December 3, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday.

On Dec. 3, 1984, more than 4,000 people died after a cloud of gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India. Go to article »

Joseph Conrad, author, b. 1857.
Maria Callas, singer, b. 1923.
Julianne Moore, actress, b. 1961.

Hundreds of birds dropped dead in Spain. (h/t Scott Kominers) 

Lego has made a set that can’t be taken apart.

It’s December and it hasn’t snowed in Denver yet.  Denver has never entered December without measurable snow since it started keeping records back when Chester A. Arthur was President.

But there are blizzard warnings for Hawaii???  There could be up to a foot of snow and 100-mph wind gusts!

There’s a shortage of Santas this holiday season.  Yet another supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY
The chocolate box village of Prestbury, on the western edge of the Cotswolds and close to Cheltenham racecourse, is home, supposedly, to more than two dozen ghosts – including the Black Abbott in the churchyard and spectral shepherd on Swindon Lane. More comforting is 17th century thatched Shaw Green Cottage, tucked away down a lane with a garden on both sides. It is Grade II-listed with flagstone floors, timber beams and uprights, marble worktops and a deep butler sink. The inglenook fireplace is used as a wine store. £595,000. Knight Frank, 01242 246 951
CREDIT: Knight Frank
Anthony Van Dyck’s Portrait of Jacob De Witte and Portrait of Maria Nutius go on view at Sotheby’s before a sale on 8 December
CREDIT: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s
A tarantula is boxed at El Dorado international airport. Authorities seized 232 tarantulas, a scorpion with seven young, nine spider eggs and 67 cockroaches that were bound for Germany. The specimens were carried in a suitcase by two Germans who said the animals were wanted for academic and research purposes
CREDIT: Secretary for the Environment/EPA

Market Closes for December 3rd, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1998, shares in Temco Service Industries, a tiny building-maintenance firm, suddenly they went bonkers, leaping 126% in a few minutes on record volume. The reason: Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch went public under the ticker symbol TMCS, which some traders confused with Temco’s ticker symbol TMCO.
Canada
By Stefanie Marotta
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities sank as markets whipsaw amid concerns over the omicron variant. The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.6 percent to 20,633.27 in Toronto. The move follows the previous session’s increase of 1.5 percent. Shopify contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 2.4 percent. Lithium Americas Corp. had the largest drop, falling 8.7 percent. Today, 157 of 233 shares fell, while 71 rose; 10 of 11 sectors were lower.
Insights
* This year, the index rose 18 percent, poised for the best year since 2019
* This quarter, the index rose 2.8 percent
* This week, the index fell 2.3 percent, the biggest decline since the week ended Jan. 29
* The index advanced 19 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 22 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 5.3 percent below its 52-week high on Nov. 16, 2021 and 19.3 percent above its low on Jan. 29, 2021
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.7 on a trailing basis and 15.7 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.6 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.28t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 14.13 percent compared with 14.09 percent in the previous session and the average of 10.22 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Information Technology | -57.3564| -2.4| 1/14
* Industrials | -24.5109| -1.0| 2/27
* Financials | -21.2513| -0.3| 7/21
* Energy | -10.7991| -0.4| 11/10
* Consumer Discretionary | -6.5975| -0.9| 4/9
* Real Estate | -6.4946| -1.0| 3/21
* Health Care | -3.7515| -2.2| 2/7
* Materials | -0.5792| 0.0| 24/30
* Consumer Staples | -0.1087| 0.0| 5/8
* Utilities | -0.0677| 0.0| 7/8
* Communication Services | 2.7694| 0.3| 5/2
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Shopify | -34.6600| -2.4| 36.0| 25.9
* Brookfield Asset Management | -20.5600| -2.8| -30.0| 36.3
* TD Bank | -11.5100| -0.9| 1.5| 32.9
* Royal Bank of Canada | 4.9470| 0.4| -22.8| 23.0
* CIBC | 8.8050| 2.1| 24.0| 28.9
* Bank of Montreal | 14.2600| 2.4| 58.9| 42.6

US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — In a week marked by vertiginous swings in financial markets, a sharp selloff in huge technology companies dragged down stocks on Friday. Traders just had a lot to digest over the past few days, from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish tilt to uncertainty about how the omicron coronavirus outbreak could affect the global reopening. A mixed U.S. jobs report did nothing to prevent another bout of intense volatility. The reason is: there’s a perception that the data wouldn’t be a game changer, with policy makers likely to follow through with faster tapering of asset purchases amid elevated inflation. Stocks extended their weekly slide. Electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc. sank about 6.5% and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. approached a bear market after a 19.7% plunge from a recent peak. Apple Inc. slipped after news reports that phones of a number of U.S. State Department employees were hacked. China’s companies listed in the U.S. slid amid ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc.’s preparations to leave American exchanges and regulators’ plans to force foreign firms to open their books or risk delisting. Haven assets like Treasuries, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and gold climbed.

Comments:
* “Today’s non-farm payroll report looks ‘messy’ to me. Best to wait for the revisions next month before sounding the stagflation alarm too loudly. And, if you think this report will push back the accelerated taper mentioned by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell this week, you would be mistaken,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group.
* “The economy is strong, but the labor market is reaching its full potential, and inflationary forces are already elevated, which is why the Fed is feeling more urgency to complete their tapering early,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.
* “This is a reminder of the uncertainty on the pace of the jobs recovery. It will give the Federal Reserve pause as it considers accelerating its monetary policy tightening. A slower pace would be welcomed by markets,” said Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at multi-asset investment platform eToro.  The U.S. Treasury again stopped short of labeling any foreign economies as manipulators of their exchange rates, while continuing to say that Taiwan and Vietnam met all three criteria for the designation. Switzerland dropped off the list, last published in April, of countries exceeding the three thresholds, with officials saying it violated two of the criteria while narrowly missing a third.
The Fed’s march toward higher rates presents greater risk for stock investors, and the likelihood of a correction in the S&P 500 next year is “elevated,” according to Bank of America’s Savita Subramanian.
“We are in an environment where the dividend yield on the S&P 500 is below where cash yields are likely to be in a year or two,” the strategist told Bloomberg TV.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.8% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.7%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.8%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.1310
* The British pound fell 0.5% to $1.3239
* The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 112.74 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined nine basis points to 1.36%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to -0.39%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 0.75%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.2% to $66.37 a barrel
* Gold futures rose 1.2% to $1,783.80 an ounce
–With assistance from Sunil Jagtiani, Robert Brand and Sophie Caronello.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence. -Lao Tzu, 571 BCE-c. 5^th century BCE

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