January 24, 2024 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy 24/2 – an auspicious date!

January 24, 1984: The Apple Macintosh computer goes on sale – the first commercially successful personal computer using a graphical user interface and a mouse.  Forty years later, Apple is valued at $3 trillion US$.

January 24, 2008: French bank Société Générale announced it had uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud by a single futures trader.  Go to article >>

On Jan. 24, 1848: James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of ’49.

1935: First canned beer.

Edith Wharton, b. 1862.

John Belushi, b. 1949.

A look at what else happened in history on January 24.

Watch the world through different animals’ eyes in this stunning high-tech footage

Cameras recorded footage in red, blue, green and UV channels simultaneously, with openly available software processing the raw footage and converting it into different kinds of “animal vision,” showing us how bees, birds, mice and dogs might see the world. Read More.

‘Incredibly rare’ 2nd-century Roman armor pieced together like an ‘ancient jigsaw puzzle’  

Conservators in the U.K. have painstakingly reassembled a piece of Roman armor that was broken into more than 100 pieces.  Read More.

Heat bursts from Iceland’s recent eruptions in eerie NASA satellite image

Satellite images reveal the heat still radiating from the reawakened volcano in Iceland. Read More.

Mysterious ‘sudden death’ of quantum vortices in a superconductor stumps scientists

The sudden disappearance of quantum fluctuations inside an atom-thin 2D superconductor has left scientists baffled. Read More.

Iconic baseball players elected to the Hall of Fame
Former MLB players Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday. Read more about their storied careers. 

Netflix gains more than 13 million subscribers in the fourth quarter
The company also declared its password-sharing crackdown a success.

The best dressed stars so far at Haute Couture Week 2024
Celebrities, editors and designers are congregating in Paris this week to see showcases of the industry’s most elite and decadent looks.

British zoo has a new plan to rehabilitate its potty-mouthed parrots
A British wildlife park has hatched a plan to rehabilitate its cuss-happy parrots after they unleashed a tide of expletives.

500,000:  That’s how many people visited India’s new Lord Ram temple on Tuesday — the first day the massive complex was open to the public. One of Hinduism’s most revered deities was consecrated at the temple a day earlier in a controversial ceremony that was presided over by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Gerlache strait, Antarctica

The tail of a humpback whale in the sea between the Palmer archipelago and the Antarctic peninsula. Scientists are analysing the condition of the sea and monitoring the species inhabiting it

Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

Ahmedabad, India

Students of the Swaminarayan Gurukul school demonstrate for the media a purification bath ritual, which is believed to absolve them of their sins

Photograph: Ajit Solanki/AP

Paris, France

Models present creations by Yuima Nakazato during the women’s haute-couture spring/summer 2024 fashion week

Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

Market Closes for January 24^th, 2024

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

📈 On this day in 1848, workers dredged a stream to speed up the waterflow into the sluiceway of John Sutter’s sawmill in Coloma, Calif. and struck a bed of soft yellow rock. The California gold rush had begun. 

Canada

By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 21,025.78 in Toronto, ending a 4-day gain.

The loss follows the previous session’s increase of 0.5%.
Canadian National Railway Co. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.8%.

BlackBerry Ltd. had the largest drop, falling 17.9%.
Today, 122 of 225 shares fell, while 101 rose; 9 of 11 sectors were lower, led by materials stocks.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 0.3%
* The index advanced 1.9% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 20% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is at its 52-week high and 12.5% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 1.6% in the past 5 days and rose 0.7% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.6 on a trailing basis and 15.3 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.2% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.33t
* 30-day price volatility little changed to 11.31% compared with 11.31% in the previous session and the average of 10.90% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | | Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Materials | -23.6931| -1.1| 16/35
Industrials | -14.2299| -0.5| 9/17
Communication Services | -5.7083| -0.7| 0/5
Real Estate | -3.7886| -0.7| 6/15
Consumer Discretionary | -3.3880| -0.4| 6/7
Information Technology | -3.0210| -0.2| 3/7
Utilities | -1.4144| -0.2| 4/10
Health Care | -1.0668| -1.7| 0/4
Consumer Staples | -0.9458| -0.1| 2/9
Financials | 23.0455| 0.4| 19/8
Energy | 25.3896| 0.7| 36/5
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD |Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian National | -12.4500| -1.8| 69.3| -0.1
Barrick Gold | -6.7520| -2.6| 14.2| -12.2
Agnico Eagle Mines | -6.1430| -2.6| 87.4| -8.9
Canadian Natural Resources | 6.5910| 1.0| -18.8| -1.7
Bank of Montreal | 6.7550| 1.0| 24.4| -0.8
TD Bank | 9.2010| 0.9| -55.1| -3.9

US
By Rheaa Rao
(Bloomberg) — US stock indexes ended Wednesday off session highs, after earnings-related optimism fueled by Netflix Inc. moderated and investors geared up for another batch of key quarterly results.
The S&P 500 was little changed when markets closed while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 jumped 0.5%.

US Treasury yields rose, with the 30-year rate climbing to its highest level so far this year.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index trimmed earlier declines.
Tesla Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. report results after the closing bell.

Investors are also getting ready  to parse a slew of US economic data — including gross domestic product — on Thursday, while continuing to mull when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. 
“Frankly, everything depends on the incoming data now and there are a lot of potentially significant releases over the next few weeks that could swing the odds of a March rate cut in either direction,” Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote. “We still think the Fed will lower rates by 25 basis points at that upcoming meeting.”
US data that released earlier on Wednesday showing business activity expanded in January by the most in seven months bodes well for stocks, according to Renaissance Macro’s Neil Dutta.
“Growth is up and inflation is down. The former puts a ceiling on how many cuts the Federal Reserve will do while the latter means the Fed still ends up cutting,” he said. “Very good scenario for equity markets.”
Earlier, Bank of Canada held its key interest rate at 5%, as expected, and signaled it’s done hiking.

Also on the roster this week is European Central Bank’s policy meeting on Thursday.
Euro-area bond yields slipped earlier after data showed business activity contracted in January for the eighth month. 
Elsewhere, industrial metals prices received a boost after China signaled plans to stimulate its economy by cutting the reserve requirement ratio for banks.

The move should allow Chinese banks to step up lending and their purchases of government bonds.
The news also supported Brent crude around $80 a barrel.   

Key events this week:
* Eurozone ECB rate decision, Thursday
* Germany IFO business climate, Thursday
* US GDP, initial jobless claims, durable goods, wholesale inventories, new home sales, Thursday
* Japan Tokyo CPI, Friday
* US personal income & spending, Friday
* Bank of Japan issues minutes of policy meeting, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.5%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2%
* The euro rose 0.2% to $1.0880
* The British pound rose 0.2% to $1.2717
* The Japanese yen rose 0.5% to 147.62 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin rose 0.7% to $39,485.13
* Ether fell 0.1% to $2,199.39
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced five basis points to 4.17%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 2.34%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.01%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3% to $75.35 a barrel
* Spot gold fell 0.8% to $2,012.42 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from John Viljoen, Cristin Flanagan, Julien Ponthus, Sujata Rao, Felice Maranz and Isabelle Lee.

Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!

As ever,

Carolann

Worrying is like paying interest on a debt that may never come due. –Will Rogers, 1879-1935.

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