July 12, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
July 12^th, 100 B.C. Julius Caesar was born in Rome.  Go to article »
Buckminster Fuller, inventor, b. 1895.
Henry David Thoreau, b. 1817.
Pablo Neruda, poet, b. 1904.

Engagement ring sales soar as Americans recover from the pandemic.  Well, if you make it through the pandemic together, you can probably make it through anything. 

Mystery buyer spends $12.3 million on a 101-carat diamond — and pays in cryptocurrency.  Well, if we’re talking engagement rings …
 
Would you pay $1.6 million for a wristwatch…

Or on a Super Mario 64?

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Italy fans celebrate in Piccadilly Circus in central London after their team won the UEFA Euro 2020 Final against England when the game was decided on penalties.
CREDIT: VICTORIA JONES/ PA WIRE

Billionaire Richard Branson makes a statement as crew members Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla float in zero gravity on board Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity after reaching the edge of space above Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
CREDIT: VIRGIN GALATIC/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS

A lightning bolt is captured over Tokyo’s Odaiba waterfront area, with the Olympic rings seen in the foreground
CREDIT: KYODO/NEWSCOM / AVALON

Denton Fugate, of Ash Flat, Arkansas, comes off Double Deuce during bull riding rodeo action at the Calgary Stampede in Calgary, Alberta.
CREDIT: JEFF MCINTOSH/AP

Market Closes for July 12^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
    On this day in 1773, Jonathan’s Coffee House, where brokers had met for decades to smoke, drink and trade stocks and bonds, was renamed the London Stock Exchange.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities finished slightly lower Monday as investors await second-quarter earnings starting this week.  Commodities including oil and gold fell. The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 0.1%, with industrials, materials, and energy among laggards. Health care shares rose. The Bank of Canada named Carolyn Rogers as its senior deputy governor, filling its no. 2 position with a bank regulator in a clear signal  that it’s seeking to bulk up financial markets expertise within its top ranks.
Commodities:
* Western Canadian Select crude oil traded at a $13.00 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,805.83 an ounce
FX/ Bonds:
* The Canadian dollar fell 0.1% to C$1.2457 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year Canada government bond yield weakened to 1.318%

By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.1 percent at 20,233.08 in Toronto. The move follows the previous session’s increase of 1 percent. Canadian National Railway Co. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 1.5 percent.  OceanaGold Corp. had the largest drop, falling 5.1 percent. Today, 146 of 231 shares fell, while 83 rose; 6 of 11 sectors were lower, led by industrials stocks.
Insights
* The index advanced 29 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 39 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.7 percent below its 52-week high on July 7, 2021 and 31.2 percent above its low on Oct. 30, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is little changed in the past 5 days and rose 0.5 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.3 on a trailing basis and 16.8 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$3.19t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 7.55 percent compared with 7.81 percent in the previous session and the average of 7.65 percent over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Industrials | -20.0881| -0.9| 7/23
* Materials | -16.8145| -0.7| 13/40
* Energy | -13.8751| -0.5| 7/16
* Information Technology | -9.1980| -0.4| 2/10
* Utilities | -1.8589| -0.2| 3/13
* Consumer Discretionary | -0.4810| -0.1| 6/7
* Real Estate | 0.1958| 0.0| 11/14
* Consumer Staples | 0.4933| 0.1| 5/8
* Communication Services | 0.6463| 0.1| 5/2
* Health Care | 1.4800| 0.6| 6/4
* Financials | 34.6302| 0.6| 18/9
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move | % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Canadian National | -10.1100| -1.5| -49.3| -5.9
* Canadian Pacific | -6.2120| -1.4| -38.3| 3.8
* Barrick Gold | -4.8230| -1.5| -23.9| -10.1
* Bank of Montreal | 3.9610| 0.7| 74.4| 31.2
* TD Bank | 4.4310| 0.4| 87.7| 18.3
* Royal Bank of | | | |
* Canada | 13.3800| 1.1| 257.2| 22.1

US
By Claire Ballentine and Kamaron Leach
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks registered more all-time highs as investors await second-quarter earnings starting this week to gauge whether corporate profits can support equity valuations. Treasury yields edged slightly higher as the U.S. sold debt. Financials and communication services shares led the S&P 500 to another record, while Tesla, Nvidia and Google parent Alphabet pushed the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 into uncharted territory.  Both indexes set their previous closing marks on Friday.  The Stoxx Europe 600 gained for a second day and Asian equity indexes closed in the green. The U.S. Treasury sold $58 billion of three-year notes at yields slightly higher than before the auction.  A sale of $38 billion of 10-year notes was greeted by stronger demand.
The dollar gained against most major peers. “We expect more good news this quarter as more of the economy has opened up, while also acknowledging the second quarter will almost certainly end up being the peak in earnings growth for this cycle,” said LPL Financial strategists Jeff Buchbinder and Ryan Detrick. Equities and bonds have rallied amid a decline in long-term interest rates and inflation expectations as central banks hold off on unwinding the support driving the recovery from the pandemic.  Still, investors remain concerned about the spread of the delta variant and a slowdown in vaccination rates, while pondering when the Federal Reserve will start tapering stimulus. “The question at the core of the movements in the 10-year Treasury’s yield for most of this year has been whether economic re-openings stateside and around the globe will generate levels of longer lasting inflation for economies, central banks and markets to contend with or will the near-term inflation consumers and businesses are experiencing be transitory as economies transition to a post-Covid environment,” John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Co., wrote to clients.
Elsewhere, Asian stocks rose at the start of the week after China’s central bank moved to boost liquidity by cutting the amount of cash most banks must hold in reserve to buttress economic growth. The euro weakened after European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told investors to prepare for new guidance on monetary stimulus in 10 days.  Oil was lower after its first weekly loss in seven amid an OPEC+ dispute over a production increase.

Here are some events to watch this week:
* Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley are among firms starting the U.S. earnings season
* A closely-watched inflation metric — the June U.S. consumer price index — will offer insight into the inflationary pressures Tuesday
* The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s latest interest rate policy Wednesday
* Bank of Korea monetary decision Thursday
* China second-quarter GDP, key economic indicators Thursday
* Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appears before the Senate Banking Committee to deliver the semi-annual Monetary Policy Report to Congress Thursday
* Bank of Japan interest rate decision Friday

These are some of the main moves in financial markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.3% as of 4:02 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.5%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%
* The euro fell 0.1% to $1.1860
* The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.3883
* The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 110.36 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 1.36%
* Germany’s 10-year yield was little changed at -0.29%
* Britain’s 10-year yield was little changed at 0.65%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.5% to $74.17 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 0.2% to $1,806.10 an ounce
–With assistance from Jeran Wittenstein and Vildana Hajric.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

Change is the law of life.  And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. -John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963.

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