Category: Newsletters

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Birthday: Georgia O’Keefe, painter, b. 1882

 

An interesting  article that I read this week:

 

Underneath Mexico City’s bustle lie Aztec wonders

Excavations in the middle of downtown Mexico City have unearthed sacred Aztec sculptures, giving archaeologists a glimpse into ancient rituals.

 

 

• Barrera heads urban archaeology program.
• Courtesy of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History

In the middle of Mexico City’s historical downtown, where the modern bustle leaves most visitors in a daze, archaeologists have unearthed something altogether more serene: a potential clue in their quest to find the long sought-after tombs of Aztec emperors.

This fall, amid ongoing excavation at the Templo Mayor site, where one of the main temples of the ancient capital, Tenochtitlan, once stood, they discovered a 500-year-old platform 45 feet in diameter and decorated with 19 sculptures of serpent heads. Tenochtitlan, built in the middle of Lake Texcoco, was the heart of Aztec civilization, whose influence spread across Mesoamerica until the 16th century.

The finding is part of a five-year effort to locate the tombs in the ancient site, which, now in the heart of Mexico’s capital, was paved over by the Spanish invaders in 1521.

Archaeology work began at the Templo Mayor in earnest after 1978, when workers from the electric company accidentally dug up a pre-Hispanic monolith 10.6 feet in diameter, which was later excavated and identified as Coyolxauhqui, the moon goddess, and dates back to the end of the 15th century.

Today, some 7,000 pieces have been uncovered. But an emperor’s tomb would be a critical find, and the ceremonial platform is an important step toward understanding the rituals of the Aztecs, says Alfonso de Maria y Campos, director general of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. The finding is currently off limits to the public. –Sara Miller Llana.

 

Photos of the day 

November 15, 2011

A girl feeds a swan near the medieval Charles Bridge in smoggy central Prague, Czech Republic. Petr Josek/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose less than 0.1 percent as base-metals producers gained after copper advanced for a third day, offsetting the effect of Europe’s debt crisis on financial stocks.

Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, advanced 2.4 percent as copper advanced for a third day. Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, dropped 1.1 percent as bond yields increased in Italy, Spain and France. Research In Motion Ltd., the BlackBerry maker, climbed 5 percent after an analyst at Northern Securities Inc. boosted his rating on the shares.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 5.08 points to 12,229.27 at 4 p.m. Toronto time after slipping as much as 0.6 percent earlier.

“Right now we’re in a state of suspense,” Timothy Lazaris, chief executive officer of Red Sky Capital Management Ltd. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees C$55 million ($54 million). “We need better visibility about what’s about to happen in Europe.”

The index has declined 2.3 percent since Oct. 28 as financial and energy stocks retreated on concern that the European debt crisis will weaken the global economy and Manulife Financial Corp. and Sun Life Financial Inc. reported quarterly losses. The S&P/TSX is heading for its first yearly decrease since 2008 and second in the past nine years.

Base-metals producers advanced as copper gained after the U.S. reported a bigger gain in October retail sales than most economists in a Bloomberg survey had forecast. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s regional manufacturing index increased, contrary to most economists’ estimates.

Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest company in the industry, climbed 2.4 percent to C$38.90 after Anthony Young, an analyst at Dahlman Rose & Co., began coverage of the company with a “buy” rating. Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., Rio Tinto Group’s partner in Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi project, rose 4.8 percent to C$22.53. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, rallied 2.7 percent to C$19.05.

Gold producers gained as precious metals advanced on demand for havens from the European debt crisis. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the metal, advanced 0.6 percent to C$53.42. Eldorado Gold Corp., Canada’s fifth-biggest gold producer by market value, increased 1.1 percent to C$19.55. Centerra Gold Inc., which mines in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, climbed 6.4 percent to C$21.31.

Avion Gold Corp., which mines in Africa, sank 13 percent, the most since August 2010, to C$1.90 after cutting its 2011 production forecast.

The cost to insure Italian, Spanish and French bonds against default rose to records today as Mario Monti, Italy’s prime minister-designate, faced resistance in his attempts to include politicians in his so-called technical Cabinet. The euro fell for a second day against the U.S. dollar.

Royal Bank dropped 1.1 percent to C$45.40. Manulife, North America’s fourth-biggest insurer, lost 1.9 percent to C$11.77. Sun Life, Canada’s third-largest insurance company, declined 1.5 percent to C$21.03 after closing at the lowest since March 2009 yesterday.

RIM advanced 5 percent to C$19.54 after Sameet Kanade, an analyst at Northern Securities, raised his rating on the shares to “speculative buy” from “sell.” In a note to clients, Kanade cited potential negative news such as a decline in subscribers has already been factored into the share price.                        

Options traders boosted bullish bets on Research In Motion’s U.S. stock to the highest since 2007, convinced the shares will rebound from a 69 percent plunge this year through yesterday that left them trading below book value. Traders are probably betting the Waterloo, Ontario-based company will receive a buyout offer, said Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel’s Matt McCormick.

 Auto-parts maker Martinrea International Inc. surged 8.1 percent to C$7.57 after forecasting higher profit for the year than analysts in a Bloomberg survey had estimated. The company also said it will buy back as many as 4.16 million shares.

Westport Innovations Inc., a developer of technology for natural-gas engines, jumped 8.7 percent to C$31.76 after three U.S. senators introduced a bill to provide tax credits for vehicles that run on the fuel.

Imris Inc., which develops medical-imaging technology, tumbled 17 percent, the since February 2009, to C$2.70 after saying it had a loss of 19 Canadian cents a share in the third quarter. Analysts had estimated a loss of 5 Canadian cents a share, excluding certain items, according to the average forecast in a Bloomberg survey.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, rebounding from earlier losses, on speculation Italian Prime Minister designate Mario Monti will succeed in forming a new government to battle the debt crisis and after growth in retail sales beat estimates.

Technology and industrial shares had the biggest gains among 10 groups in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, rising at least 0.5 percent. Intel Corp. spurred a rally in semiconductor companies, climbing 2.9 percent, after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said it invested in the world’s largest chipmaker. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. slumped 2.4 percent as profit at the world’s biggest retailer trailed analysts’ forecasts.

The S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent to 1,257.81 at 4 p.m. New York time, rebounding from a loss of 0.6 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 17.18 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,096.16. About 6.3 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, 24 percent below the three-month average.

“It was good to hear about retail sales,” Randy Bateman, chief investment officer of Huntington Asset Management in Columbus, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $14.5 billion. “People are getting tired of hearing about Europe. They are trying to resolve their issues. With Mario, Italy has an economist. Europe will muddle through.”

Equities recovered as Monti, an economist and former adviser to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said he’s “convinced” that the country can overcome the current crisis as he prepares to meet with President Giorgio Napolitano tomorrow to present his new government. Stocks had fallen earlier after Spainn’s borrowing costs rose at an auction. Italian 10-year yields topped 7 percent and rates on French, Belgian, Spanish and Austrian debt rose to euro-era records above German bunds.                         

Benchmark gauges also rose after the U.S. Commerce Department reported a 0.5 percent increase in retail sales, compared with the median economist forecast that called for 0.3 percent growth. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index showed growth for the first time since May. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said the economy will rebound “faster than people think.”

“When the market isn’t focused on Europe, it will focus on stronger U.S. data,” Paul Zemsky, the New York-based head of asset allocation for ING Investment Management, said in an e- mail. His firm oversees $550 billion. “Retail sales are starting the quarter stronger than anyone would have estimated back in August at the depth of the recession fears.”

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index added 0.4 percent, after slumping 1.1 percent earlier, on speculation about an economic rebound. The Dow Jones Transportation Average rose 0.8 percent.                       

Technology shares in the S&P 500 rose 1.3 percent. Intel gained 2.9 percent to $25.34. Apple Inc., the world’s biggest technology company by market value, added 2.5 percent to $388.83. Dell Inc. advanced 2 percent to $15.63 before reporting quarterly results after U.S. exchanges closed. The shares slumped 1.8 percent to $15.35 after the close of regular trading at 4:27 p.m. as revenue missed estimates.

Computer and software makers may extend gains after a gauge of the industry surged to the highest ratio versus the S&P 500 in more than nine years, according to Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

The level of the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund that tracks companies including Apple and International Business Machines Corp., divided by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust was 0.2128 on Oct. 17, the highest since January 2002, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The figure fell to 0.2069 as of yesterday.                       

The advance by the technology fund suggests the industry may have enough momentum to rise further, said Ari Wald, a New York-based technical strategist at Brown Brothers. Technology shares posted the second-best performance after utilities among the S&P 500’s 10 groups, losing 0.8 percent, over the past six months. The broader benchmark index fell 6.4 percent.

“We broke out to the upside recently, showing relatively strong demand,” Wald said in a telephone interview yesterday. “That’s a pretty good sign, especially that it’s able to post relative gains during this period of market volatility.”

 The KBW Bank Index of 24 stocks rose 0.5 percent after falling as much as 1.2 percent earlier today.

Bank of America Corp. climbed 1.3 percent to $6.13. The second-largest U.S. bank by assets is ahead of schedule on plans to bolster its balance sheet and meet new international standards, Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said today at a conference. Separately, the lender said net credit card write-offs and delinquencies declined in October from September.                       

Wal-Mart lost 2.4 percent to $57.46. It didn’t pass higher prices charged by suppliers along to customers struggling with persistent unemployment, Bill Simon, Wal-Mart’s U.S. chief, said. That hurt gross profit margin, or the percentage of net sales left after subtracting the cost of goods sold, which shrank to 24.6 percent, narrower than the 24.8 percent estimate of Colin McGranahan at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

“The miss on weak gross margins was not expected, and that is new news,” McGranahan said in an e-mail. “The stock is down on the incremental news as more negative than expected.” He rates the shares “market perform.”

 Energy shares had the only decline in the S&P 500 among 10 industries, falling 0.2 percent. Chevron Corp. slumped 2.7 percent, the most in the Dow, to $103.27. The company said it appears to have halted a leak at the Frade project offshore Brazil after plugging a well. It said it has seen a significant decrease in the amount of oil seeping from the development.

American Airlines parent AMR Corp. tumbled 10 percent to $1.92, the lowest price since March 2003, after trying to end a five-year stalemate with a contract proposal that offers pilots smaller pay increases than they had sought. The Allied Pilots Association said today it was reviewing the plan as its board began a three-day meeting, and declined to comment further. AMR urged the union to permit members to vote on the offer.

LinkedIn Corp. slumped 4.6 percent to $74.86 after saying shareholder Bain Capital Ventures will sell all of its 3.71 million shares of the professional-networking website in a secondary stock offering.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Bees suck nectar from many different flowers, and then make honey.

One drop of honey cannot claim to come from one flower, and another drop of honey from another flower; the honey is a single consistent whole.

In the same way, all beings are one even though they are not aware of this.

The tiger and the lion, the wolf and the boar, the worm and the moth, the gnat and the mosquito, all come from the soul, and are part of the soul.

 

Chandogya Upanishad

As ever,

Carolann

Get out of your way.  You can spend your life

tripping on yourself; you can also spend your

life tripping yourself up.  Get out of your own

way.

        -Suzan-Lori Parks, 1963- 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Birthdays:

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, b. 1948

Aaron Copeland, composer,  b. 1900

Claude Monet, painter, b. 1840

 

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable. ~ Aaron Copland

One of the speakers at the World Business Forum this year was Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979.  He has co-authored a book, The Art of Possibility, in which he claims that art and music can be used in the modern world to energize our interpersonal connections, add value to our new global society, and lead to innovation and the successful adoption new practices.    

He demonstrates that a conductor does not only direct orchestras, but with the right ear, can conduct through words and actions. 

From complexity to possibility: challenging assumptions.  He states “We are about contribution.  It’s not about impressing people….It’s about contributing something.”  The contributor mindset: being present, staying connected to reality, unleashing inner passion, expanding reach.  A great performance results from creating opportunities for individual and collective talent to bloom.

You can listen to him too at www.wbfny.net/2011/zander – a very inspirational, amazing man.

 

Photo of the day:

November 14, 2011

 

British soldiers from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, the saluting battery of Her Majesty’s Household Division, arrive to retrieve their guns after firing a Gun Salute for Britain’s Prince of Wales’ birthday, in central London’s Hyde Park. Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for the third time in four days, led by gold and energy producers, as the U.S. dollar rose on concern the European Central Bank may have to do more to quell the region’s debt crisis.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, dropped 1.1 percent as the U.S. Dollar Index gained for the first time in three days. Encana Corp., Canada’s largest natural gas producer, declined 1.6 percent as the fuel dropped to a one- year low.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index slipped 52.66 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,224.19.

“The market believes the ECB is going to have to provide more liquidity to prevent a longer recession than what is expected,” Andrew Pyle, an associate portfolio manager for Bank of Nova Scotia in Peterborough, Ontario, said in a telephone interview. Pyle’s team oversees about C$200 million ($197 million). “If there’s a risk the euro is going to decline, the U.S. dollar’s going to pick up. That’s clearly a negative for commodities.”

The S&P/TSX decreased 1.9 percent in the previous two weeks, led by financial stocks, as bond yields in the most- heavily indebted euro-region countries climbed and Manulife Financial Corp. and Sun Life Financial Inc. reported earnings that trailed analysts’ estimates.

Italy sold five-year bonds at the highest yield in more than 14 years today, on renewed concern over the debt crisis.

The country’s Treasury sold the bonds to yield 6.29 percent, up from 5.32 percent at the previous auction Oct. 13.                        

Precious metals declined as the U.S. dollar gained. Barrick lost 1.1 percent to C$53.12. Kinross Gold Corp., Canada’s third- largest company in the industry market value, slipped 1 percent to C$14.27. NovaGold Resources Inc., which is developing projects in Alaska and British Columbia, slumped 4 percent to C$8.97.

Alacer Gold Corp., which operates in Turkey, fell 4 percent to C$11.98 after saying Stuart Brown won’t become the company’s chief financial officer as the company announced Oct. 16. Brown had served as CFO and acting chief financial officer of Anglo American Plc’s De Beers unit.

Crude oil retreated from a three-month high on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas fell for a fourth day on forecasts for warmer-than-normal weather in the northern U.S.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second- largest energy company by market value, dropped 1.4 percent to C$37.37. Encana slipped 1.6 percent to C$20.26.

Natural gas and oil producer Trilogy Energy Corp. climbed 4.7 percent to a record C$36.97 after analyst at Stifel Financial Corp. and GMP Capital Inc. raised their 12-month share-price estimates. The company’s 2012 production forecast surpassed the estimates of Kurt Molnar, the Stifel analyst, according to a note to clients.

Yoho Resources Inc., which explores for oil and gas in British Columbia, soared 21 percent, the most since December 2008, to C$3.81 after disclosing a reserves estimate for its Nig property.

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., which is developing Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine with Rio Tinto Group, rallied 3.6 percent to C$21.49 after reporting a third-quarter profit. All five analysts in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a net loss.

Hathor Exploration Ltd., which owns uranium properties in Saskatchewan, jumped 9 percent to a record C$4.87 after Cameco Corp. raised its hostile bid for the company to C$4.50 a share.

Hathor agreed to be bought for C$4.15 a share by Rio Tinto Oct. 19.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s largest fertilizer producer by market value, fell 0.9 percent to C$46.99 as corn and wheat dropped for a fourth day. Migao Corp., which produces fertilizer in China, plunged 14 percent to C$3.18 after reporting earnings that missed all eight analyst estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks declined, snapping a two-day advance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as an increase in Italian borrowing costs deepened concern Europe will struggle to contain its sovereign debt crisis.

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. fell more than 2.6 percent. Bank of America Corp. slid 2.6 percent after agreeing to sell most of its China Construction Bank Corp. stake to boost capital. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. slid 4.5 percent as the world’s largest custody bank said it would book a charge of as much as $100 million this quarter. Boeing Co. added 1.5 percent after winning a record $26 billion order from Emirates.

The S&P 500 retreated 1 percent to 1,251.78 at 4 p.m. New York time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 74.70 points, or 0.6 percent, to 12,078.98. About 5.5 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, the lowest since April 25.

“These blip-ups in yields put more uncertainty in the market,” Peter Tuz, who helps manage about $800 million as president of Chase Investment Counsel Corp. in Charlottesville, Virginia, said in a telephone interview. “Just because they’ve had a bit of good news coming out of Europe last week, it doesn’t mean they don’t still have a lot of work to do to get their financial houses in order.”

Stocks fell as the yield on the Italian five-year bond rose following an auction and Spanish 10-year rates surged to a euro- era record above German yields. The S&P 500 extended its decline after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Europe’s permanent bailout fund may not be implemented before 2013. The equity index also dropped after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party voted to offer euro states a “voluntary” means of leaving the currency area.                          

Stocks rose last week, restoring the year-to-date gain for the S&P 500, as improving economic data and leadership changes in Greece and Italy bolstered investor optimism. Equities tumbled on Nov. 9 as yields on Italian government bonds surged, fueling concern European leaders will struggle to fund bailouts. “There’s a lot of risk to the global financial system,”

Hayes Miller, who helps oversee about $43 billion as the Boston- based head of asset allocation in North America at Baring Asset Management Inc., said in a telephone interview. “The size of the problem is huge. Until you solve this problem, you aren’t getting rid of the risk a large-scale default.”

Lenders in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1.8 percent and financial shares had the biggest decline in the S&P 500 among 10 industries, dropping 2 percent. Morgan Stanley decreased 2.7 percent to $15.92. Citigroup sank 3.2 percent to $28.38.

U.S. shares of Credit Suisse Group AG fell 3.4 percent to $24.19. The Swiss bank may have its long-term credit rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service after the investment banking unit posted a loss and income at the wealth-management division fell.

Bank of America slid 2.6 percent to $6.05. The second- biggest U.S. lender by assets will sell 10.4 billion CCB shares this month to a group of investors in private transactions for an after-tax gain of about $1.8 billion, the bank said today.

After the closing, the company will own about 1 percent of the common shares of CCB, the U.S. lender said.

Bank of New York Mellon slumped 4.5 percent to $20.55. The bank plans to save as much as $700 million before taxes by 2015, through operational improvements such as consolidating applications, insourcing software development and consolidating locations. BNY Mellon is cutting expenses as lawsuits over the pricing of foreign exchange transactions are pushing up legal costs and interest rates near zero erode revenue.

“The cuts do not have the impact that most people were hoping” for, Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in Portland, Maine, said in an e-mail.                       

Boeing rallied 1.5 percent, the most in the Dow, to $67.94.

The company signed an agreement with Emirates at the Dubai Air show for 50 of its 777-300ER jets and an option for 20 more, in a deal valued at $26 billion. The accord extends their relationship in the wide-body market, with Emirates operating more than 90 of the 777s for the industry’s biggest such fleet.

Lowe’s Cos. advanced 1.7 percent to $23.50. The second- largest U.S. home-improvement retailer reported third-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates, helped by sales at older stores.

Salesforce.com Inc. increased 2.8 percent to $133.52. The supplier of online customer-management software was raised to “buy” from “neutral” at Citigroup, which cited “increasing confidence in long-term profitability.” Citigroup gave a price estimate of $158 a share. International Business Machines Corp. lost less than 0.1 percent to $187.35, after rallying as much as 1.3 percent.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought a 5.5 percent stake in the computer-services provider as the billionaire chairman accelerated stock purchases. Buffett, who spent more than $10 billion on IBM stock, paid near-record prices for the shares, recalling his winning 1988 investment in Coca-Cola Co.

Berkshire began buying IBM shares this year after Buffett read the Armonk, New York-based company’s annual report and saw the firm “through a different lens,” the billionaire told CNBC today in an interview. IBM had doubled in New York trading in the 27 months prior to the Feb. 22 release of its yearly 10-K filing. Coca-Cola had doubled in the four years through the end of 1987, and has risen more than 10-fold since.

“I think he looked at Coke through a different lens back in 1988,” said Jeff Matthews, a Berkshire shareholder and author of “Secrets in Plain Sight: Business and Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett.” In IBM, “he sees a business that supports the world’s IT infrastructure and has a lot of room to grow over the next couple decades.”                

Bank of America’s Savita Subramanian estimates the S&P 500 will rise to 1,350 in 2012, as the U.S. economy avoids a recession and earnings growth continues to push the gauge higher.

 Combined profit by companies in the benchmark equity measure will be $98.25 a share this year and $104.50 next year, according to Subramanian, the head of equity and quantitative strategy, in her first equity forecasts since taking over the role from David Bianco in September. The year-end projection is 6.8 percent higher than the S&P 500’s close on Nov. 11.

“While we expect uncertainty and volatility to remain high well into 2012, the avoidance of a U.S. recession and continued earnings growth could drive the S&P 500 toward the high end of its two-year trading range” of 1,100 to 1,365, a team led by Subramanian wrote in a note dated today.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

In music, I am the melody.

 

The Bhagavad Gita

As ever,

Carolann

You may have to fight a battle

more than once to win it.

     -Margaret Thatcher, 1925-

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:  Full moon tonight.

Birthday: November 10^th, 1983, Microsoft releases Windows.

Noteworthy: November 10, 1871, Stanley finds Livingstone.

Some markets are closed tomorrow for Remembrance Day; bond markets are closed.

Lest we forget…

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

On May 2, 1915, John McCrae’s close friend and former student Alexis Helmer was killed by a German shell. That evening, in the absence of a Chaplain, John McCrae recited from memory a few passages from the Church of England’s “Order of the Burial of the Dead”. For security reasons Helmer’s burial in Essex Farm Cemetery was performed in complete darkness.

The next day, May 3, 1915, Sergeant-Major Cyril Allinson was delivering mail. McCrae was sitting at the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the YserCanal, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, Belgium.

As John McCrae was writing his In Flanders Fields poem, Allinson silently watched and later recalled, “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”

Within moments, John McCrae had completed the “In Flanders Fields” poem and when he was done, without a word, McCrae took his mail and handed the poem to Allinson.

Allinson was deeply moved:

“The (Flanders Fields) poem was an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.”

Photos of the day

November 10, 2011

Crosses commemorating British military casualties in Afghanistan are seen in the Field of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey in central London. Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a second day as precious metals dropped after Italian bond yields declined from euro-era records, indicating more confidence in the country’s ability to pay its debts.

Silver Standard Resources Inc., which mines in Latin America, plunged 21 percent after cutting its resources estimate at its Pirquitas mine. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, lost 7.9 percent after two analysts reduced their ratings on the shares.

TransCanada Corp., the owner of the country’s biggest pipeline system, decreased 1.8 percent after the U.S. government delayed a decision on the company’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

 The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index slipped 47.35 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,108.87, the lowest close since Oct. 21.

“The golds are getting whacked,” David Cockfield, a money manager at Northland Wealth Management in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$225 million ($221 million). “Things are settling down in Europe. The Greek situation, they’ve named a new prime minister, and the Italians have sort of settled on somebody.”

The index lost 2.7 percent yesterday, extending its 2011 retreat to 9.6 percent, as Italian bond yields surged after LCH Clearnet SA raised deposit requirements for trading the debt securities. Energy, materials and financial companies in the S&P/TSX have fallen in part on concern the European debt crisis will weaken the global economy.

Italian bonds gained today after the country sold 5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) in one-year bills, the maximum for the auction. Demand was 1.99 times the amount on offer.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said today Mario Monti, the top candidate to replace Silvio Berlusconi, “has an international reputation nobody can deny.” Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, named Monti, a former European Union competition commissioner, a senator for life yesterday. Berlusconi has pledged to resign after the country’s parliament passes austerity measures.

In Greece, President Karolos Papoulias named Lucas Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president, to succeed George Papandreou as prime minister. The country’s political parties had debated for four days who would lead a unity government.                        

Gold futures fell the most in three weeks on the Comex in New York on reduced demand for havens from the debt crisis.

Kinross Gold Corp., Canada’s third-largest gold producer by market value, dropped 2.4 percent to C$14.06. European Goldfields Ltd. slumped 5.5 percent to C$10.12 after reporting twice as large of a quarterly loss as the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, excluding certain items.

Silver Standard sank 21 percent, the most since July 2002, to C$15.44 after reducing the estimates from the Pirquitas mine in Argentina. The shares closed at the lowest price since December 2008.

Lake Shore Gold Corp., which mines in Canada, rallied 10 percent to C$1.71 after reporting a new discovery at its Timmins Mine in Ontario.

Gold explorer Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corp. tumbled 33 percent, the most since August 1998, to C$2.31 after a fund placed an order to sell its stake in the company, according to Jim Sinclair, Tanzanian Royalty’s chief executive officer.                        

First Quantum dropped 7.9 percent to C$18.20 after analysts at Cormark Securities Inc. and Numis Corp. cut their ratings on the shares. First Quantum tumbled 14 percent yesterday after reporting earnings that missed the average analyst estimate by 46 percent, excluding certain items.

TransCanada retreated for a fifth day, slipping 1.8 percent to C$39.85 after the U.S. State Department said it would study an alternative route for the company’s planned pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. The department cited environmental concerns in an e-mailed statement.

ShawCor Ltd., which provides pipeline products and services, lost 9 percent, the most since January 2009, to C$23.58. The company reported third-quarter profit that trailed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey by 63 percent, excluding certain items.                      

The six largest S&P/TSX banks fell after Andre-Philippe Hardy, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, cut his fourth- quarter profit estimates for each lender except his own, which he doesn’t cover.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the country’s fifth- largest lender by assets, dropped 1.6 percent to C$71.45. Bank of Montreal, Canada’s fourth-biggest bank, declined 0.8 percent to C$56.87.

Canadian National Railway Co., the country’s biggest railroad, gained 2 percent to C$80.60. Total U.S. rail traffic climbed 3.8 percent in the week ended November 5, the latest for which data from the Association of American Railroads are available. Intermodal goods, which can move by highway, rail and sea, rose 4.6 percent and commodity carloads advanced 3.1 percent, according to Bloomberg Industries.

US

By Michael P. Regan and Rita Nazareth

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rebounding from its worst drop since August, as jobless claims fell while a retreat in Italian bond yields and the selection of a new Greek premier tempered concern about Europe’s crisis. The euro gained and Treasuries slid.

The S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent to close at 1,239.7 at 4 p.m. in New York. Italy’s 10-year bond yield, which surged to a record yesterday, dropped 36 basis points to 6.89 percent today as the European Central Bank bought the country’s debt and the nation sold all the bills planned at an auction. The euro appreciated 0.4 percent to $1.3601. Cotton and oil rose at least 1.8 percent to lead commodities higher. Ten-year Treasury yields lost six basis points.

U.S. equities resumed gains after falling earlier amid a surge in French bond yields. Stocks recovered as S&P said it did not cut France’s credit rating, clarifying a statement that suggested the rating had changed. Equities rallied as U.S. initial jobless claims decreased to the lowest level in seven months, Italy sold 5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) of one-year bills and former vice president of the European Central Bank Lucas Papademos was named Greece’s interim leader.

“I’m not willing to step up and proclaim all clear, but we’re moving in the right direction,” Don Wordell, a fund manager for Atlanta-based RidgeWorth Capital Management, which oversees about $47 billion, said in a telephone interview. “The new Greece premier was a great start and the fact that bond yields came back down is great for Italy. The most positive news of the day, though, was the jobless claims data showing that the U.S. economy is slowly getting better.”                        

Gauges of energy, health-care and industrial companies rose more than 1 percent for the biggest gains among the 10 main industries in the S&P 500, all of which advanced. Merck & Co. surged 3.5 percent after increasing its dividend, while Cisco Systems Inc. rallied 5.7 percent after earnings topped analyst estimates. The two stocks led the Dow Jones Industrial Average to an advance of 112.92 points, or 1 percent, to 11,893.86.  Apple Inc. slumped 2.6 percent as Cleveland Research Co. reduced its earnings forecast and iPad-shipment estimates.

More than $1 trillion was erased from the value of global equities yesterday, with the S&P 500 sliding 3.7 percent, as a surge in Italy’s bond yields to euro-era records signaled Europe’s sovereign debt crisis was intensifying. The nation’s Senate today rushed to pass debt-reduction measures that clear the way for establishing a new government that may be led by former European Union Competition Commissioner Mario Monti.                        

The Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against those of six trading partners, fell 0.4 percent after advancing as much as 0.3 percent. The U.S. currency weakened against 12 of 16 major peers, with Brazil’s real and the South African rand climbing 1 percent for the biggest gains.

The 10,000 drop in jobless claims to 390,000 compared with the median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg News survey for 400,000 new claims. Another report showed the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in September to the lowest level this year as exports surged to a record high.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank is concentrating “intently” on reducing unemployment and projects inflation to stay under control for the “foreseeable future.”

“For a lot of people, I know, it doesn’t feel like the recession ever ended,” even with the economy growing for two years, Bernanke said today in remarks at a town hall-style meeting at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. “These problems are very serious, and we at the Federal Reserve have been focusing intently on supporting job creation.”                      

Treasuries fell as the U.S. sold $16 billion in 30-year bonds amid weaker-than-average demand. The bonds drew a yield of 3.199 percent, compared with the average forecast of 3.148 percent in a Bloomberg News survey of eight of the Federal Reserve’s 21 primary dealers. The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.4 percent, compared with an average of 2.68 percent for the past 10 sales.

Existing 30-year bond yields increased eight basis points to 3.11 percent.

Among commodities tracked by the S&P GSCI, 10 rose and 14 retreated. Oil climbed 2.1 percent to $97.78 a barrel in New York, the highest level in more than three months. Delta Air Lines Inc. lost 4.8 percent to lead the NYSE Arca Airline Index down 1.6 percent amid concern about higher fuel costs. Copper fell 1.9 percent. Gold for December delivery lost 1.8 percent to $1,759.60 an ounce.                        

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.4 percent, erasing an earlier 0.8 percent gain. Credit Agricole SA lost 2.3 percent to help lead banks lower as French bond yields rose. Vedanta Resources Plc led a drop in mining shares, tumbling 9.5 percent.

Air France-KLM Group retreated 5 percent after forecasting a full-year loss.

French 10-year bond yields climbed 27 basis points to 3.47 percent, a four-month high, and reached a euro-era record of 169 basis points above benchmark German bunds.

The cost of insuring against default on French government debt rose to a record. Credit-default swaps on France rose six basis points to 203, according to CMA prices, surpassing the record closing price of 202 set Sept. 22. The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index increased for a fifth day, climbing 2.4 basis points to 343.                        

S&P confirmed that France remains rated AAA with a stable outlook after a technical error caused the ratings company to send a headline suggesting it may have been downgraded. S&P is investigating the cause of the technical error, it said in a statement.

 France may have its credit grade lowered by Egan-Jones Ratings Co. because the euro-region’s second largest economy is becoming one of its weakest.

France’s rating is “probably heading south” on France’s rating, Sean Egan, the firm’s president and founding principal, said in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene. A list of Europe’s weaker countries “might extend also to France,” he said. Egan-Jones currently rates France AA-, he said in response to an e-mailed question after the interview.

The Italian two-year note yield slid 80 basis points to 6.40 percent, after jumping 82 basis points yesterday.

The ECB bought Italian government bonds today, according to three people familiar with the transactions, who declined to be identified because the deals are confidential. The ECB wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by telephone by Bloomberg.

European efforts to speed the setup of a permanent rescue fund have lost momentum amid a clash between Germany and France over provisions to force bondholders to share losses, three people involved in the negotiations said.

The European Commission cut its euro-region growth forecast for next year by more than half and said it sees the risk of a recession. Gross domestic product may grow 1.5 percent this year and 0.5 percent in 2012, the Brussels-based commission said today. It had earlier projected the 17-nation region to expand 1.6 percent and 1.8 percent this year and next, respectively. In 2013, the economy may expand 1.3 percent, the commission said.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slipped 2.5 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 3.3 percent, the most since Sept. 22. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong tumbled 5.7 percent as China’s export growth slowed.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The soul is the home of all living beings;

and from the soul all living beings derive their strength.

There is nothing in the universe that does not come from the soul.

The soul dwells within all that exists;

it is the truth of all that exists.

You, my son, are the soul.

 

-Chandogya Upanishad

As ever,

Carolann

Per ardua ad astra.

Through adversity to the stars.

     -Latin motto of the RCAF

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

-from The Book of Days:

James Agate, Ego, November 9^th, 1942.  The Torch landings at Casablanca, Algiers and Oran had taken place the day before.

A glorious day, in every sense of the word.  Alexander’s great victory [Alamein] and the invasion by the Americans of French North Africa have put the people of this country into better fettle than they have known since 1925, when, at Melbourne on the third day of the second Test Match, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put on 283 runs for England’s first wicket and sent the Stock Exchange up two points.

Photo of the day

November 9th, 2011

Team Telefonica, skippered by Iker Martinez from Spain at the start of leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean round-the-world race 2011-12 from Alicante, Spain to Cape Town, South Africa. Ian Roman/Volvo Ocean Race/AP.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell the most in five weeks as financial and energy shares declined on concern the spread of Europe’s debt crisis to Italy may weaken the global economy.

Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s largest energy company, declined 5.6 percent as natural gas futures retreated after analysts forecast supplies will near a record. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, plunged 14 percent after its earnings trailed all 13 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg survey. Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest lender by assets, lost 2.8 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index dropped 332.63 points, or 2.7 percent, the most since Oct. 3, to 12,156.22.

Thirteen stocks in the index advanced, the fewest since Aug. 4. “Europe is a disaster zone,” Sebastian van Berkom, a money manager at Van Berkom & Associates in Montreal, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$1.6 billion ($1.6 billion). “With 10-year bond yields in Italy over 7 percent, we’ve got a problem. The outlook for economic growth continues to deteriorate as the financial crisis continues.”

The S&P/TSX is set to underperform the S&P 500 for the first year since 2003 as most major raw materials have declined.

Energy and raw-materials companies make up 49 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, the most among major developed markets, according to Bloomberg data. Canada’s equity benchmark gauge has lost 9.6 percent this year, while its U.S. peer has slipped 2.3 percent.

Italian bond yields climbed to euro-era records today after LCH Clearnet SA raised deposit requirements for trading the debt securities. HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest lender by market value, plunged 5.8 percent in London after saying investment banking profit fell in the third quarter. Stocks extended losses as Greece’s rival political parties failed to agree on who will succeed Prime Minister George Papandreou.

Natural gas retreated 2.5 percent on the New York Mercantile Exchange a day before the U.S. is to report inventories of the fuel. According to the median forecast of analysts in a Bloomberg survey, supplies will climb to 3.826 trillion cubic feet, within 0.4 percent of the record set last November. Crude oil declined 1.1 percent.

Suncor lost 5.6 percent to C$31.44. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-largest energy company by market value, slipped 4.1 percent to C$36.97.                         

Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest owner of the Syncrude project, decreased 5.9 percent to C$20.96 after Phil Skolnick, an analyst at Canaccord Financial Inc., cut his 12-month share- price forecast to C$25 from C$26. The company has “very little free cash flow left to support the quarterly dividend,” Skolnick wrote in a note to clients.

All major base metals traded on the London Metal Exchange fell, with copper declining for a fourth day. An index of industry companies in the S&P/TSX lost 7.5 percent, the most since Sept. 22.

Teck Resources Inc., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, retreated 6.3 percent to C$37.73. Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., which is building a copper and gold mine in Mongolia with Rio Tinto Group, slumped 6.5 percent to C$21.14. Molybdenum and copper producer Mercator Minerals Ltd. dropped 11 percent to C$1.70.

First Quantum sank 14 percent, the most since May 2010, to C$19.76 after its third-quarter profit missed the average analyst estimate by 46 percent, excluding certain items. The company also cut its 2011 forecasts for copper and gold production.                        

Other metals companies to drop after missing analysts’ earnings estimates included Pan American Silver Corp., which tumbled 8.5 percent to C$27.79, and molybdenum producer Thompson Creek Metals Co., which declined 8 percent to C$6.53 in the second day of trading after disclosing its financial results.

CB Gold Inc., which is developing a project in Colombia, plunged 19 percent to C$1.38 after restating drilling results. The shares had jumped 151 percent from Oct. 21, the trading day before the company released the original results, to yesterday.

All S&P/TSX banks and the three largest insurers declined. Royal Bank decreased 2.8 percent to C$45.13, falling behind Toronto-Dominion Bank in market value for the first time since 2000. Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest lender by assets, slipped 2.6 percent to C$51.33. Manulife Financial Corp., North America’s fourth-biggest insurer, lost 5.3 percent to C$12.10.

Technology-patent owner Wi-LAN Inc. slumped 8.5 percent to C$6.76 after cutting its 2011 sales and earnings forecasts.

Indigo Books & Music Inc., Canada’s largest bookstore chain, soared a record 36 percent to C$9.12 after Rakuten Inc. agreed to buy Kobo Inc., a maker of electronic-reading hardware and software, for $315 million. Indigo is the majority owner of Kobo.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks slumped, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest decline since August, amid concern that European leaders may be unable to keep the euro zone intact as Italian yields surged to a record.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. dropped at least 8.2 percent, following losses in European lenders, after LCH Clearnet SA raised the extra charge it levies on clients for trading Italian government bonds and index-linked securities. General Motors Co. tumbled 11 percent after abandoning its target for European results. Adobe Systems Inc. sank 7.7 percent on plans to cut jobs as it lessens its focus on older products.

The S&P 500 slid 3.7 percent to 1,229.10 as of 4 p.m. New York time, after rising 1.8 percent over the previous two days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 389.24 points, or 3.2 percent, to 11,780.94. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index decreased 1.7 percent as the 10-year Italian note yield topped 7 percent.

“It’s just like a scary movie as it never ends,” Keith Wirtz, who oversees $16.7 billion as chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati, said in a telephone interview. “The overarching problem is that most of the economies in Europe can’t sustain the size of their governments. We’re going to have this headache for a long time to come.”

Today’s equity slump erased the month-to-date gain in the S&P 500. About 11 stocks fell for each that gained on U.S. exchanges. All 10 groups in the S&P 500 retreated as gauges of financial, commodity and industrial companies fell at least 3.8 percent. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, which measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the S&P 500, soared 32 percent to 36.16.

Europe’s biggest clearinghouse said that customers must put down bigger deposits to trade Italian bonds as concern rises that the government will struggle to reduce the world’s third- largest debt burden. Italian yields surged as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he won’t resign until austerity measures are passed, even after he failed to muster an absolute majority on a routine ballot in parliament yesterday.

Equities extended losses as Handelsblatt reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party wants to make it possible for European Union members to exit the euro area, citing unnamed participants in the discussion. A French official said there are no plans to shrink the euro area. In Greece, Prime Minister George Papandreou’s drive to put together a unity government fell into disarray as rival parties squabbled over the choice of the next premier.                        

“The Greek flu is hitting Italy,” James McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago, which manages $643 billion, said in a telephone interview. The market wants to know “who’s going to be the new leadership? Until they know the new leadership’s willingness to implement reforms, they are going to require higher compensation.”

The KBW Bank Index sank 5.9 percent as all of its 24 stocks retreated, extending this year’s slump to 26 percent. Morgan Stanley fell 9 percent to $15.76. Goldman Sachs erased 8.2 percent to $99.67.

General Motors declined 11 percent, the biggest drop since its post-bankruptcy public offering a year ago, to $22.31. The automaker, which hasn’t turned an annual profit in Europe in more than a decade, abandoned its target for break-even results in the region as a quarterly loss there lowered overall profit.

Adobe lost 7.7 percent to $28.08. The company plans to cut 750 jobs as it lessens its focus on older products. The reduction, mostly in North America and Europe, will cost $87 million to $94 million before taxes, the company said. After the costs, net income will be 30 cents to 38 cents a share, compared with a previous forecast of 41 cents to 50 cents.                     

Concern that Europe’s debt crisis may thwart a global economic recovery sent the Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index down 4.6 percent. The Dow Jones Transportation Average of 20 stocks slumped 3.8 percent. FedEx Corp., operator of the biggest cargo airline, slipped 4.4 percent to $79.35. Apple Inc., the biggest technology company, lost 2.7 percent to $395.28.

Energy and raw material producers retreated as the dollar rose, reducing the appeal of commodities. Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, slid 5.4 percent to $10.20. Chevron Corp. fell 4.2 percent to $104.28.

One stock in the S&P 500 rose today, the lowest number since June 2010. Best Buy Co. advanced 1.4 percent to $27.22.

The world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer may post its first monthly comparative sales gains in six quarters, according to Cleveland Research.

Yahoo! Inc. swung between gains and losses, falling 0.3 percent to $15.92. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Softbank Corp. are talking with private-equity funds about making a bid for all of the company without its blessing, people with knowledge of the matter said.

After the close of regular trading, Cisco Systems Inc. rallied 4.1 percent to $18.34 at 5:41 p.m. New York time. The world’s biggest maker of networking equipment reported profit and sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates, bolstered by a turnaround effort and demand for data centers. The shares sank 3.8 percent in regular trading today.

The S&P 500 may halt its biggest gain in 20 years, according to two indicators studied by technical analysts at UBS AG. October’s 11 percent rally, which was the biggest monthly advance since 1991, failed to leave the S&P 500 above its 200- day average, limiting the potential for a rally, the Zurich- based analysts wrote in a report yesterday.

The team also said their model for moving average convergence-divergence, or MACD, is heading into “bear mode.”

“We see the risk of more near-term weakness into next week,” Marc Muller and Michael Riesner wrote in the report.

“Given the high volatility, we would see a pullback into next week still as a trading opportunity for aggressive traders, whereas, on the upside, we wouldn’t chase the market.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The spirit of democracy

is not a mechanical thing

to be adjusted by abolition of forms.

It requires change of heart.

 

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

                     -Susan Jeffers

 

Dear Friends, 

Tangents:

 Gary went to a weekend conference in Toronto and took the direct flight from Victoria last Friday morning.  He told me that he knew a lot of the passengers on the plane because they were patients of his; they were servicemen who were going east for services to commemorate Veterans Day.   Some of them knew of the memorial we had helped establish with Gary’s dad, a WW II Navy Vet, for all Canadian War Veterans in Guelph. 

 Martinmas, Veterans’ Day, Armistice Day, November 11^th:

 St. Martin of Tours, France was a popular bishop in the Middle Ages.  The English shortened the name of his feast day from Martin’s Mass to Martinmas, and since the day fell at a time when people wanted to celebrate harvesting and wine making, it became a day for feasting and celebration.  A goose was often roasted for the occasion.  November 11 became Armistice Day in 1918 to mark the armistice between the Allies and the Central Powers that ended World War I.  The United States, England, and France celebrated the day jubilantly; many were sure there’d never be another war.  Now in England, France and Canada, in particular, the day commemorates those who died in both World War I and II.  In 1954, the United States changed the day to Veterans’ Day, to commemorate those who have served in the armed forces during all the country’s wars.  –from The Book of Holiday Around the World.

 

Photo of the day

November 8, 2011

Fallen leaves lay on the ground in a Field of Remembrance in Loughborough, central England. Darren Staples/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks swung between gains and losses as banks and base-metals shares rose and gold producers fell after Italy’s president said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will resign.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, advanced 1 percent. TransCanada Corp., the owner of the country’s largest pipeline system, slipped 1.6 percent after a U.S. State Department official said the department is considering whether to seek a rerouting of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s biggest base-metals and coal producer, increased 3.2 percent as copper and zinc climbed.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 10.52 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,472.50 at 3:13 p.m. Toronto time, after falling as much as 0.2 percent earlier.

Berlusconi “has been perceived to be obstructionist with respect to the tougher parts of the austerity program, so him being gone would bring in a caretaker government that could potentially implement the austerity in a way that’s palatable to both the opposition and the governing party,” Bob Decker, a money manager at Aurion Capital Management in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$5.5 billion ($5.5 billion). “The solvency issue is at the heart of the weakness of the markets.”

The S&P/TSX dropped 13 percent from April 5 to yesterday as oil declined 12 percent and copper sank 17 percent in part on concern the European debt crisis will weaken the global economy. Energy and raw-materials companies make up 49 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, according to Bloomberg data.                   

Financial stocks rose after Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said Berlusconi will resign after the country’s parliament approves the prime minister’s austerity plans.

Royal Bank gained 1 percent to C$46.44. Toronto-Dominion Bank, its largest domestic rival, advanced 0.8 percent to C$73.89. Manulife Financial Inc., North America’s fourth-biggest insurer, increased 1.1 percent to C$12.68.

TransCanada lost 1.6 percent to C$40.97 a day after a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. may try to reroute the Keystone XL pipeline around Nebraska’s Sandhills region. Some environmentalists and property owners oppose the proposed link between Alberta’s oil sands and the Gulf of Mexico.

Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest owner of the Syncrude project, retreated 1.7 percent to C$22.19.                         

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., Canada’s largest construction and engineering company, climbed 2.7 percent to C$52.35 after winning a contract worth more than C$650 million for a treatment plant at an oil-sands site.

Niko Resources Ltd., which produces oil and gas in South Asia, surged 5.5 percent to C$57.36 after signing a contract with Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. to explore offshore Indonesia.

Base-metals companies in the S&P/TSX advanced to the highest intraday since Sept. 9. Teck increased 3.2 percent to C$40.41. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., the country’s second- biggest publicly traded copper producer, climbed 2.7 percent to C$22.68.

Gold stocks in the S&P/TSX retreated from the highest close since Sept. 21 as the metal erased its gains after Napolitano’s statement.                        

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-largest gold producer by market value, slipped 0.6 percent to C$53.97. Silver Wheaton Corp., Canada’s fourth-biggest precious-metals company by market value, decreased 1.1 percent to C$37.18. Minefinders Corp., which produces precious metals in Mexico, slumped 7.7 percent to C$14.78 after reporting earnings that trailed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

China Gold International Resources Corp. gained 5.1 percent to C$3.51 after saying it may acquire a gold and copper mine in Central Asia as early as next month.

Construction company Aecon Group Inc. rallied 7.8 percent to C$9.91 after touching C$10.09, the highest intraday price since March 17. The company reported third-quarter profit that beat the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey by 33 percent, excluding certain items.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index higher a second day, as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s offer to resign boosted optimism Italy will appoint a new leader who can tame the debt crisis.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 advanced as financial, energy and technology companies rallied at least 1.1 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Intel Corp. added more than 1.9 percent. A gauge of homebuilders in S&P indexes jumped 3.8 percent as Toll Brothers Inc. gained 7.4 percent after the luxury-home builder said revenue increased.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.2 percent to 1,275.92 as of 4 p.m. New York time, after falling as much as 0.5 percent earlier today. The benchmark gauge of American equities has increased 1.8 percent in two days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 101.79 points, or 0.8 percent, to 12,170.18 today.

 “Berlusconi is a bit of a cartoon character with respect to world leaders,” Michael Holland, chairman and founder of New York-based Holland & Co., said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees more than $4 billion. “There’s a handful of adults in Europe who are working very hard. The market has a clear view that Berlusconi is not helpful with what Europe needs moving into the future. He is part of the problem, not the solution.”

President Giorgio Napolitano said Berlusconi has agreed to quit after the parliament approves the country’s austerity plans next week. The government has yet to present the final text of the amendment to the budget law with the austerity measures.

Berlusconi’s resignation came after he failed to muster an absolute majority on a routine parliamentary ballot, obtaining only 308 votes in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies today.                       

“The reality is Berlusconi is not effective and he needs to go,” Madelynn Matlock, who helps oversee about $14.5 billion at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, said in a telephone interview. “It seems to me that any rational prime minister would realize that he shouldn’t be prime minister of Italy anymore.”

Greece prepared for a new prime minister to lead an interim government of national unity as state-run NET TV and To Vima newspaper reported that former central banker Lucas Papademos will accept the post. Prime Minister George Papandreou said a Greek national unity government will be named “soon” and told his ministers to get ready to resign, spokesman Elias Mosialos said today in Athens.

Stocks rose yesterday as the European Central Bank’s Juergen Stark said the region’s debt crisis will be under control in two years. Benchmark gauges dropped last week amid concern Europe’s crisis was worsening as the Group of 20 nations failed to agree on increasing the International Monetary Fund’s resources to fight the crisis.

The KBW Bank Index rose 2.4 percent, reversing an earlier loss of as much as 0.1 percent. The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index added 1.2 percent on speculation that steps taken by European leaders to solve their debt crisis will avert a global recession. The Dow Jones Transportation Average of 20 stocks gained 1.2 percent. JPMorgan advanced 2.3 percent to $35.02.

Occidental Petroleum climbed 2.8 percent to $101.29. Intel rose 1.9 percent to $24.75.

Toll Brothers gained 7.4 percent to $19.43, the highest level since August. Homebuilding revenue for the three months ended Oct. 31 rose to $427.7 million from $402.6 million a year earlier, the Horsham, Pennsylvania-based company said today in a statement. Analysts expected Toll to have revenue of $414.2 million, the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Priceline.com Inc. surged 8.6 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $552.85. The biggest U.S. online travel agency reported third-quarter profit and sales topped analyst estimates.

Excluding some costs, profit was $9.95 a share, compared with the $9.30 average of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Rockwell Automation Inc. jumped 6.5 percent to $74.33 after the maker of factory-automation software projected 2012 sales growth that may exceed analysts’ estimates on demand from automobile, food and beverage producers.

DryShips Inc. advanced 9.9 percent to $2.99. The Greek owner of deep-water drilling rigs and vessels that haul iron ore and coal reported third-quarter earnings excluding some items of 16 cents a share, beating the average analyst estimate by 13 percent.

 Activision Blizzard Inc. added 1.4 percent to $13.93. The world’s largest video-game maker released its eighth “Call of Duty” game, “Modern Warfare 3.” The game may sell as many as 6 million copies in the first day, according to Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee & Leach Inc.                          

After the close of regular trading, the company reported profit that beat analysts’ estimates and raised its full-year forecast, citing new titles including the new “Call of Duty.”

The S&P 500’s failure to keep pace with record corporate earnings may signal the benchmark equity gauge will surge if it returns to its historical relationship with profits.

Four years ago, when the S&P 500 lagged behind trailing 12- month corporate profits, the measure went on to reach an all- time high of 1,565.15. While combined earnings by companies in the index have exceeded the previous peak reached in 2007, the measure itself is 19 percent below that October 2007 record.

Companies have “increased efficiency, productivity and profit margins,” said David Goerz, the chief investment officer at Highmark Capital Management Inc., in a telephone interview yesterday. “That’s resulted in strong performances at a time when investors are very skeptical about the future. It’s not surprising that the market would be trading at a significant discount.” He said, “There’s a lot of upside for the U.S. equity market.”

Russell indexes started updating following an hour-and-a- half outage after Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. resolved a problem.

Measures such as the Russell 2000 Index and Russell 1000 Index resumed updating at 11:04 a.m. New York time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and a notice on Nasdaq OMX’s website.

Have a wonderful evening everyone!

Be magnificent!

The end to be sought is human happiness combined with full mental and moral growth.

This end can be achieved under decentralization.

Centralization as a system is inconsistent with a non-violent structure of society.

 

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

You can’t say civilization don’t advance, however,

for in every war they kill you a new way.

                      -Will Rogers, 1879-1935

 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

 

Birthday: Joni Mitchell, b. November 7^th, 1943

…Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

‘Til it’s gone

They paved paradise

To put up a parking lot…

           ~Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

Photo of the day

November 7, 2011

A Kenyan man smiles as he holds a yellow balloon handed out as part of an art project by American artist Yazmany Arboleda in Nairobi, Kenya. Thousands of yellow balloons are floating above commuters in downtown Nairobi, in the third in a series of seven art projects around the world known as ‘Monday Morning.’ Khalil Senosi/AP.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose after a decline last week as gold producers gained amid political turmoil in Greece and Italy.

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-biggest gold producer by market value, increased 3.6 percent as the metal advanced to a six-week high. Cameco Corp., the world’s largest uranium producer, fell 6.5 percent after its third-quarter profit missed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index climbed 53.73 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,461.98.

“The political environment is driving the stock market,” Jennifer Radman, a money manager at Caldwell Investment Management Ltd. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$1 billion ($984 million). “Gold has been around for thousands of years. When we have political instability, it’s been the safe haven.”

The index decreased 0.9 percent last week as financial stocks retreated while European officials debated the bailout of Greece and companies including Manulife Financial Corp. and Sun Life Financial Inc. reported earnings that trailed analysts’ average estimates. The S&P/TSX has slipped 7.3 percent this year through Nov. 4 after surging 50 percent the previous two years.

 The yield on Italian 10-year government bonds rose to a euro-era record today on concern Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government is collapsing.                    

Three members of Berlusconi’s party have defected to the opposition in the past week, and six others called for the prime minister to resign in a letter to newspaper Corriere della Sera. As many as 20 are ready to leave the coalition, Repubblica daily reported yesterday, without citing anyone.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told a talk show yesterday he fears the coalition no longer commands a majority in parliament.

The S&P/TSX Gold Index advanced to the highest close since Sept. 21. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer, gained 2.5 percent to C$53.54. Goldcorp climbed for a fifth day, increasing 3.6 percent to C$54.30. Silver Standard Resources Inc., which mines in Latin America, jumped 7.5 percent to C$21.03 as silver rose.

Cameco slumped 6.5 percent, the most since March 16, to C$20.35 after reporting third-quarter earnings that missed the average analyst estimate by 19 percent, excluding certain items. The company also cut its 2011 uranium-production forecast.                     

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., Canada’s largest drugmaker, decreased 5 percent to C$42.76. The shares soared 16 percent in the previous two sessions after the company topped analysts’ earnings estimates. Investors may have underestimated the effect of “special accounting” for some royalties in the company’s statement, David Risinger, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in a note to clients today.

Petrominerales Ltd., an oil and gas producer with operations in Colombia, fell for a sixth day, dropping 4.6 percent to C$22.97. Nathan Piper, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, cut his 12-month share-price estimate to C$46 from C$48, after the company missed third-quarter earnings estimates on Nov. 3.

Oil and gas explorer America’s Petrogas Inc. soared 19 percent to C$2.35 after Guy Gordon, an analyst at Byron Capital Markets, began coverage of the company with a “speculative buy” rating.                  

Gasfrac Energy Services Inc., an oilfield-services company, surged 17 percent, the most since February 2009, to C$8.22. The company’s third-quarter earnings doubled the average estimate among analysts in a Bloomberg survey, excluding certain items.

Canadian National Railway Co., the country’s largest railroad, rose 1.1 percent to C$80.61 after saying it will buy back as many as 5.65 million shares from a third-party seller by March 31.

The S&P/TSX Telecommunication Services Index advanced to the highest since May 2008 after BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. reported third-quarter profit that surpassed analysts’ average estimates on Nov. 3 and Nov. 4, respectively.

Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s largest wireless carrier, increased 0.9 percent to C$38.09. Regional carrier Bell Aliant Inc. climbed 0.7 percent to C$27.65.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, following the first weekly retreat in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since September, as the European Central Bank’s Juergen Stark said the region’s debt crisis will be under control in two years.

Home Depot Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. gained at least 2.6 percent for the biggest advances in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Amgen Inc., the largest biotechnology company, jumped 5.9 percent after saying it is planning to buy back as much as $5 billion in shares. First Solar Inc., the world’s largest maker of thin-film solar panels, dropped 3.7 percent as two Chinese solar companies cut forecasts for shipments.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.6 percent to 1,261.12 at 4 p.m. New York time, recovering from an earlier decline of as much as 1 percent. The benchmark gauge slumped 2.5 percent last week. The Dow increased 85.15 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,068.39 today.

“The Europeans are doing some heavy lifting,” Alan Gayle, a senior strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Virginia, which oversees about $44 billion, said in a telephone interview. “The leadership has a good understanding of what needs to be done and they’ve set a goal for themselves. They are now going through the sausage-making process of crafting a solution.”

Italian 10-year borrowing costs surged to a euro-era record amid concern the region’s third-largest economy is struggling to manage its debt loads, while growth in Europe is faltering.

Investors are betting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may be forced to resign if he fails to win majority support in tomorrow’s vote on the 2010 budget report.                     

Stark, a member of the ECB’s executive board, speaking at an event in Lucerne, Switzerland, said the debt crisis may be under control within two years to the point there will be “no need for further political actions.”

 “There’s maybe a sense that enough has been done in Europe,” James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management, which oversees about $333 billion, said in a telephone interview. “It’s certainly not the cure, but it may calm down the market.”

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou agreed yesterday to step down, paving the way for the creation of a new government to get international aid and avert a default. European finance chiefs met in Brussels today to work on a plan to raise the region’s bailout fund.

Stocks slumped on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 as Papandreou announced his desire to hold a vote on a European Union bailout.

After rallying two straight days, the S&P 500 dropped on Nov. 4 as the Group of 20 nations failed to agree on increasing the International Monetary Fund’s resources to fight the crisis.

Some of the biggest companies rose today. Home Depot increased 2.6 percent to $37.34. Hewlett-Packard gained 3.4 percent to $27.88.

Amgen rallied 5.9 percent to $58.43. The stock repurchase plan, amounting to about 10 percent of the company, is part of a current $10 billion buyback program, Amgen said in a regulatory filing today. The drugmaker will raise debt to help fund it. The offer starts tomorrow at a range of $54 to $60 a share, and Amgen will have about $2 billion of net debt afterwards, said Mark Schoenebaum, an analyst with ISI Group.

Dish Network Corp., the second-largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, gained 5 percent to $24.66, after awarding a special dividend that allayed investors’ concerns the company will invest billions in a wireless network.

Jefferies Group Inc. added 1.4 percent to $12.24. The New York-based firm cut gross holdings in sovereign securities of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain by almost 50 percent since last week’s close of trading, to show how easily it can reduce funds at risk. Jefferies slumped 18 percent last week as Egan-Jones Ratings Co. downgraded the firm’s debt, citing large “sovereign obligations” relative to equity.

Financial shares tumbled the most in the S&P 500 last week, losing 5.4 percent, on concern about potential losses from Europe and as MF Global Holdings Ltd. filed for bankruptcy protection after making bets on European sovereign debt. CME Group Inc. is reducing the initial margin required to back futures trades to ease the bulk transfer of accounts held by MF Global customers.

“The decision to roll back margin requirements is a positive,” Mark Grant, a managing director at Southwest Securities Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said in an e-mail.

“Otherwise there would have been a tremendous amount of margin calls, which could have caused a good amount of selling in other markets to pay for the margin calls.”

 First Solar declined 3.7 percent to $47.74. Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. and Renesola Ltd. cut forecasts for shipments and wrote down inventory, the latest in a series of industry warnings. Solar companies around the world are cutting profit forecasts as plunging prices spurred on by a surge in Chinese manufacturing capacity crimps margins.

S&P 500 companies are poised to report the biggest annual sales increase on record even as analysts reduce their estimate for growth in 2012. Revenue in the benchmark gauge of American common equity will rise 11 percent to $1,052.42 a share in 2011, according to more than 10,000 forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.

Projections for next year have been cut 1 percent in the past month after 43 percent of S&P 500 companies from 3M Co. to Amazon.com Inc. missed third-quarter forecasts, the most since 2009, data show.

Bulls say record gains in sales mean the economy is doing well enough for equities to rally after price-earnings ratios fell 20 percent below the six-decade average. To bears, the deceleration in growth shows the European debt crisis is curbing the economy and that stocks will resume declines after the S&P 500 posted its biggest monthly rally since 1991.

“Everybody thinks the world’s coming to an end, but corporate America is doing great and it’s a function of good sales,” Eric Green, a Philadelphia-based fund manager at Penn Capital Management, which oversees about $6 billion, said in a telephone interview on Nov. 3. “It’s not unusual that you get these short-term slowdowns during panicky markets. The sales estimates coming down is a good thing because it allows to companies to meet or beat more easily.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

 

To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers

and thus harm not only that being but with him the whole world.

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

Keep calm and carry on.

     -King George VI, 1895-1952

     advice to his countrymen during World War II

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

I went with a friend to a “Lunch and Learn” today at a place on Fort Street,  The London Chef.  It is a wonderful experience whereby you learn to make certain dishes, orchestrated by chef and co-owner of  The London Chef, Dan Hayes.  We had southern Spanish inspired salad of poached octopus with mint, potatoes and olive oil to start, followed by risotto with fresh chanterelles and squash.  

A couple of  things I learned was that risotto is always stirred anti-clockwise so that, according to the Italians, love pours from the heart into the dish.  And you must always stir in the same direction.  Also, never cut chanterelles, you must rip them up.  Scoop the risotto onto the dish and then lift the dish and bang the bottom with your other hand to spread in on the plate.

Octopus was the starter because of Sandy Mayzell’s crie de coeur, Dancing with the Octopus….

Photo of the day:

People enjoy Autumn sunshine in Victoria Tower Gardens in London. Luke MacGregor/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, completing a weekly drop, after the country reported a drop in jobs and the Group of 20 failed to agree on boosting the International Monetary Fund’s resources to fight Europe’s debt crisis.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, decreased 2.4 percent as the unemployment rate rose from a post-2008 low. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-largest energy company by market value, lost 1.3 percent as energy stocks retreated. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-biggest publicly traded copper producer, gained 2.1 percent after an analyst at Toronto-Dominion Bank raised his share-price estimate.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index slipped 60.10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 12,408.25. The index extended its weekly decline to 0.9 percent.

“Nothing has changed — it’s all on Europe,” Philip Petursson, managing director of the Portfolio Advisory Group at Manulife Financial Corp.’s money-management unit, said in a telephone interview from Toronto. The unit oversees $210 billion. “This risk of Europe is holding the markets back from an extension of the rally in October. Until we get greater clarity, we’ll still be trading in a range.”

 Financial companies led this week’s S&P/TSX declines as European officials debated the bailout of Greece and companies including Sun Life Financial Inc. reported earnings that trailed analysts’ estimates. Canada’s stock benchmark gauge is set to underperform the S&P 500 for the first year since 2003.                        

Canadian payrolls decreased by 54,000 jobs in October, Statistics Canada said today, in the biggest monthly decline since February 2009. Most economists in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a gain in employment and none estimated a loss of more than 20,000 positions. The unemployment rate climbed to 7.3 percent from 7.1 percent.

Royal Bank fell 2.4 percent to C$45.85 to complete its biggest weekly plunge since February 2009. Toronto-Dominion, Canada’s second-largest lender by assets, declined 1.3 percent to C$72.95. Manulife, the country’s biggest insurer, dropped 2.4 percent to C$12.79.

Mortgage insurer Genworth MI Canada Inc. jumped 7.4 percent, the most since it began trading in July 2009, to C$23.70 after raising its quarterly dividend. The company also said it will pay a special dividend of 50 Canadian cents a share.

G-20 leaders meeting in Cannes, France, were unable to agree on a way to bolster the IMF’s ability to stop the spread of Europe’s debt crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.                         

The S&P/TSX Energy Index completed its first weekly drop since Sept. 23, ending the longest streak of weekly gains since May 2009. Canadian Natural lost 1.3 percent to C$37.73 after surging 9.3 percent yesterday. Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s largest oil and gas producer, decreased 0.9 percent to C$32.89.

Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., which operates in Colombia, retreated 5.6 percent to C$21.65 after saying the country’s tax agency inspected its Bogota offices.

Open Range Energy Corp., a natural gas explorer, surged 18 percent from yesterday’s adjusted close to C$2.08 after the spinoff of Poseidon Concepts Corp. became effective. Poseidon, formerly Open Range’s services and supply business, advanced to C$11.52 after opening at C$11.20.

Exall Energy Corp., which explores for oil in Alberta, rallied 31 percent, the most since December 2008, to C$1.86 after reporting a new discovery.

First Quantum increased 2.1 percent to C$22.81, extending its three-day climb to 15 percent. Greg Barnes, an analyst at TD, raised his 12-month share-price estimate to C$29 from C$27, citing the potential of First Quantum’s Enterprise nickel project in Zambia.

Alamos Gold Inc., which mines in Mexico, dropped 5.3 percent to C$17.06 after its third-quarter earnings trailed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

DragonWave Inc., which makes wireless data products, jumped 42 percent, the most since May 2008, to C$5.14 after agreeing to buy Nokia Siemens Networks’ microwave-transport business for 15 million euros ($20.7 million) in cash and shares.

Westport Innovations Inc., which develops natural gas engine technologies, rose 6.4 percent to C$29.79 a day after CNBC’s Jim Cramer recommended the shares.

US

By Inyoung Hwang

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, driving the market to its first weekly drop since September, as Greece’s reluctance to accept another bailout and a disagreement over boosting the International Monetary Fund’s resources threatened Europe’s efforts to halt its debt crisis.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell this week as financial stocks plunged 5.4 percent. Jefferies Group Inc. retreated 18 percent amid concern about its investments in Europe while Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped more than 7.4 percent. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. plunged 24 percent, its biggest loss in three years, after the teen-clothing retailer said sales fell at flagship stores in Europe last quarter.

The S&P 500 slid 2.5 percent to 1,253.23, the first weekly decline since the period ended Sept. 30. The benchmark equity index dropped 2.5 percent on Oct. 31, trimming the measure’s biggest monthly rally since 1991 to 11 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 247.87 points, or 2 percent, to 11,983.24 this week.

Stocks declined because of “the ping-pong match going on in Greece,” Chris Hyzy, the New York-based chief investment officer at U.S. Trust Co., which oversees about $360 billion, said in telephone interview. “Investors are very concerned about what that means for counterparty risk around the world and then ultimately how that factors into the broader economy and profits.”                      

Equities plunged worldwide on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou scheduled a referendum on the European Union’s expanded rescue plan, spurring concern the deal will unravel. After rallying two straight days, the S&P 500 dropped yesterday when the G-20 disagreed on increasing the IMF’s resources, fueling pessimism European leaders won’t have enough aid to bail out indebted nations. Stocks had rallied throughout October on optimism the crisis would ebb.

After U.S. exchanges closed yesterday, Papandreou won a confidence vote in parliament. He will now attempt to shore up support for an international rescue after Greece’s main opposition party rejected his offer to form a new government.

The S&P 500 lost 0.6 percent yesterday even after the U.S. jobless rate fell to a six-month low of 9 percent. Economists projected the figure would remain at 9.1 percent, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg survey. Payrolls increased by 80,000 in October, missing the economist forecast of 95,000, following gains in the prior two months that were revised up by 102,000, U.S. Labor Department figures showed.

“It’s a seesaw number,” Hyzy said of the payrolls figures. “Revisions being upward have muted the effect of it being below expectations.” He added: “Profits and payrolls are taking the backseat to the third P, which is policy” from governments in the U.S. and Europe.

Per-share earnings beat estimates at about three-quarters of the companies in the S&P 500 that released results since Oct. 11, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Profit grew 16 percent for the group on an 11 percent increase in sales.

The S&P 500 advanced 3.5 percent on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 after the Federal Reserve said it’s prepared to take action if needed to safeguard the economic recovery and the European Central Bank unexpectedly lowered interest rates.

Financial shares tumbled the most in the S&P 500 this week, losing 5.4 percent, on continued concern about potential losses from Europe.                 

Jefferies dropped 18 percent to $12.07. Egan-Jones Ratings Co. downgraded the investment bank’s debt, citing large “sovereign obligations” relative to equity. The shares added 0.5 percent yesterday after Jefferies said it will increase disclosure of European holdings to counter investor concern the assets could hobble the firm.

MF Global Holdings Ltd. was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after the futures brokerage filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31. The company collapsed after revealing a $6.3 billion bet on Italian, Spanish, Belgian, Portuguese and Irish debt, which led to credit downgrades, margin calls and regulators’ demands to boost capital. Its stock fell 79 percent to 26 cents in over-the-counter trading.

Bank of America fell 12 percent to $6.49 and JPMorgan declined 7.4 percent to $33.97, leading this week’s losses in the Dow average.

Raw-material and energy in the S&P 500 companies declined 2.7 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively. Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, slumped 5.5 percent to $10.93.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the energy producer that is the world’s most valuable company by market value, lost 3.6 percent to $78.52.

Abercrombie & Fitch had the biggest drop in the S&P 500, falling 24 percent to $58.21. The clothing retailer said it was hurt by a “slowing trend” in Europe and that same-store sales in Japan and Canada continued to decline.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. fell 22 percent to $5.19. The second-largest U.S. maker of polysilicon lowered its earnings outlook for this year because of an oversupply of the material used in solar panels.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., the biggest maker of silicon- based solar modules, retreated 11 percent to $2.74. It may reduce manufacturing output in the first quarter because of a seasonal dip in demand. First Solar Inc. slumped 8.2 percent to $49.59.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

Propaganda can never tell the truth; truth can never be propagated.

 

-Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

Carolann

Man’s loneliness is but

his fear of life.

-Eugene O’Neill, 1888-1953

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

-from Globe Life:

Go easy on yourself

From a Daily Beast review of 30 Lessons for  Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, by gerontologist Karl Pillemer:  “If you don’t get it right the first time, don’t wallow in regrets.  Make like the legendary Kitty Carlisle Hart, who adhered to a daily ritual.   As soon as she woke up, she looked squarely into the mirror and said out loud: ‘Kitty, I forgive you.’  She lived to be 96.”

 

Photo of the day 

November 3, 2011

Saint Peter’s Basilica is pictured in front of the moon in Rome , Italy. Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for a second day after Greece halted a vote on its bailout, the European Central Bank cut its main interest rate and profit at companies including Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. beat estimates.

Canadian Natural, Canada’s second-biggest energy company by market value, jumped 9.3 percent as crude oil and natural gas climbed. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., the country’s largest drugmaker, rallied 13 percent after its third- quarter profit excluding certain items surpassed the average analyst estimate by 15 percent. Yamana Gold Inc., Canada’s fourth-biggest gold producer by market value, gained 4.4 percent after raising its dividend.

 The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index increased 226.59 points, or 1.9 percent, to 12,468.35.

“The earnings are good — not phenomenal, but good,” Arthur Salzer, chief executive officer of Northland Wealth Management in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$200 million ($198 million). “And any time you bring down interest rates to the low levels there are, any risk assets become a lot more attractive.”

The index had slipped this week after surging 5.4 percent in October as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said he will subject his country’s bailout plan to a referendum. The S&P/TSX is set to underperform the S&P 500 for the first year since 2003 as energy stocks have declined on concern the global economy will slow. Canada is the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, according to the U.S. Energy Department.                         

The ECB lowered its main refinancing rate to 1.25 percent from 1.5 percent. Among 55 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, six had forecast a cut. Stocks extended their gains today after Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the country won’t hold the referendum.

Crude oil advanced to a three-month high and natural gas climbed for the first time in three days on the New York Mercantile Exchange. PetroBakken Energy Ltd., a western Canadian energy producer, increased 7.6 percent to C$9.20.

Canadian Natural gained 9.3 percent to C$38.23 after reporting third-quarter earnings that beat the average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey by 19 percent, excluding certain items. Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s largest oil and gas producer, rose 4.4 percent to C$33.20 after its profit excluding certain items topped the average analyst estimate by 39 percent.

Valeant surged 13 percent, the most since January, to C$44.08. SXC Health Solutions Corp., a pharmacy-benefits manager, jumped 6 percent to C$47.99 after beating the average analyst estimate for third-quarter adjusted earnings by 2.3 percent and raising its 2011 forecasts for earnings and revenue.                     

Dundee Precious Metals Inc., which operates in Bulgaria and Armenia, rallied 12 percent, the most since October 2009, to C$8.91 after surpassing its average profit estimate by 24 percent, excluding certain items.

Among companies that missed analysts’ earnings estimates, Sun Life Financial Inc., Canada’s third-largest insurer, fell 4.8 percent to C$22.85, the lowest in 31 months, after reporting its first quarterly loss in two years. Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., a Winnipeg, Manitoba-based phone company, sank 7.2 percent, the most since August 2010, to C$30.37 after missing the average forecast by 10 percent.

Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc.  lost 6.8 percent to C$26.80, the lowest since July 2009, after analysts at BMO, Canaccord Financial Inc. and National Bank of Canada cut their ratings on the company. The shares plunged 11 percent yesterday after the insurer’s earnings missed the average analyst estimate by 31 percent, excluding certain items.                          

 Gold stocks in the S&P/TSX climbed as the metal advanced to a six-week high after the ECB decision.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest company in the industry, increased 2.4 percent to C$52.40. Yamana Gold rose 4.4 percent to C$16.28 after boosting its quarterly dividend 11 percent. Lake Shore Gold Corp., which mines in Ontario, soared 16 percent to C$1.89.

First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, rallied 9 percent to C$22.35.

The company’s Enterprise nickel project in Zambia may produce 40,000 to 70,000 metric tons a year, First Quantum said in a statement today.

Most financial companies other than Sun Life and Industrial Alliance gained. Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest lender by assets, advanced 1.9 percent to C$52.93. Bank of Montreal, the No. 4 lender, increased 1.1 percent to C$58.70.

Manulife Financial Corp., North America’s fourth-largest insurer, surged 4.5 percent to C$13.11.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index higher for a second straight day, as Greece moved closer to accepting a bailout and the European Central Bank unexpectedly lowered interest rates.

Qualcomm Inc. jumped 7.5 percent as the biggest maker of mobile-phone chips forecast sales that beat analysts’ projections. Kraft Foods Inc. added 3.3 percent after raising its earnings estimate. Estee Lauder Cos. jumped 18 percent after the maker of Clinique skin care raised its profit forecast, boosted its dividend and set plans for a stock split.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.9 percent to 1,261.15 at 4 p.m. in New York, extending its two-day gain to 3.5 percent and erasing its 2011 decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 208.43 points, or 1.8 percent, to 12,044.47 today.

“They’re pushing the Greeks to the wall,” Peter Sorrentino, a senior fund manager at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, which oversees $14.5 billion of assets, said in a telephone interview. “It’s a sobering up moment. On top of that, the ECB’s decision to cut rates will take some of the pressure off of the upcoming financing for the Spanish and Italian markets.”

Stocks tumbled earlier this week as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced on Oct. 31 a parliamentary confidence vote and his desire to hold a referendum on the rescue pact. A two-day slump sent the S&P 500 to the level where three rallies stopped in August and September, the top of a price range that prevailed for 10 weeks. The index rose above that level last week amid progress on Europe’s bailout plans.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaking to party lawmakers in Parliament in Athens today, said the nation won’t hold a referendum. Just hours after saying Greeks need to decide on whether their future is in the euro, Papandreou said the country belongs in the currency bloc.

     “Papandreou absolutely blinked in this game of chicken,”

Michael Holland, chairman and founder of New York-based Holland & Co., said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees more than $4 billion. “The interesting thing is that it took him so long to blink. The world’s markets told him he was wrong and he still persisted for an extended period of time. It was insane.”

Global stocks also rose as ECB officials unanimously lowered the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.25 percent, confounding 51 of 55 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. ECB President Mario Draghi said the rate cut happened partly because “what we’re observing now is slow growth heading toward a mild recession.”                       

Earlier today, benchmark gauges erased a rally as a report showed that service industries in the U.S. expanded at a slower pace and consumer confidence plunged, supporting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s forecast yesterday that the economic recovery will be “frustratingly slow.”

A Labor Department report today showed first-time claims for unemployment benefits declined last week to a one-month low of 397,000. Employment probably cooled in October, indicating the U.S. recovery remains too weak, economists said before a report tomorrow. Payrolls climbed by 95,000 workers after a 103,000 September increase, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 rallied as energy and industrial shares had the biggest gains, adding at least 2.4 percent. Gauges of utility, health care and consumer staples companies advanced less than the benchmark gauge.

Optimism about corporate earnings also helped send stocks higher. About three quarters of the S&P 500 companies that reported results since Oct. 11 beat analysts’ projections, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.                         

Qualcomm jumped 7.5 percent to $56.11. The company, which gets most of its profit from licenses on technology used in so- called 3G phones, is benefiting as more consumers switch to the technology — especially in developing countries.

Kraft added 3.3 percent to $35.78. Food companies such as Kraft, Sara Lee Corp. and General Mills Inc. have raised prices on many products this year to make up for higher costs for ingredients such as corn, coffee and sugar.

Estee Lauder jumped 18 percent, the biggest advance in the S&P 500, to $118.92. The company said it will split its common stock 2-for-1 in January, and raise the annual dividend to $1.05 a share. Sales in the fiscal first quarter gained 18 percent, helped by stronger demand in all of the company’s markets and a weaker U.S. dollar that aided results overseas.

DirecTV climbed 6.2 percent to $47.63. The largest U.S. satellite-television provider reported a 7.7 percent increase in third-quarter profit after a football promotion helped it gain U.S. subscribers.

Jefferies Group Inc. lost 2.1 percent to $12.01, paring an earlier decline as it said it has no “meaningful net exposure” to European sovereign debt. Its shares plunged as much as 20 percent, triggering stock-market circuit breakers. Egan-Jones Ratings Co. cut the firm’s credit grade, citing a “changed environment” after the collapse of MF Global Holdings Ltd. and concern that Jefferies’s $2.7 billion in “sovereign obligations” on Aug. 31 is large relative to equity.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. tumbled 20 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $59.26. The New Albany, Ohio-based teen-clothing retailer reported a slowing trend for same-store sales in Europe, including flagship stores that had declines. Japan and Canada same-store sales also dropped.

The S&P 500 is caught in a “battle” between technical measures sending conflicting signals on whether stocks will rise or fall, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC said.

 The biggest monthly rally since 1991 failed to keep the benchmark measure of U.S. equities above its 200-day average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. At the same time, its 50-day average began rising for the first time since June. The index closed at 1,237.90 yesterday, 2.8 percent below its 200- day level and 3.8 percent above the 50-day figure.

The charts “underscore the battle we’re seeing between the market’s longer-term declining moving averages and its short- term rising moving averages,” Dan Wantrobski, the Philadelphia- based director of technical research at Janney, wrote in a report yesterday. “Due to the close proximity the price action of each benchmark now shares with these indicators, we will likely have an answer soon.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The supreme consideration is man.

 

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

Generosity is giving more than you can,

and pride is taking less than you need.

                 -Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931 

 

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

DAY OF THE DEAD (Dia de los Muertos), November 2^nd:

The spirit lives on….love never dies.

Photo of the day 

November 2, 2011

A woman with a ‘Calavera’, or skull, painted on her face takes part in a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico City. Each year, Mexicans observe the holiday by gathering together to remember deceased relatives and friends. Jorge Silva/Reuters.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for the first time in three days as energy and financial shares gained after European leaders moved to prevent their debt-crisis strategy from unraveling.

Suncor Energy Inc. increased 1.6 percent as crude oil climbed for the first time in four days after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was summoned to a Group of 20 meeting to hear there is no alternative to budget cuts. Bank of Nova Scotia, the country’s third-largest lender by assets, advanced 1.6 percent. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the metal, gained 1.8 percent as the U.S. Dollar Index declined from a three-week high.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 84.48 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,199.58 at 2:15 p.m. Toronto time.

The index fell 3.2 percent over the past two days as Papandreou said he will subject his country’s bailout plan to a referendum.

“The shock and awe from the Greek decision to do a referendum had its moment in the sun, and now the market has digested that and is looking beyond it,” Gerry Brockelsby, a money manager at Marquest Asset Management Inc. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about C$250 million ($246 million). “We’re in the final throes here of a resolution.”

 The S&P/TSX dropped 15 percent from April 5 to yesterday as base metals and financial shares declined in part on concern Europe’s debt crisis will weaken the global economy. Energy, raw-materials and financial companies make up 76 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, according to Bloomberg data.

Parandreou, whose country is not a G-20 member, will attend the group’s meeting that begins in Cannes, France, tomorrow.

Among the other leaders in attendance will be French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said yesterday the bailout strategy crafted last week is the “only way to resolve Greek debt problems.”

Canada’s benchmark stock gauge gained as much as 1.7 percent today before the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee released a policy statement that didn’t include a new round of asset purchases.

The S&P/TSX Energy Index rebounded from the lowest close since Oct. 20. Suncor climbed 1.6 percent to C$31.42. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-largest energy company by market value, rose 1.9 percent to C$34.64.

Western Canadian oil and gas producer Trilogy Energy Corp. surged 5.6 percent to C$34.63 after at least five analysts raised their share-price estimates.

Bank of Montreal’s Gordon Tait, who increased his estimate to C$36 from C$30, cited “continued positive results” from the company’s operations in the Kaybob area of Alberta and the “increasing potential” of its Duvernay shale-gas development.

Enerflex Ltd., which provides products and services to the energy industry, jumped 6.4 percent to C$10.67 after saying it won a contract worth about $228 million for a gas-processing plant in Oman.

Gold stocks in the S&P/TSX advanced to the highest intraday since Sept. 23. Barrick increased 1.8 percent to C$51.21.

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-biggest company in the industry by market value, climbed 1.9 percent to C$50.90.

NovaGold Resources Inc., which is developing gold and base- metals properties in Alaska and British Columbia, gained 1.6 percent to C$9.55.

Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd., which operates in Ontario, tumbled 19 percent, the most intraday since 2008, to C$2.10 after saying third-quarter production and sales trailed its forecasts.                          

The S&P/TSX Diversified Metals & Mining Index rose. Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest base-metals and coal producer, increased 1.8 percent to C$38.65. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., the country’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, advanced 4.4 percent to C$20.73. Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., which is building a copper and gold mine in Mongolia with Rio Tinto Group, rallied 3.1 percent to C$21.04.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. rebounded 1.6 percent to C$47.31 after sinking 7.7 percent in the previous three days.

Potash prices will rise next year due to low inventories and historically high corn futures, P.J. Juvekar, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note to clients.

 Financial companies in the S&P/TSX climbed for the first time in four days. Scotiabank advanced 1.6 percent to C$51.97.

Toronto-Dominion Bank, the country’s second-largest lender by assets, rose 0.7 percent to C$73.33. Brookfield Asset Management Inc., Canada’s biggest real-estate company, gained 2.3 percent to C$29.06.

Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc. sank 6.6 percent to C$29.39 after reporting third-quarter earnings that trailed the average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey by 31 percent, excluding certain items. The shares earlier plunged as much as 8.4 percent, the most intraday since December 2009.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced, rebounding from a two-day drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as the Federal Reserve said economic growth strengthened and it is prepared to take action if needed to safeguard the recovery.

Gauges of commodity and financial shares had the biggest gains in the S&P 500 among 10 industries, rising at least 2.2 percent. Bank of America Corp., Chevron Corp. and Alcoa Inc. rallied more than 2.4 percent. MasterCard Inc. jumped 7 percent as profit beat analysts’ estimates. MF Global Holdings Ltd. tumbled 79 percent in its first day of over-the-counter trading after the futures brokerage filed for bankruptcy, prompting the New York Stock Exchange to delist the shares. The S&P 500 increased 1.6 percent to 1,237.90 as of 4 p.m.

New York time. The benchmark gauge for American equities fell 5.2 percent over the previous two days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 178.08 points, or 1.5 percent, to 11,836.04 today.

“People are focused on two comments — the economy has firmed and the Fed stands ready to take action,” Mark Bronzo, who helps manage $24 billion at Security Global Investors in Irvington, New York, said in a telephone interview. “In addition, the fact that they are not taking action now makes you more comfortable that the economy is doing OK.”

The Federal Open Market Committee said “economic growth strengthened somewhat in the third quarter,” while also saying “significant downside risks” remain to the outlook. Stocks extended gains as Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said additional purchases of mortgage-backed securities are a “viable option” if the state of the economy warrants further easing.                      

Fed officials lowered their outlook for U.S. economic growth in 2012 and forecast that unemployment will average from 8.5 percent to 8.7 percent in the final three months of next year. Forecasts for 2012 growth in U.S. gross domestic product from the five Fed Board members and 12 reserve bank presidents centered around 2.5 percent to 2.9 percent, measured from the fourth quarter of this year to the fourth quarter of next year.

For this year, the central tendency forecast for U.S. growth was 1.6 percent to 1.7 percent.

“They are going with no rocking of the boat as long as the improvement continues,” Bruce McCain, who helps oversee about $20 billion as chief investment strategist at the private- banking unit of KeyCorp in Cleveland, said in a telephone interview. “There’s a lot more concern at this point that the Fed would try too hard to juice up things and perhaps complicate an inflation picture that clearly is becoming better. The Fed wants to have as much powder dry as they can simply because if Europe blows up they want to have something in reserve.”

Benchmark gauges rebounded after the biggest two-day drop in almost a month on concern Europe’s crisis was worsening.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou triggered the latest upheaval in the two-year-long crisis by abruptly announcing on Oct. 31 a parliamentary confidence vote and his desire to hold a referendum on the rescue pact.

Papandreou, his hold on power weakening, was summoned to Cannes, France, for emergency talks on the eve of a Group of 20 summit where he will hear from French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the “only way to resolve Greek debt problems” is through a deal hammered out in a six-day crisis-management marathon. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that policy makers “must bring calm to the euro.”

 The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index climbed 1.8 percent on expectations the economy will be able to avoid a recession. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 1.3 percent. The KBW Bank Index increased 3.3 percent. Bank of America added 5 percent to $6.72. Alcoa jumped 3.2 percent to $10.70. Chevron rose 2.4 percent to $104.54.                    

MasterCard gained 7 percent to $357.66. Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga, 51, is pushing to wrest market share from larger rival Visa Inc. New U.S. regulations on transaction fees charged to merchants for debit-card purchases also give retailers more say on how those transactions are routed, which may erode Visa’s dominance.

Phone stocks gained after the U.S. House voted to bar new state and local taxes on wireless services. Sprint Nextel Corp. climbed 9.2 percent to $2.72. AT&T Inc. increased 1.3 percent to $29.08.

AOL Inc. rallied 13 percent to $15.02. The Internet company that’s struggling to halt a sales slide reported third-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ estimates by 65 percent.

MF Global, quoted under the symbol “MFGLQ,” tumbled 79 percent to 25 cents, in its first day of over-the-counter trading after the futures brokerage filed for bankruptcy, prompting the New York Stock Exchange to delist the shares.

 The stock hasn’t changed hands during a regular trading session since Oct. 28. NYSE Euronext suspended the stock before the New York Stock Exchange opened on Oct. 31. MF Global filed the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy this week after failing to find a buyer over the weekend. The futures broker suffered a ratings downgrade and loss of customers after revealing it had investments related to $6.3 billion in European sovereign debt.

Whether the U.S. economy falls into a recession or expands more slowly matters little when it comes to stock-market strategy, according to Richard Bernstein, chief executive officer of Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC.

Playing defense has been more rewarding in the past six months than investing in shares of cyclical companies, which are more susceptible to changes in the pace of economic expansion.

Makers of food, beverages, tobacco and other consumer staples are in the defensive category, along with health-care, telephone and utility stocks.

“Investors seem to spend too much time trying to ascertain the probability of a recession occurring,” Bernstein wrote in a report two days ago. A slowdown is enough to justify defensive strategies, favoring shares of companies whose sales and earnings growth is relatively stable, the report said.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

That economics is untrue which ignores or disregards moral values.

The extension of the law of nonviolence in the domain of economics means nothing less

than the introduction of moral values as a factor to be considered with regulating international commerce.

 

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

Sorrow and silence are strong, and

patient endurance is godlike.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882 

 

 

Dear Friends,

 Tangents:

 We were in Seattle on Saturday to see the opera Carmen and stopped by the Friesen Gallery earlier in the day.  We had a wonderful conversation with Andria Friesen; I was telling her about an article I had read in the FT that morning on William Aquavella, an art dealer in NYC, who represented and was friends with the artist Lucian Freud.   She said she was going to the shows this year in NYC and was going to visit him. 

When we arrived back at the hotel after the opera, there was a book from her which I had a chance to look through last night.  It is her compilation of art and poetry about trees, entitled Speak for the Trees. 

This is from that book and accompanies a photograph of a beautiful painting by Forrest Moses, October Memories.

              I love this decaying autumn

Yellow leaves tumble in wind and rain

Spots of white sway over rivers and lakes

You cannot get to those rivers and lakes

        It is hard labor to transplant trees

Silently a pair of wild ducks come flying

                   All this becomes a painting.

                                      -Su Tung-Po

Photo of the day 

November 1, 2011

A man walks through the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. With temperatures in the 30’s and high humidity a thick fog shrouded the Pittsburgh area, making rush hour slow going. Gene J. Puskar/AP

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell a second day after a Chinese factory index dropped and concern mounted that Greek politics will make it harder for the country to avoid default.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest lender by assets, retreated 3.3 percent as financial stocks fell for a third day. Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s largest oil and gas producer, lost 2.6 percent as crude futures decreased the most intraday in a month. Teck Resources Ltd., the country’s biggest base-metals and coal producer, slumped 4.7 percent after China’s Purchasing Managers’ Index trailed all 16 economist forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index dropped 136.96 points, or 1.1 percent, to 12,115.10 after the biggest drop in almost a month yesterday.

“The debt crisis appears to be widening,” Robert McWhirter, a money manager at Selective Asset Management Inc. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. McWhirter oversees about C$140 million ($138 million). “It has always been, ‘Let’s try to get Greece fixed up and put a firewall around the other countries.’ People seem to be having doubts that is going to be the case.”

The S&P/TSX increased 5.4 percent in October, the biggest monthly gain since May 2009, after seven straight months of losses. Crude oil surged 18 percent and copper advanced 15 percent as European leaders reached an agreement intended to prevent the continent’s sovereign debt crisis from weakening banks and the economy. Energy and raw-material companies make up 48 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, according to Bloomberg data.

 The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing’s manufacturing index declined to 50.4, the lowest in almost three years, from 51.2 in September. Readings above 50 signal expansion.

Six members of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s party urged him to resign in a letter after he called for a referendum on a new bailout package. Papandreou faces a confidence vote Nov. 4.

Stocks pared their losses after Dow Jones Newswires reported that a member of Papandreou’s Socialist Party said the referendum plan was “basically dead.” Angelos Tolkas, a spokesman for the Greek government, later told NET TV Papandreou will proceed with plans for the vote. All eight S&P/TSX banks retreated at least 1.7 percent.

Royal Bank decreased 3.3 percent to C$47.04. Toronto-Dominion Bank, its largest domestic rival, slipped 3.1 percent to C$72.88. Manulife Financial Corp., North America’s fourth- largest insurer, slumped 5.6 percent to C$12.42.

Crude oil retreated and natural gas tumbled the most since Sept. 15 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Suncor decreased 2.6 percent to C$30.92. Encana Corp., the country’s largest natural gas producer, fell 4.2 percent to C$20.71. Bankers Petroleum Ltd., which operates in Albania, sank 6.2 percent to C$4.97. Base-metals and coal producers in the S&P/TSX dropped for a second day after jumping 21 percent last week.

Teck declined 4.7 percent to C$38.09. First Quantum Minerals Ltd., Canada’s second-biggest publicly traded copper producer, lost 5.6 percent to C$19.73. Mercator Minerals Ltd., which operates in Arizona, sank 12 percent to C$1.78. Uranium One Inc., a mining company controlled by Moscow-based ARMZ Uranium Holding, plunged 6.7 percent to C$2.80.

Gold stocks rallied as the U.S. Dollar Index retreated from the highest intraday level since Oct. 12 after the report casting doubt on Papandreou’s referendum proposal.

Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-biggest company in the industry by market value, gained 3 percent to C$49.95. Centerra Gold Inc., which mines in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, surged 8.6 percent to C$21.46. Jaguar Mining Inc., which operates in Brazil, soared 15 percent to C$5.93 after falling 9.2 percent yesterday.

Magna International Inc., Canada’s largest auto-parts maker, fell 5.3 percent to C$36 after General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. reported sales that trailed analysts’ average forecasts.

US

By Rita Nazareth

Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks dropped, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the biggest two-day slump in a month, on concern that a Greece referendum pledged by Prime Minister George Papandreou may threaten Europe’s bailout.

All 10 groups in the S&P 500 fell as gauges of financial, energy and industrial shares lost at least 3 percent. Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley retreated more than 7.6 percent, following a 6.2 percent tumble in European lenders. Exchange operators slumped after U.S. lawmakers said they will propose a tax on financial transactions such as stock and bond trades.

The S&P 500 decreased 2.8 percent to 1,218.28 as of 4 p.m. New York time, extending its two-day retreat to 5.2 percent, the biggest drop since Oct. 3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 297.05 points, or 2.5 percent, to 11,657.96 today.

“I just don’t get it,” Michael Mullaney, who helps manage $9.5 billion at Fiduciary Trust in Boston, said in a telephone interview. “A Greek referendum is a very risky proposition. Everybody thought last week that this crisis was behind us on a near-term basis, but Europe is going to be front and center.”

Today’s decline followed the best monthly gain for the S&P 500 since 1991. The drop cut the index’s price to 12.8 times reported earnings, 22 percent below its five-decade average of 16.4, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The index trades close to the level where three rallies stopped in August and September, the top of a price range that prevailed for 10 weeks.

Greece’s referendum poses a threat to financial stability in the euro region and increases the risk of a “disorderly” default, Fitch Ratings said. Stocks extended losses as government spokesman Angelos Tolkas said Papandreou will proceed with plans for a referendum on the Greek financing package.                        

Papandreou’s announcement threatens to overshadow a Nov. 3- 4 Group of 20 summit in Cannes, France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy held emergency talks on Greece today and called on Europe to implement the package of measures thrashed out in Brussels last week. The plan, designed to aid Greece and stem the wider debt crisis, is “more necessary than ever today,” they said in a joint statement issued in Berlin and Paris. “It’s frustrating,” David Kelly, chief market strategist for JPMorgan Funds in New York, said in a telephone interview.

“The danger of having a referendum is that it could be defeated, in which case Greece presumably would end up defaulting on its debt. Europe is not addressing the basic problem. They are not giving the peripheral countries a way out of a recession.”                        

American banks tumbled following losses in European lenders. The KBW Bank Index slumped 4.9 percent as all of its 24 stocks retreated. Citigroup dropped 7.7 percent to $29.17. Morgan Stanley lost 8 percent to $16.23.

MF Global Holdings Ltd., which the New York Stock Exchange is delisting following the brokerage’s bankruptcy filing, will begin trading tomorrow on the over-the-counter venue run by OTC Markets Inc. MF Global shares haven’t changed hands during a regular trading session since Oct. 28, before yesterday’s Chapter 11 filing.

Stocks also fell after data showed a Chinese manufacturing index dropped to the lowest level since February 2009. In the U.S., manufacturing grew less than forecast in October, depressed by a drop in inventories that may set U.S. factories up for stronger growth heading into 2012.

The Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index lost 3.2 percent amid concern about an economic slowdown. The Dow Jones Transportation Average slid 2.6 percent. General Electric Co. retreated 4.1 percent to $16.02. Exxon Mobil Corp. slumped 2.8 percent to $75.94.

Exchange operators sank. Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, and Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, said they will introduce bills tomorrow in their respective chambers to impose a transaction tax on financial firms. NYSE Euronext declined 6.8 percent to $24.76, while Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. fell 2.8 percent to $24.36. CME Group Inc. slumped 8.6 percent to $251.88.

MetroPCS Communications Inc. fell 9.9 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $7.66. The pay-as-you-go U.S. wireless carrier reported third-quarter profit that missed analysts’ estimates as subscriber growth slowed for the second consecutive quarter.

Baker Hughes Inc. tumbled 7.7 percent to $53.54. The oilfield contractor reported third-quarter earnings excluding some items of $1.18 a share, missing the average analyst estimate by 3 percent, according to Bloomberg data.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. sank 9.1 percent to $5.30. The Sunnyvale, California-based maker of chips for Apple Inc.’s computers failed to persuade a U.S. judge to halt a patent dispute S3 Graphics Co. has against Apple at the U.S. International Trade Commission, according to a filing with the trade agency.                      

 Volatility indexes are rising again after plunging in October. The benchmark European gauge rose the most in two days since May 2010. The VStoxx Index, which measures the cost of Euro Stoxx 50 Index options, rose 22 percent to 42.96, extending its two-day increase to 37 percent. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, soared 16 percent to 34.77, bringing its two-day gain to 42 percent.

“The market doesn’t like unknowns, and the situation in Greece today was a definite unknown,” Stephen Solaka, who oversees about $50 million including options as co-founder of Belmont Capital Group in Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview. “Bad news is OK, as long as it’s known. Unknown news or surprises cause issues, cause sell-offs and fears to appear. Fear is back on the table.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Non-possession is allied to non-stealing.

 

-Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948

As ever,

Carolann

We don’t see things as they are,

we see things as we are.

   -Anaïs Nin, 1903-1977