July 12, 2019 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday!
July 12, 1817 – Samuel Jarvis kills John Ridout, 18-year-old son of Surveyor General Thomas Ridout, in the last fatal duel in York. Toronto, Ontario  Go to article »
A treasury of special places
Migratory bird sanctuaries in China. A radio astronomy observatory in northwest England. Burial mounds in Japan. Eight Frank Lloyd Wright constructions.
These are just a handful of the 29 additions Unesco made this week to its World Heritage List of sites that have cultural, natural, scientific, historical or other significance. (The criteria for selection are broad.)
The list began in 1978 with 12 sites, including the Galápagos Islands and Yellowstone National Park. It now has 1,121.
Inclusion can spur preservation and protection. But it can also stimulate tourism, and some sites have struggled to manage an increase in visitors.

The Grand Canal in Venice.  Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Venice and its lagoon received the designation in the 1980s, enhancing their already extraordinary appeal. It’s now one of the most heavily toured cities in the world, with tens of millions of visitors annually, overwhelming a population of just 50,000.

In fact, this year, Unesco almost added Venice to another list: endangered World Heritage sites. -from The New York Times

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Over one hundreD yachts prepare to race during the Salcombe Gin Merlin Rocket Week off the shores of Salcombe in Devon.
CREDIT: APEX

Researchers and employees celebrate after receiving confirmation of Hayabusa2’s touchdown on the asteroid Ryugu, at the mission control room in Sagamihara city, Japan. Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe touched down on a distant asteroid on Thursday on a mission to collect samples that could shed light on the history of the solar system.
CREDIT: YUKATA IUIMA/ ISAS-JAXA/ AFP

Dancer’s from English National Ballet rehearse for Akram Khan’s production of Giselle on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. The play will be performed at the 2019 Chekov International Theatre Festival.
CREDIT: VALERY SHARIFULIN/TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Market Closes for July 12^th, 2019

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1943, women were allowed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in its 151-year history. With so many men off serving in the military, the exchange allowed women to fill some jobs. They were still not allowed to trade and worked as pages and reporters, shuttling orders around the floor of the exchange.
Canada
By Kristine Owram
(Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a second day as the ongoing fallout from a compliance breach at CannTrust Holdings Inc. hit the entire cannabis sector.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 0.2% to 16,488.12. Health- care stocks slid 4.6%, the most since December, as CannTrust tumbled 17% after halting all sales and shipments of its products. Canopy Growth Corp. fell 8% and Cronos Group Inc. lost 6%.
Industrials followed their U.S. counterparts higher, gaining 0.4%. Air Canada rose 1.5% and trucking company TFI International Inc. added 1.3%. In other moves:
Stocks
* Cameco Corp. gained 4% and NexGen Energy Ltd. jumped 11% after
U.S. President Donald Trump decided against placing a cap on uranium imports
* Aritzia Inc. added 7% after the clothing retailer reported
earnings and revenue that beat estimates
* Alaris Royalty Corp. gained 2.3%. CIBC upgraded the stock to
outperform, citing its additional investment in Planet Fitness Inc.
Commodities
* Western Canada Select crude oil traded at a $10.65 discount to
WTI, the narrowest gap since April
* Gold rose 0.4% to $1,412.20 an ounce
FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar strengthened 0.3% to C$1.3035 per U.S. dollar
* The Canada 10-year government bond yield fell 2 basis points to 1.61%
US
By Vildana Hajric
(Bloomberg) — U.S. equities closed at a record high for a second straight day, and recorded a second consecutive weekly advance, as investors remained cautiously optimistic about prospects for easier monetary policy, despite a bigger-than-projected rise in a key inflation measure.The dollar retreated for a third day.
The S&P 500 Index rose Friday, led by technology and industrial shares, while drug stocks continued to weigh on the benchmark. An unexpected increase in American producer prices seemed to do little to alter investor sentiment toward the Federal Reserve’s next policy move. Treasury 10-year yields slipped. “The important thing is that the Fed has reassured themarket that ‘Hey, we’re not hiking rates anymore and we may actually ease, if necessary,”’ Scott Wren, a senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, told Bloomberg TV. “I think that’s really what the market wanted. It’s a very important concept that global central banks — and you could have said this for the last several months — they’re not in hiking mode anymore. They are in easing mode.”
The Stoxx Europe 600 eked out its first gain of the week, while shares dipped in Australia and Japan and posted modest gains in Hong Kong, China and South Korea. Emerging-market shares declined. Government bonds extended declines in Europe, heading for the worst week since at least October, after industrial output data for the euro region beat expectations.
The single currency advanced. The rally in risk assets is continuing to benefit from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s dovish comments this week, even after strong U.S. consumer inflation data on Thursday offered a potential complication to policy makers when they set rates at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, weak data from both Singapore and China sent another warning shot to the world economy on the impact of trade tensions. The reports came after President Donald Trump complained that China hasn’t increased its purchases of American farm products, a promise he said he had secured at his G-20 meeting with the country’s president Xi Jinping last month. Elsewhere, West Texas intermediate crude gained as operators in the Gulf of Mexico braced for Tropical Storm Barry. The lira weakened after Turkey said it started receiving parts of a Russian-made missile defense system, a move opposed by the U.S.
Here are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 Index climbed 0.5% as of 4:01 p.m. New York time.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained less than 0.05%.
* The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index fell 0.1%.
* The MSCI Emerging Markets Index sank 0.3%.
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index declined 0.3% to the lowest in over a week.
* The euro rose 0.2% to $1.1271.
* The British pound advanced 0.4% to $1.2573, the strongest in more than a week.
* The Japanese yen climbed 0.6% to 107.86 per dollar, the biggest gain in over three weeks.
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined three basis points to 2.11%, the biggest drop in over a week.
* Germany’s 10-year yield gained two basis points to -0.21%, the highest in more than five weeks.
* Britain’s 10-year yield decreased less than one basis point to 0.835%.
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude increased 0.1% to $60.26 a barrel.
* Gold gained 0.8% to $1,414.69 an ounce.
–With assistance from Adam Haigh and Laura Curtis.
Have  a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Follow your  honest convictions and stay strong.
                     -William Thackeray, 1811-1863

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