December 10, 2020 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
Hanukkah begins tonight, and this recipe for potato latkes is a must-try even for people not observing the holiday.
1965 The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Go to article »
The Times rounded up the best holiday movies on Netflix.

MLS releases list of 25 greatest ever players.  Soccer fans, debate amongst yourselves.

Centuries later, we have an answer to a seemingly simple math problem.

Lives Lived: In glowing colors, Helen LaFrance painted scenes from her childhood in rural Kentucky: church picnics, river baptisms and kitchens with jars of preserves shining like stained-glass windows. She once called painting “a way of reliving it all again.” LaFrance died at 101.

Emily Dickinson, b. December 10, 1830.  One of America’s greatest poets, she was born, lived and died in Amherst, Massachusetts.  She was reclusive, mysterious, and frail in health.  Seven of her poems were published in her lifetime, but after her death, her sister, Lavinia, discovered almost 2,000 more poems written on the backs of envelopes and other scraps of paper locked in Emily’s bureau.  They were published gradually over 50 years, beginning in 1890.  Emily died May 15^th, 1886.

There’s a certain
Slant of light,
Winter Afternoon

– That oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes. –Emily Dickinson.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

An aurora storm over freshly fallen snow in Pallas Fell,  Finnish Lapland. ‘Flames in the sky’ by Risto Leskinen is an entrant in 2020 Northern Lights Photographer Of The Year competition
CREDIT: RISTO LESKINEN/CAPTURE THE ATLAS/TRIANGE NEWS

‘Curious’, which pictures a bug on a flower by Guiming Zhang, won  Second prize in the Microcosm category of The Golden Turtle Festival photography competition. The competition celebrates the beauty of wildlife.
The contest, which is in its 14th year, attracted more than 14,000 entries from 108 countries all over the world, including Italy, Belgium, Russia and Spain
CREDIT: GUIMING ZHANG/GOLDEN TURTLE/BAV MEDIA

‘Vikings in the sky’ by Nico Rinaldi, shows the Northern Lights glowing in the sky above an imposing mountain and volcanic black sand beach, surrounded by large dunes in Iceland. Part of the 2020 Northern Lights Photographer Of The Year awards, held by Capture The Atlas photography blog
CREDIT: NICO RINALDI/CAPTURE THE ATLAS/TRIANGE NEWS

A 1500-pound Kamchatka brown bear enjoys a spot of salmon fishing at Kuril Lake, Kamchatka, Siberia
CREDIT: MEDIADRUMIMAGES/JON LANGELAND

Market Closes for December 10^th, 2020 

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1984, Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack—two professors in different academic departments at Stanford who were frustrated by their difficulty in communicating by computer—founded Cisco Systems to make improved network switching equipment.

Canada
By Aoyon Ashraf
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equity markets pared their earlier losses to close Thursday’s session with a gain. The S&P/TSX Composite index rose 0.2% in Toronto, led by energy. Meanwhile, consumer staples were the worst performing stocks. Oil futures in London blew past $50 a barrel for the first time since the pandemic ground the global economy to a halt in a remarkable rally that few predicted would happen this soon. Meanwhile, Canada’s budget watchdog is questioning the rationale behind Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to roll out as much as C$100 billion ($78.6 billion) in post-Covid-19 stimulus over the next three years, saying the economy won’t need all that spending.
Commodities
* Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $12.40 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 0.2% to $1,835.61 an ounce
FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar was rose 0.6% to C$1.2741 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year government bond yield fell slightly to 0.734%

By Bloomberg Automation
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.2 percent at 17,593.34 in Toronto. The move follows the previous session’s decrease of 0.4 percent. Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 2.5 percent. Enerplus Corp. had the largest increase, rising 9.9 percent. Today, 126 of 222 shares rose, while 93 fell; 6 of 11 sectors were higher, led by energy stocks.
Insights
* So far this week, the index rose 0.4 percent
* This quarter, the index rose 9.1 percent
* This year, the index rose 3.1 percent, poised for the best year since 2019
* The index advanced 3.8 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 18 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 2.1 percent below its 52-week high on Feb. 20, 2020 and 57.5 percent above its low on March 23, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1.1 percent in the past 5 days and rose 5.9 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.9 on a trailing basis and 23.4 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$2.69t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 10.87 percent compared with 11.26 percent in the previous session and the average of 14.78 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | | Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Energy | 44.5673| 2.1| 23/0
Information Technology | 26.6577| 1.6| 5/5
Real Estate | 3.1894| 0.6| 20/4
Utilities | 1.7374| 0.2| 10/6
Health Care | 1.4131| 0.7| 7/3
Financials | 0.3183| 0.0| 8/18
Consumer Discretionary | -4.1369| -0.6| 4/9
Communication Services | -4.6511| -0.5| 3/4
Consumer Staples | -7.7069| -1.1| 5/6
Industrials | -9.7727| -0.5| 14/14
Materials | -18.1337| -0.8| 27/24

US
By Rita Nazareth and Kamaron Leach
(Bloomberg) — Stocks were mixed as traders assessed prospects for fresh stimulus amid the most-intense negotiations since Election Day. The S&P 500 came off session lows, but closed down for a second day. The Nasdaq 100 climbed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average underperformed. Airbnb Inc. more than doubled in its trading debut. Treasuries gained after a strong 30-year bond auction dispelled concerns that this week’s debt sales could prove too large to be palatable for investors. The pound slid as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Britain should prepare to leave the European Union’s single market without a trade deal. The fate of an additional relief package remains unresolved as Democrats and Republicans continue to negotiate. If a deal isn’t reached by the end of 2020, millions of Americans could start the new year with lapsed unemployment benefits. A bipartisan group of lawmakers agreed on a needs-based formula to distribute their proposed state and local aid, according to an aide to one of the senators. But negotiations continue to be bogged down by differences over shielding employers from liability for Covid-19 infections. Earlier Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cited progress toward an agreement. “We’re just kind of waiting on a deal,” said Keith Gangl, a portfolio manager of Gradient Investments. “I wouldn’t expect the market to do a whole lot one way or the other going into year-end from here,” he noted, “especially if the stimulus package keeps getting pushed out.”
Elsewhere, the euro rose after policy makers escalated their efforts to shield the region from a possible double-dip recession with another burst of monetary stimulus, while cautioning that it may not use up all the new firepower.

These are some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dipped 0.4%.
* The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.2%.
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%.
* The euro rose 0.4% to $1.213.
* The British pound decreased 0.8% to $1.3287.
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 104.25 per dollar.
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries decreased two basis points to 0.92%.
* Germany’s 10-year yield rose less than one basis point to -0.60%.
* Britain’s 10-year yield dipped six basis points to 0.201%.
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude jumped 2.9% to $46.86 a barrel.
* Gold fell 0.3% to $1,834.80 an ounce.
–With assistance from Jana Randow, Adam Haigh, Todd White, Yakob Peterseil, Lu Wang and Claire Ballentine.

Have a great night.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

Someone once told me that every person has an element of good and an element of bad within him, and that either the good or the bad can be manifested according to the person’s mood.  We possess within us tow different ways of understanding this world.  One is the feeling of being divided, distanced, and alienated from each other;  in this state, all things seem gloomy to us.  We feel nothing except jealousy, indifference, and hatred.  I would like to call the opposite way of understanding the understanding of universal unification.  In this state, all people seem very close to us, and all are equal among themselves. 
This state, therefore, arouses compassion and love in us. -Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860

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

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

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