January 16th, 2012 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Quiet day today with US markets closed for Martin Luther King Day.

I was reading an interview with author Louisa Young in the FT yesterday and she was asked, “If you could own any painting, what would it be?” She replied, “Carvaggio’s ‘Supper at Emmaus’ but I’d want to leave it where it was – it’s a great influence on humanity, that painting.” I couldn’t remember it, so I looked it up; here it is:

It was painted by the artist in 1601 and now hangs in the National Gallery in London.

The poem:

Prayer on an Orphic Gold Leaf

-by Ruth Padel

Don’t be afraid. On your way you’ll pass the rivers

Mnemosyne and Lethe. Don’t drink the water –

you don’t need any longer to remember or forget.

You’re a lily closing on its stamen, the zendrum

of a heart in tremolo. You may hear music. Whip-rays

of light converge by the bed on a Book of Psalms

left by your last visitor. You are glass, annealing

to that celestial temperature where molecules

rearrange all inner stress to perfect surface tension

in a new, fused, tough material. In the distance

you’ll see one pine-tree, needle-leaves

clumped in three balls on a trunk like black bone

twisted in wind. You’ll know

you are making, and coming, home.

Poem extracted from The Mara Crossing by Ruth Padel

photos of the day

January 16, 2012

Steam rises from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano in Puebla. The volcano is located 78 miles east of Mexico City.

Violeta Schmidt/Reuters

Oil removal ships navigate around the cruise ship Costa Concordia, after it ran aground near the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, last Friday night. The rescue operation was called off mid-afternoon Monday after the Costa Concordia shifted a few inches in rough seas. The fear is that if the ship shifts significantly, some 500,000 gallons of fuel may begin to leak into the pristine waters.

Gregorio Borgia/AP

Market Closes for January 16th, 2012

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Matt Walcoff

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose, led by raw- materials producers, as gold gained after Standard & Poor’s cut the credit ratings of nine euro-region countries.

Kinross Gold Corp., Canada’s third-largest gold producer by market value, advanced 2.3 percent as the metal gained on demand for a haven. Provident Energy Ltd., a natural gas liquids storage and transportation company, soared 18 percent after agreeing to be bought by Pembina Pipeline Corp. for about C$11.86 a share. Canadian National Railway Co., the country’s biggest railroad, dropped 2.5 percent in the second day after an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut his rating on the shares.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 27.54 points, or 0.2 percent, to 12,258.60 after three people with knowledge of the transactions said the European Central Bank bought Italian and Spanish bonds today.

“More and more, this is going to rest on the shoulders of Mr. Draghi in terms of providing liquidity to the markets,” Ian Nakamoto, a money manager at MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier Inc. in Toronto, said in a telephone interview, referring to ECB President Mario Draghi. The firm oversees about $4 billion.

“Any time you have an increase in the money supply or liquidity being provided to the gold market, that helps gold prices.”

The S&P/TSX climbed each of the past four weeks, the longest streak in nine months, as economic data signaled a strengthening U.S. economy and investors speculated China will enact monetary policies to support growth. The index slumped 11 percent in 2011 as raw-materials and energy producers, which make up 48 percent of Canadian stocks by market value, retreated.

Gold futures rose in electronic trading in New York.

Kinross increased 2.3 percent to C$13.20. Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer of the metal, climbed 0.7 percent to C$49.78. Pan American Silver Corp., which mines in Mexico, gained 4.1 percent to C$25.67 as silver advanced.

Uranium One Inc., a mining company controlled by Moscow- based ARMZ Uranium Holding, rallied 16 percent, the most since October 2009, to C$2.73 after saying production climbed to a record in 2011.

Denison Mines Corp., another uranium producer, soared 19 percent, the most since May 2009, to C$1.91. Cameco Corp., the world’s biggest company in the industry, climbed 5.1 percent to C$21.71.

Provident Energy surged 18 percent to C$11.20, the highest since March 2009, after Pembina agreed to buy it for C$3.2 billion ($3.1 billion) in shares. Pembina, Canada’s fourth- largest pipeline company by market value, lost 4.3 percent to C$26.70.

Canadian National retreated after Thomas R. Wadewitz, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., reduced his rating on the stock to “underweight” from “neutral” Jan. 13. CN is likely to raise prices less quickly than its U.S. peers, Wadewitz wrote in a note to clients. The shares decreased 2.5 percent to C$76.28 today.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s biggest fertilizer producer by market value, increased 2.1 percent to C$46.74 after Jacob Bout, an analyst at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, raised his rating on the shares to “sector outperform” from “sector perform.” The analyst cited the shares’ decline in price relative to assets in a note to clients.

Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns commercial properties in eastern Canada, slipped 2.4 percent to C$21.85 after agreeing to buy Canmarc REIT for C$16.50 a unit. Cominar made an unsolicited bid of C$15.30 a unit in November.

Canmarc rallied 3.3 percent to C$16.52, the highest since it began trading in May 2010.

US

Markets Closed

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

What is the soul? The soul is consciousness.

It shines as the light within the heart.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

As ever,

Carolann

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart…

forgiveness saves the expense of anger,

the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

-Hannah More, 1745-1833

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP, CIM, FCSI

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor