s Beige Book showed the economy expanded at a “modest to moderate” pace in 11 of 12 central-bank districts, with broad-based gains ranging from business services to construction and manufacturing. The survey is based on data collected by Fed regional banks on or before May 24.

A Labor Department report on June 7 may show employers added 165,000 people to payrolls last month after a gain of 165,000 in April, according to the median of 85 economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

The S&P 500 has dropped 3.6 percent since closing at a record high on May 21 as Fed policy makers continue to debate whether the economy is strong enough to begin reducing monetary stimulus.

Fed Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher, among the most vocal critics of additional easing, and Fed Bank of Kansas City President Esther George, who has dissented against record stimulus at every policy meeting this year, separately called for a reduction in the central bank’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases yesterday. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said earlier this week that “very mixed” economic data makes him “more cautious” about a near-term reduction.

The Fed stimulus and better-than-expected corporate earnings have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 138 percent from a 12-year low in 2009.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, climbed 7.6 percent today to 17.50. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, reached a six-year low in March and has since surged 55 percent.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell more than 0.9 percent.

Raw-materials and financial companies sank more than 1.7 percent. Alcoa dropped 2.2 percent to $8.20 and Bank of America declined 2 percent to $13.09 for a fourth straight day of losses.

An S&P index of homebuilders sank 1.6 percent as all but one of its 11 members fell. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index slumped 11.5 percent last week as the highest borrowing costs in more than a year led to a plunge in refinancing.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Rick Fier, director of equity trading at Conifer Securities LLC in New York, said in an interview. His firm oversees $8 billion. “Would you rather have higher rates and a stronger economy or a crappy economy and QE forever? I for one would like higher rates and a stronger economy, but I think people are most concerned with how much just a small uptick in rates had on the home-building sector and everything attached to it.”

D.R. Horton Inc. dropped 1.2 percent to $22.65 for a fourth day of declines. Toll Brothers Inc. slid 1.7 percent to $32.36, an eighth straight loss that left the stock at its lowest since April 22. Home Depot Inc., the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, was among the biggest drops in the Dow, losing 2 percent to $75.10.

Apple Inc. dropped 0.9 percent to $445.11 after a U.S. trade agency said it infringed a patent owned by Samsung Electronics Co. The decision was the first patent ruling against Apple in the U.S. that affects product sales. It covers the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G sold for use on networks operated by AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and two regional carriers.

Joy Global Inc., the largest maker of underground mining equipment, retreated 2.2 percent to $52.87. Goldman Sachs downgraded its recommendation on the stock to neutral from buy, citing a weaker outlook for after-market demand.

General Motors Co. slid 2.7 percent to $34.02. The U.S.

Treasury said it plans to sell 30 million additional shares of the carmaker’s common stock. The Treasury offering, which will include 20 million shares from the UAW union’s GM retiree health-care trust, coincides with the automaker’s inclusion in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading tomorrow.

Fastenal Co. slumped 6.3 percent to $47.70 for the biggest decline in the S&P 500. The retailer of nuts, bolts and other fasteners said daily sales increased 5.3 percent last month.

That missed the growth rate of at least 6.5 percent estimated by analysts, according to Wunderlich Securities Inc. Walgreen advanced 1.3 percent to $48.63. The largest U.S. drugstore chain reported a 2.8 percent increase in May sales at stores open at least one year. That beat the average 1.6 percent gain expected by analysts.

Juniper Networks Inc. jumped 6.6 percent to $18.54 for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The second-biggest maker of computer-networking equipment is “tracking above historical pattern” so far this quarter as routing spending by service providers picked up, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Johnson said in a presentation at a conference hosted by Bank of America.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

The divine music is incessantly going on within ourselves,

but the loud senses drown the delicate music,

which is unlike and infinitely superior to anything we can perceive with our senses.

Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

If you are really thankful, what do you do?

You share.

-W. Clement Stone, 1902-2002

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

I am enjoying reading little entries every day from Rosemary Verey’s garden notes.  Here is one from the month of June:

“June ~ That wonderful garden raconteur, Canon Ellacombe, always full of sound advice and country common sense, must have been enjoying a good lunch with a bowl of scented roses on his dining-table on the day in June 1871 when he wrote: ‘Is there any other month in the year that can show such a delightful triplet as we have now – roses, strawberries and green peas?’  We all have our own June speciality without which we would feel something was missing.  My broad beans have been in advance of the peas this year and thanks to the Mediterranean weather the early potatoes and strawberries were a treat before May was out.  As for roses, the first sweetly-scented blooms have been Souvenir de la Malmaison and Zéphirine Droubin.  This is the season when it is most difficult to go away even for a night – there is so much to be done at home.  But when we do manage to get away there are always rewards.  Driving from home through to the eastern counties in late May it seemed as though England was a land of white lilacs and pink and whiter May trees; every front garden and hedgerow were heavy with blossom.  The fields of oil-seed rape glowed like brightest sunshine.  At home I wake to the cuckoo, the milking machine, or a particularly noisy aeroplane which sounds as though it is coming right into the house most mornings at 4 a.m.  When we were staying in Dorset I thought I was dreaming when peacocks calling to each other disturbed my sleep.  I remembered Ruskin’s thought ‘that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.’  I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiment but so far have managed to stand out against the introduction of peacocks to our garden – they may be beautiful but are also destructive.  Lilies are a different matter.” –Rosemary Verey, from A Countrywoman’s Notes.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘Thank You’, that would suffice. – Meister Eckhart, 1260-c1327

On this day in 1984, Bruce Springsteen released Born in the USA, his 7^th studio album. –Steven Russolillo, WSJ, 06/04/13.

Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. – Robert J. Hastings, 1924-97.

Photos of the Day –June 4^th, 2013

Tens of thousands of people participate in a candlelight vigil at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to mark the 24th anniversary of the military crackdown of the pro-democracy movement at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Tyrone Siu/Reuters

The Manhattan skyline is seen behind a tree on Roosevelt Island in New York. World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5 to raise global awareness about environmental issues and stimulate political action, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Zoran Milich/Reuters

Market Closes for June 4^th, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15177.54	-76.49    -0.50%
S&P 500	1631.38	-9.04    -0.55%
NASDAQ	3445.259	-20.109    -0.58%
TSX	12593.97	-15.83
		-0.13%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13533.76	+271.94
		+2.05%
HANG  SENG	22285.52	+3.33
		+0.01%
SENSEX	19545.78	-64.70
		-0.33%
FTSE 100	6558.58	+33.46
		+0.51%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.085	2.051
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.638	2.605
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1462	2.1193
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.3114	3.2661

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.96697	0.97245
US   $	1.03415	1.02833
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.35277	0.73922
US  $	1.30809	0.76447

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1397.50	1413.70
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	93.31	93.45
BRENT	103.25	101.75

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 4 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a third day, to the lowest close in more than two weeks, as consumer staples and gold producers declined and investors considered mixed trade data and prospects for Federal Reserve stimulus.

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. lost 1.5 percent after Seven & I Holdings Co., operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores, said it may more than double its North American outlets. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. fell 2.8 percent as Pershing Square Capital Management LP said it will sell part of its stake. Barrick Gold Corp. retreated 1.7 percent after saying production at its Pascua-Lama project will be delayed.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index fell 15.83 points, or 0.1 percent to 12,593.97 at 4 p.m. in Toronto, the lowest since May 16. The index has added 1.3 percent this year.

“Investors want more clarity on when the Fed will taper its bond purchasing program, and a lot of it is dependent on economic data, which has been mixed signals,” Anish Chopra, a fund manager with TD Asset Management Ltd., said from Toronto. He helps manage about C$204 billion ($197 billion). “When you look at gold stocks, the actual commodity has fallen quite a bit. Investors are trying to figure out where the new range is.”

Esther George, Fed Bank of Kansas City President, urged the Fed to reduce its $85 billion in monthly bond buying as the U.S. economy improves. Data today from the Commerce Department showed the trade deficit in the U.S. widened in April from a more than three year low, reflecting a rebound in imports of consumer goods and business equipment that eases concern about the degree of slowing in economic growth.

Canada’s merchandise trade deficit widened in April to C$567 million ($550 million) from a revised C$3 million shortfall in March. Canada has recorded 16 straight trade deficits, the longest run in at least a quarter century.

Consumer staples stocks fell 1.2 percent as a group, as eight of 10 industries in the S&P/TSX retreated. Trading volume was 8.8 percent higher than the 30-day average.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, which operates convenience stores and gas bars across North America and in Norway, lost 1.5 percent to C$57.70. Competitor 7-Eleven may increase its North American store count to as high as 30,000, Seven & I Holdings Chairman Toshifumi Suzuki said in an interview with Bloomberg on May 30 in Tokyo.

Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, retreated 1.7 percent to C$21.57 after announcing production at its Pascua- Lama project on the border of Chile and Argentina won’t start in the second half of 2014 as planned, due to demands from Chile’s environmental agency. The delay will lead to higher capital costs, the company said in a filing.

Barrick has already raised the cost estimate for the project twice in the past year, to as much as $8.5 billion.

AuRico Gold Inc. slipped 2.5 percent to C$5.41 and Kinross Gold Corp. lost 1.6 percent to C$6.66 as the price of gold declined 1 percent to settle at $1,397.20 an ounce in New York.

CP Rail lost 2.8 percent to C$131.76 after William Ackman’s Pershing Square said in a statement yesterday it will cut its stake in the railway by about 29 percent by selling as many as 7 million shares over six to 12 months.

Ackman took control of the company last year, hiring Hunter Harrison as the new chief executive officer to improve operations. The stock has tripled since his 2011 investment and jumped 81 percent in the past year.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. advanced 2.1 percent to C$83.30. The company is restocking its Luon black yoga pants in stores and online this month after they were pulled in March for being too sheer, the company said yesterday in a note on their website.

US

By Whitney Kisling and Nikolaj Gammeltoft

June 4 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, snapping a streak of 20 straight Tuesday gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as economists predicted the Federal Reserve may reduce stimulus as soon as September.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. dropped 0.9 percent as energy producers slumped. Salesforce.com Inc. declined 7.9 percent after saying it will buy ExactTarget Inc. Dollar General Corp. fell 9.2 percent after reducing the top end of its full- year earnings forecast. General Motors Co. added 1.6 percent as S&P said the automaker will replace H.J. Heinz Co. in the benchmark equity gauge.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.6 percent to 1,631.38 at 4 p.m. in New York, erasing an earlier gain of as much as 0.4 percent. The Dow slid 76.49 points, or 0.5 percent, to 15,177.54. More than 6.8 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, 7.6 percent higher than the three-month average.

“We definitely think that equities are going to be more volatile with all the talk of Fed tapering,” David Lafferty, a Boston-based investment strategist at Natixis Global Asset Management, which manages about $785 billion, said in a phone interview. “You can see that volatility in the market jitteriness in the past days.”

The S&P 500 has alternated between gains and losses for the past seven sessions as Fed policy makers continue to debate when to begin reducing monetary stimulus.

Fed Bank of Kansas City President Esther George, who has dissented against record stimulus at every policy meeting this year, urged the central bank in a speech today to slow bond buying. San Francisco Fed President John Williams said yesterday a “modest adjustment downward” in the purchases is possible as “early as this summer.” Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said “very mixed” economic data makes him “more cautious” about a near-term reduction.

Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG predicted the central bank could start winding down its bond- buying program this summer. The Fed could cut $25 billion in purchases in September, even if this week’s employment data falls short of forecasts, Joseph A. LaVorgna, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, wrote in a note.

While Goldman Sachs’s forecast remains for Fed officials to wait until December before slowing their $85 billion of monthly asset purchases, the firm’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, said that so-called tapering could occur sooner.

“A September tapering is certainly possible, I think that is going to depend on the data,” Hatzius said in a Bloomberg Television interview at Goldman Sachs’s Global Macro Conference in London.

Investors will get more insight into the economy’s strength this week as two reports are forecast to show growth in payrolls in May. U.S. companies added 165,000 employees last month, ADP Research Institute will say tomorrow, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists, and government data on June 7 is predicted to show similar growth.

The Fed stimulus, and better-than-expected corporate earnings, have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 141 percent from a 12-year low in 2009. The gauge has fallen 2.2 percent since May 17.

The Dow’s decline today snapped a streak of gains on 20 straight Tuesdays, the longest run since at least 1900, according to data by Schaeffer’s Investment Research. The winning streak is the second-longest for any day of the week, following the Dow’s gain for 24 straight Wednesdays in 1968, the firm’s data show.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, fell 0.6 percent to 16.27. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, has lost 9.7 percent this year.

Eight of 10 groups in the S&P 500 declined today, with banks and energy producers falling at least 0.8 percent to pace losses. Chevron slid 0.9 percent to $122.96 and Exxon Mobil dropped 0.9 percent to $90.68. Bank of America Corp. slipped 1.4 percent to $13.36 for a third straight day of drops.

Salesforce.com dropped 7.9 percent to $37.80. The largest maker of online customer-management tools said it signed an agreement to buy e-mail marketer ExactTarget in a deal valued at $2.5 billion. ExactTarget jumped 53 percent to $33.69.

Dollar General slid 9.2 percent to $48.64 for the biggest drop in the S&P 500. The retailer cited “moderating” sales growth for lowering its adjusted-earnings target to as much as $3.22 per share from a previous maximum of $3.30. Analysts projected $3.28, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Phone companies rallied 0.9 percent to pace gains among S&P 500 groups. AT&T Inc. jumped 1.7 percent to $35.67.

Monster Beverage Corp., the largest U.S. energy drink maker by sales volume, gained the most in the S&P 500, adding 10 percent to $59.60. The Corona, California-based company said yesterday gross sales the last two months increased 9 percent, an acceleration that is “encouraging,” Stifel Nicolaus & Co. said in a note today.

GM rose 1.6 percent to $34.96. The automaker will rejoin the S&P 500 after it was dropped following the company’s bankruptcy in June 2009. Heinz is being taken private by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital in a $23 billion buyout. The change may prompt money managers to shift holdings to match the index.

An index that tracks chipmakers surged 0.5 percent for the second-biggest gain among 24 groups in the S&P 500. Intel Corp. advanced 0.5 percent to $25.36, the highest since August.

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

At our first meeting with beauty, we see it in its gaudy faded finery, jarring us with its garish tones,

its frills and flounces, even its deformed shapes.  But when we get to know it better,

the apparent discord reveals itself to us as rhythmic modulations,

At first, we isolate beauty from all that is around it; we detach it from the rest;

but in the end, we understand its harmony with the whole.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1901

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

No duty is more urgent than that of

returning thanks.

-James Allen, 1864-1912

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On this day in 1621, the Dutch West India Company was granted a charter for a plot of land

that included the New Netherlands, what is now known as New York City. – Steven Russolillo, WSJ, June 3, 2013.

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926.

Curtis Mayfield was born on June 3, 1942

I read this in the weekend FT:

 

SUNDAY MORNING

-by Rob A. Mackenzie

 

‘Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place

to get a good steak.”

WOODY ALLEN

 

The New Year headlines are retro.  Graves

open and close like coinless fish-mouths.

The traffic police survive on fish fingers:

cod–and-tatties coffins, frozen stiffs.

 

I’m trying to deliver my frozen self.

A neighbor punches a hole in the wall,

wails that he’s on Songs of Praise.

That’s too much reality for my life.

 

In church, I range from point to point.

My sermon’s like a marathon speeded up.

Bible in one hand, New York in the other:

Lou Reed spitting out the Septuagint.

 

Someone has painted SLOW on the road

and witnessed a rush of broken exhausts.

Why bother?  – a little bread, a little wine,

the rest processed for the quick and dead.

 

From ‘The Good News” (Salt Publishing)

Photos of the Day –June 3rd, 2013

2-year-old Gigi Gibbs enjoys the colors of summer at Westonbirt Arboretum near Gloucester, England, as temperatures neared 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), to perhaps finally herald in the summer after a spring that has been one of Britain’s coldest for many years. Tim Ireland/PA/AP

An egret feeds its baby on a tree along the River Brahmaputra in Gauhati, India. The arrival of egrets usually indicates the beginning of the monsoon season in this region. Anupam Nath/AP

Market Closes for June 3^rd, 2013

Market  Index	Close	Change
Dow  Jones	15254.03	+138.46    +0.92%
S&P 500	1640.42	+9.68    +0.59%
NASDAQ	3465.368	+9.455    +0.27%
TSX	12609.80	-40.62
		-0.32%

International Markets

Market  Index	Close	Change
NIKKEI	13261.82	-512.72
		-3.72%
HANG  SENG	22282.19	-109.97
		-0.49%
SENSEX	19610.48	-149.82
		-0.76%
FTSE 100	6525.12	-57.97
		-0.88%

Bonds

Bonds	% Yield	Previous % Yield
CND.  10 Year Bond	2.051	2.066
CND.   30 Year Bond	2.605	2.630
U.S.   10 Year Bond	2.1193	2.1317
U.S.   30 Year Bond	3.2661	3.2791

Currencies

BOC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.97245	0.96435
US   $	1.02833	1.03697
Euro Rate  1 Euro=		Inverse
Canadian   $	1.34404	0.74403
US  $	1.30701	0.76511

Commodities

Gold	Close	Previous
London Gold   Fix	1413.70	1385.60
Oil	Close	Previous
WTI Crude Future	93.45	92.65
BRENT	101.75	100.05

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

June 3 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks dropped for a second day after U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly contracted in May and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised selling shares of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

Eight of 10 groups in the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index retreated, with health-care companies contributing most to the decline as Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. slid the most in almost a year. Canadian Natural Resources declined 2.1 percent for a third day of losses. Bellatrix Exploration Ltd. plunged 6.4 percent after saying a joint venture with a Korean partner will not be continued past May 31.

The S&P/TSX fell 40.62 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,609.80 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The index has climbed 1.4 percent this year. Trading volume was 9.5 percent lower than the 30-day average.

“After the very good first couple of quarters in the U.S. and Canada, people are taking a bit of a pause before seeing where to go from here,” said Brian Huen, managing partner with Red Sky Capital Management Ltd. in Toronto. He helps manage C$220 million ($213 million). “There’s still lots of chatter around the Fed and whether stimulus gets taken out of the market sooner rather than later. Gold is rallying a little bit here as people are looking for protection against the risk-off trade.”

Data today fueled concern that growth in the U.S., the world’s largest economy and Canada’s biggest trading partner, could slow, as a report from the Institute for Supply Management showed manufacturing unexpectedly contracted in May at the fastest pace in four years.

U.S. equities reversed earlier losses after a Federal Reserve official said the central bank remains committed to unprecedented levels of stimulus that have helped fuel a five- year market rally.

Eight out of 10 industries in the S&P/TSX retreated, led by health-care and phone stocks.

Valeant slumped 4.9 percent to C$90.69, the biggest loss since June 2012, after its Ucyclyd Pharma Inc. subsidiary completed a deal to sell Buphenyl tablets and powder, used to treat urea cycle disorders, to Hyperion Therapeutics Inc.

Hyperion paid $19 million to purchase Buphenyl, and received about a $30 million payment from Ucyclyd, the company said in a release. Valeant has risen 53 percent this year.

Cellular phone companies fell after the Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission, the nation’s wireless regulator, issued a code of conduct that will allow users to terminate contracts after two years without cancellation fees and limit extra data and roaming charges.

BCE Inc. dropped 1.1 percent to C$46.07, Telus Corp. declined 0.9 percent to C$35.79 and Rogers Communications Inc. slipped 0.5 percent to C$46.77.

Canadian Natural Resources sank 2.1 percent to C$30.24 after Arjun Murti, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, lowered the stock’s rating to sell from neutral. The company has 19 buys, five holds and two sell ratings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. dropped 3.4 percent to C$2.85 after Christopher Jost, analyst with Goldman Sachs, reduced the stocks’s rating to neutral from buy. The stock has 14 buys and four holds.

Materials shares slipped 0.1 percent as a group. China Gold International Resources Corp. dropped 4.4 percent to C$3.24.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. decreased 2.4 percent to C$42.81.

The price of gold for August delivery gained 1.4 percent to settle at $1,411.90 an ounce in New York. The S&P/TSX Gold Index rallied 0.8 percent to a seven-week high. Centerra Gold Inc. jumped 9.2 percent to C$4.17 and Premier Gold Mines Ltd. added 5.5 percent to C$2.32.

Copper Mountain Mining Corp. surged 10 percent to C$1.73.

Copper climbed 1.2 percent to settle at $3.3305 a pound in New York, the most in almost four weeks. Aluminum, lead, tin and zinc also advanced in London.

Bellatrix Exploration Ltd. plunged 6.4 percent to C$5.10, the lowest since Feb. 12, after announcing that a Korean company that was intended to be a partner for a joint venture was not able to meet a May 31 deadline to close the $300 million Cardium Join Venture project. Bellatrix will consider other partners.

US

By Nikolaj Gammeltoft

June 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index erasing earlier losses, after Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said central bank officials are committed to record stimulus measures.

Merck & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. jumped at least 3.4 percent as a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst said the companies’ experimental cancer drugs show promise. Intel Corp. surged 4 percent after FBR Capital Markets upgraded the chipmaker’s shares. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan dropped at least 0.2 for the only losses among the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent to 1,640.42 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow added 138.46 points, or 0.9 percent, to 15,254.03.

Almost 7.7 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, 23 percent higher than the three-month average.

“There certainly seems to be an acute fixation on the timing of any adjustment to the asset purchase program and I guess I would just encourage everyone to not lose sight of the bigger picture,” Lockhart said today in a Bloomberg Television interview in New York with Michael McKee. “Any adjustment is not a major policy shift. The high level of accommodation will stay in place.”

The S&P 500 declined 1.1 percent last week, with stocks alternating between gains and losses during the four sessions, amid data showing uneven performance in the economy. Federal Open Market Committee members have been weighing economic data to determine whether to expand or taper bond purchases that, along with better-than-expected corporate earnings, have propelled the bull market in U.S. equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up 142 percent from a 12-year low in 2009.

Data today fueled concern that economic growth could slow, as a report from the Institute for Supply Management showed manufacturing unexpectedly contracted in May at the fastest pace in four years. A separate report from the Commerce Department showed construction spending climbed in April, as private projects rose and public spending slumped.

The S&P 500 initially traded higher on the reports before retreating as much as 0.5 percent. The index pared losses in the early afternoon before charging higher after Lockhart’s remarks.

“Bad news can only be good news for so long for stock prices,” John Lynch, the Charlotte-based regional chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank, said by telephone. His firm manages $170 billion. “At some point it will impact earnings and market levels. I prefer for this market to be more data-dependent going forward, but I think the market is using this report as another reason to say that one man’s speed bump is another man’s stepping stone. So the market is suddenly not concerned about tapering.”

Lockhart said the ISM report is a ‘good example’ that economic data remains ‘very mixed’ and suggests the economy isn’t strong enough to justify a reduction in bond buying.

“I’m not getting a clear picture of an economy that really is tracking with considerable momentum,” he said. “I’d tend to be a little more cautious, and say maybe August, September or later in the year” would be time to consider slowing purchases, he said.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, fell 0.1 percent to 16.28. The equity volatility gauge, which moves in the opposite direction as the S&P 500 about 80 percent of the time, has fallen 9.7 percent this year.

All 10 industries in the S&P 500 advanced, with producers of consumer staples and energy rising at least 1 percent.

Health-care companies added 0.6 percent. Merck rose 3.8 percent to $48.45 and Bristol-Myers Squibb added 3.4 percent to $48.11 after New York-based JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott said the two have promising cancer immunotherpaies.

Bristol-Myers is “well in the lead” with a combination of Yervoy, a medicine already on the market, with its experimental immune therapy nivolumab, Schott wrote in a note to investors today. Meanwhile, Merck is rolling forward “the next agent to watch,” he wrote.

Clovis Oncology Inc. soared 104 percent to a record $74.59.

The biotechnology company reported positive early results in a trial of its ovarian cancer drug.

A gauge of computer-chip makers gained 1.8 percent, the most among 24 industries in the S&P 500, led by Intel.

The chipmaker rallied 4 percent to $25.24, the highest level since August. FBR Capital Markets raised its rating on the stock to the equivalent of buy, saying the world’s largest chipmaker’s development of mobile technology gives it “enough new avenues of growth.”

Financial stocks added 0.2 percent for the smallest gain in among 10 groups in the S&P 500. Bank of America dropped 0.8 percent to $13.55 and JPMorgan slid 0.2 percent to $54.49 for the only drops in the Dow.

An index that tracks homebuilder stocks plunged 1.2 percent, paring a loss of as much as 3.4 percent. Eight of 11 members in the gauge retreated. PulteGroup Inc. slid 1.3 percent to $21.32 and D.R. Horton Inc. slumped 2.4 percent to $23.78.

F5 Networks Inc. declined 4.9 percent to $79.16 for the biggest drop in the S&P 500. Morgan Stanley downgraded its rating on the maker of data-management equipment to equal weight, similar to a neutral rating, from overweight.

Pandora Inc. slumped 11 percent to $15.22. The biggest online radio provider fell after CNET and the New York Times reported Apple Inc. aims to unveil a competing service as early as next week.

Zynga Inc. tumbled 12 percent to $2.99. The biggest maker of online social games said it will cut 520 jobs, or 18 percent of its staff, and close some offices amid disappointing results from its titles outside the Farmville series.

The S&P 500 gained 2.1 percent in May, pushing its winning streak to seven months of advances, the longest stretch since September 2009. The rally, combined with the index’s strong start to the year, may indicate further gains for stocks in June, according to Sam Stovall, S&P’s New York-based chief equity strategist.

A seven-month winning streak has happened 13 times since 1945 and it has led to advances of 0.4 percent on average in the eighth month as stock prices rose 62 percent of the time, Stovall wrote in a note today. The S&P 500’s advances in January and February may also help, as the benchmark U.S. equity index has returned annual gains in each of the 26 years with such a positive start since World War II. The strong starts to the year have been followed by increases of 1 percent in June compared with its normal flat performance.

“Could sell in May have started in the end of the month, rather than the usual? One could easily infer that from the performance of the last three days,” the strategist wrote, referring to the gauge’s 1.8 percent drop in the month’s closing days. “However, history says, but does not guarantee, that the S&P 500’s performance in June could surprise to the upside.”

 

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

 

Be magnificent!

 

A man is a universe in miniature, and the universe, a giant living body;

the cosmos is similar to a large man,

and a man is similar to a small cosmos; so say the Sufis.

Kabir, 1440-1518

As ever,

 

Carolann

 

This above all: to thine own self

be true.

-William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7