December 24, 2024 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Wish you peace and happiness during this festive time of year.🎉
Carolann is away from the office; I will be writing the newsletter on her behalf.

“The light and air of winter days,
The quiet sun’s soft glow,
May guide your way through calm and peace,
Wherever you may go.”

Emily Dickinson

It’s Christmas Eve!🎄
​​​​​​​
December 24, 1906: Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass. Go to article

There’s a massive fault hidden under America’s highest mountain — and we finally know how it formed
Today, the Denali Fault rips apart some of the North American plate, but it was once a place where tectonic plates came together.

Earth from space: Strange phenomena create festive decorations on Iraq’s ‘Christmas tree lake’
A 2018 astronaut photo shows a festive, fir-tree-shaped artificial reservoir in Iraq decorated with both natural and imagined ornaments.

How did the ancient Egyptians celebrate the new year?
The ancient Egyptians celebrated the new year in a variety of ways, including having feasts, giving gifts, and exposing statues of gods to sunlight so they could be “regenerated.”

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Tokyo, Japan
People take pictures in front of a Christmas tree in the Hibiya area
Photograph: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

Tynemouth, UK
The DFDS King Seaways arrives at the mouth of the Tyne at sunrise. The Met Office has forecast a mild Christmas with notably high temperatures over the festive period
Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Pokhara, Nepal
Hot air balloons rise in the sky during the international hot air balloon festival
Photograph: Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images
Market Closes for December 24, 2024

Market
Index 
Close  Change 
Dow
Jones
43297.03 +390.08
+0.91%
S&P 500  6040.04 +65.97
+1.10%
NASDAQ  20031.13 +266.25
+1.35%
TSX  24846.82 +97.84
+0.40%

International Markets

Market
Index 
Close  Change 
NIKKEI  39036.85 -124.49
-0.32%
HANG
SENG
20098.29 +215.16
+1.08%
SENSEX  78472.87 -67.30
-0.09%
FTSE 100* 8136.99 +34.27
+0.42%

Bonds

Bonds  % Yield  Previous % Yield
CND.
10 Year Bond 
3.296 3.289
CND.
30 Year
Bond 
3.376 3.367
U.S.
10 Year Bond
4.5887 4.5865
U.S.
30 Year Bond
4.7618 4.7740

Currencies

BOC Close  Today  Previous  
Canadian $   0.6966 0.6956
US
$
1.4356 1.4376

 

Euro Rate
1 Euro= 
  Inverse   
Canadian $   1.4934 0.6696
US
$
1.0402 0.9613

Commodities

Gold Close  Previous  
London Gold
Fix 
2613.80 2616.45
Oil
WTI Crude Future  69.81 69.81

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1905, aviator, Hollywood mogul and business magnate Howard Hughes was born in Texas. He inherited family wealth and became richer yet from his varied businesses, before retreating from public view and dying in 1976 with no will or children.
Canada
Shortened trading session today for Day preceding Christmas.  Markets closed at 1 pm EST.
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — A rally in the group that has led Wall Street’s gains in 2024 lifted stocks in a relatively quiet session ahead of Christmas.
Following a strong day for big tech, the shares continued to power ahead Tuesday.
Tesla Inc. led megacaps higher.
Broadcom Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. climbed as President Joe Biden’s team launched a probe into Chinese-made chips.
In a shortened pre-holiday session, the S&P 500 closed with an advance of over 1% amid thin trading volume.
“The action of the past few weeks shows that the big-cap tech names are still the key leadership group in today’s stock market,” said Matt Maley at Miller Tabak.
“These big-tech names are highly overweighted in the portfolios of a huge number of institutional investors. Any buying they do over the next week is likely to be concentrated in these names.”
Equity investors are also hoping for what’s known as the “Santa Claus Rally,” in which stocks rise during the final five trading sessions of a year and the first two of the new one.
This time around that window started Tuesday.
“Santa Claus rally could still be alive, with strong seasonality into the end of the year,” said London Stockton at Ned Davis Research.
Since 1950, the S&P 500 has generated average and median returns of 1.3% during this period, widely outpacing the market’s average seven-day gain of 0.3%, according to Adam Turnquist at LPL Financial.
“When investors are on the ‘nice’ list, and Santa delivers a ‘positive’ Santa Claus Rally return, the S&P 500 has generated an average January and forward annual return of 1.4% and 10.4%, respectively,” he said.
The S&P 500 rose 1.1%.
The Nasdaq 100 added 1.4%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.9%.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.59%.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index barely budged.
While a positive “Santa Claus Rally” has preceded a 10.4% average annual gain for the S&P 500 since World War II, Sam Stovall at CFRA says a more accurate indicator in his view is the “January Barometer.”
That’s a market hypothesis positing that January’s performance predicts the year’s performance.
The term was coined by Yale Hirsch, creator of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, in 1972.
Since 1945, when the year started with a gain in January, the S&P 500 rose an average of 18.3% in price during the entire year, Stovall at CFRA said.
If the first month saw a decline in price, however, the average full-year return was negative 1.9%.
With the market up over 25% this year and no corrections of more than 10%, the S&P 500 has managed to stay solidly above its 200-day moving average for the entirety of 2024, noted Bespoke Investment Group strategists.
“Barring a significant market selloff in the last few trading days of the year, this will be the 12th year since 1952 (when we went to the current 5-day trading week at the NYSE) that the S&P has traded above its 200-DMA all year,” they said.
The average next-year change following these years has been a gain of just 4.6% compared to the average gain of 9.2% for all years, Bespoke noted.
Bank of America Corp. clients bought US equities for the seventh consecutive week, according to strategist Jill Carey Hall.
Similar to the prior five weeks, clients bought both single stocks and exchange-traded funds, with bigger inflows into the former, she noted.
Flows were primarily in large caps.
Investors should have a more-balanced approach in US stocks over the first quarter, according to Citigroup Inc. strategists led by Scott Chronert, who see a greater opportunity in defensive sectors.
They raised health care to overweight, noting valuations are now lower and fundamentals seem close to inflection point.
Meantime, they are selective on growth stocks, looking for stronger fundamental trend versus valuation and potential margin improvement.
Citi’s strategists are overweight in media, internet and semiconductors, while raising software to market weight.

Corporate Highlights:
* American Airlines Group Inc. said a technical vendor glitch was the cause of a brief ground stop on all US flights on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest days of the holiday travel season.
* Nippon Steel Corp.’s proposed $12.3 billion acquisition of US Steel Corp. moved a step closer to being blocked after a US national security panel deadlocked on its review and left the final decision with President Biden, who has repeatedly indicated his opposition to the deal.
* Salesforce Inc. says it’s taking multiple large customers from former partner Veeva Systems Inc. in a mounting rivalry to sell software to the pharmaceutical industry.
* A Starbucks Corp. barista strike has shut down about 170 cafes, according to the coffee chain, disrupting service at locations nationwide during the final days of the crucial holiday shopping season.
* Arcadium Lithium Plc, a chemicals company, said it obtained all shareholder approvals for a proposed acquisition by Rio Tinto Plc.

Key events this week:
* Christmas Day, Wednesday
* US initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Boxing Day, Thursday
* Japan Tokyo CPI, unemployment, industrial production, retail sales, Friday
* US goods trade, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 1.1%
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.4%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9%
* The MSCI World Index rose 0.9%
* Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Total Return Index rose 2.1%
* The Russell 2000 Index rose 1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro fell 0.1% to $1.0394
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2533
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 157.31 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 3.6% to $97,269.57
* Ether rose 0.5% to $3,436.69
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.59%
* Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at 2.32%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced three basis points to 4.58%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.2% to $70.10 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.2% to $2,616.87 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Robert Brand, Sagarika Jaisinghani, Chiranjivi Chakraborty, Winnie Hsu and Rob Verdonck.

Wishing all of you and your families and close friends the very best of the season!

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Shab
“A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.” — Rene Char

Shab Mohammadpour

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

Tel: 778.430.5808
Toll Free: 1.877.430.5895
Fax: 778.430.5828
www.carolannsteinhoff.com