February 15, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

If I am right it will be a slow business for our people to reach rational views, assuming that we are allowed to work peacefully to that end.  But as I grow older I grow calm.  If I feel what are perhaps an old man’s apprehensions, that competition from new races will cut deeper than working men’s disputes and will test whether we can hang together and fight; if I fear that we are running through the world’s resources at a pace that we cannot keep; I do not lose my hopes.  I do not pin my dreams for the future to my country or even to my race.  I think it probable that civilization somehow will last as long as I care to look ahead – perhaps with smaller numbers, but perhaps also bred to greatness and splendor by science.  I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be – that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.  And so beyond the vision of battling races and an impoverished earth I catch a dreaming glimpse of peace.
   The other day my dream was pictured to my mind.  I was walking homeward on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Treasury, and as I looked beyond Sherman’s statue to the west the sky was aflame with scarlet and crimson from the setting sun.  But, like the note of downfall in Wagner’s opera, below the skyline there came from little globes the pallid discord of the electric lights.  And I thought to myself the Götterdämmerung will end, and from those globes clustered like evil eggs will come the new masters of the sky.  It is like the time in which we live.  But then I remembered the faith that I partly have expressed, faith in a universe not measured by our fears, a universe that has thought and more than thought inside of it, and as I gazed, after the sunset and above the electric lights, there shone the stars. –Mr. Justice Holme’s speech at the Harvard Law School dinner, New York, February 15^th, 1913.

1965    Canada’s new maple leaf flag was unfurled in ceremonies in Ottawa.

On Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 260 crew members and escalating tensions with Spain.
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PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A man walks his dogs as the sun rises on a field in Eschborn, Germany, on Wednesday. Michael Probst/AP

A woman stops to check her phone as the sun strikes a wall behind her in New York on Tuesday. Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Rumor, a German shepherd, poses for photos Wednesday after winning Best in Show at the 141st Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York. Julie Jacobson/AP
Market Closes for February 15^th, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
Canada
By Lu Wang
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for a seventh day, with the benchmark index reaching yet another record high amid the longest rally since March. The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 0.4 percent to 15,844.95 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. Ten of 11 main industries advanced as banks, telecom and health-care shares climbed at least 0.8 percent. Economic data was mixed today, with home sales in January falling to the second-lowest level since 2015 while manufacturing sales rose more than economists forecast. 
TIO Networks Corp. rallied 5.1 percent. PayPal Holdings Inc. said it will buy the Canadian bill payment company in a cash deal worth about $233 million. 
Teck Resources Ltd. dropped 10 percent even after posting profit that beat expectations. Shares of Canada’s largest diversified miner are up 9.2 percent this year. On a conference call, the company said it favors debt reduction over dividends, but will look at the payout policy in April or June.
US
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks climbed for a seventh straight session as rallying financial shares added momentum to an advance that sent seven of 11 sectors higher on the day, capping the longest streak of gains since September 2013.
     The S&P 500 Index added 0.5 percent to a record 2,349 at 4 p.m., as investors assessed economic data that included January inflation numbers that climbed faster than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.5 percent to 20,611.86. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.66 percent to 5,819.44.
* Financial stocks climbed 1.2% as the 10-Year Treasury yield jumped to 2.5%
* Utility and real estate stocks were the worst-performing groups, each slipping at least 0.3%
* About 7.1 billion shares traded hands, the heaviest volume since Feb. 1
* VIX added 11.5% after jumping above 11.8 as contracts expiring today gained at 9:10 a.m.
* Procter & Gamble Co. rose 3.7% after Trian Fund Management revealed a new stake
* Defensive sectors including health-care shares also gained ground, a signal that the stock market rally is broadening, said Stephane Barbier de la Serre, a strategist at Makor Capital Markets in Geneva
* According to a note from JPMorgan’s technical analyst
Jason Hunter, the rally in U.S. stocks has entered an “acceleration phase,” with broad sector participation
* ECONOMY
**  January consumer prices rose 2.5% YoY, compared with an expected 2.4%, and were ahead 0.6% MoM, compared with an estimated 0.3%
** January retail sales also increased more than forecast, suggesting consumers are positioned to buttress economic growth
** Wednesday’s data lifted the odds for a Fed rate increase in March to 40 percent from 30 percent two days ago
* EARNINGS:
** After-market Wednesday: CBS (CBS), Cimarex Energy (XEC), TripAdvisor (TRIP), Williams Cos (WMB), CF Industries Holdings (CF), Marathon Oil (MRO),Avis Budget Group (CAR), International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), Kraft Heinz (KHC), NetApp (NTAP), Stericycle (SRCL), Varex Imaging (VREX), Applied Materials (AMAT), Chemours (CC), Equinix (EQIX), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Marriott International (MAR)
** Pre-market Thursday: Waste Management (WM), Tempur Sealy International (TPX), Laboratory Corp of America Holdings (LH), MGM Resorts (MGM), SCANA (SCG), Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN), PG&E (PCG), Cabela’s (CAB), GNC Holdings (GNC), Charter Communications (CHTR),Duke Energy (DUK), Zoetis (ZTS), Ameren (AEE)
* Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.3% at the close; lenders led gains, with Credit Agricole SA up the most after reporting higher profit at its LCL consumer-banking division

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

In all religions of the world you will find it claimed that there is unity within us.
Being one with divinity, there cannot be any further progress in that sense.
Knowledge means finding this unity.
Swami Vivekananda

As ever,

Carolann

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life
as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
                                                         -Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Portfolio Manager &
Senior Vice-President

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com