June 12, 2015 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

Poem Selected by Natasha Trethewey (in the NY Times, 5/24/16)

Long after my mother died, I found photographs of her with my father that I’d never seen, taken when she was only 21.  Though I recognized her, there was something in her face unfamiliar to me.  Looking at the pictures, I felt as I do reading this poem; the melancholy of knowing, as they could not have known then, all that was to come in their lives, each photograph and elegy for their past selves.

The Blue Dress

  by Jehanne Dubrow

That day, tired of playing dollies and Let’s
Pretend, I found folded silk in the bottom
drawer, pushed to the back behind sheets and
pillowcases, blue silk like skin near drowning,
each button a drooping pearl.  There were
albums I pulled from other drawers, faces
behind plastic film, the young couple framed
with black corners.  In each photograph, my
mother’s face was water just before a stone
drops in, surface-smooth, opaque.  That our
parents have lives before us is a secret we
close in a dark compartment, the blue dress
a body dragged from a lake.

Natasha Trethewey served as the poet laureate of the United States from 2012-2014.  She is a professor at Emory University.  Jehanne Dubrow is the author of two poetry collections, including most recently, “The Arranged Marriage,” published by the University of New Mexico Press in March.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  –Steve Jobs, 1955-2011.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Dresses and skirts hang on clotheslines inside a stadium, in an art exhibition titled ‘Thinking of You’ by Kosovo-born, London-based artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa, in Pristina, Kosovo, on Friday. Clothes donated by British barrister Cherie Blair and singer Rita Ora were among 5,000 garments in the art installation, drawing attention to the stigmas surrounding victims of wartime sexual violence. Hazir Reka/Reuters

Sanyu (l.), a five-day old Rothschild’s giraffe, runs with another member of the herd in their enclosure at Chester Zoo, in Chester, Britain, on Friday. Phil Noble/Reuters

Market Closes for June 12^th, 2015

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.  –George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950.

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Eric Lam

     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell a second day, capping a third weekly loss, as global markets retreated amid growing concern negotiators will fail to avoid a Greek default.

     Toronto-Dominion Bank slipped 1 percent to pace declines among lenders. Bankers Petroleum Ltd. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. retreated more than 3.8 percent as crude fell a second day to pare a weekly gain. Dominion Diamond Corp. slumped 7.3 percent, dropping for a second straight day after reporting earnings.

     The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index lost 89.73 points, or 0.6 percent, to 14,741.15 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The gauge declined 1.4 percent this week.

     Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. dropped 3.9 percent and AGF Management Ltd. retreated 3 percent as financial-services companies declined 0.5 percent. Eight of 10 industries in the benchmark Canadian equity gauge retreated on trading volume 22 percent lower than the 30-day average.

     The S&P/TSX joined declines in developed equity markets around the world, with the S&P 500 losing 0.7 percent in New York and the Stoxx Europe 600 falling 0.9 percent.

     European officials are preparing for the worst after an International Monetary Fund team left Brussels earlier this week, despairing of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s tactics. Tsipras is sending a delegation to Brussels with a new set of proposals for creditors with a goal to narrow differences before a meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday.

     Canadian households kept debt at near-record levels in the first quarter, at 163.3 percent of disposable income, compared with a revised 163.6 in the prior quarter, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa. Household net worth rose 3.4 percent to C$8.65 trillion.

US

By Jennifer Kaplan and Oliver Renick

     (Bloomberg) — The return of the U.S. consumer wasn’t enough to drive equities out of their weekly doldrums — not with a Federal Reserve meeting looming and European leaders still wrangling over Greece’s debt.

     Stocks tracked by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index finished the five days little changed. The gauge’s seventh straight week with a move of less than 1 percent wasn’t without drama, as equities began the period with the biggest three-day slide since March, only to rebound with the best gain in a month.

     While higher retail sales and a surge in confidence indicated American consumers got their mojo back and bolstered optimism in the economy, the specter of higher interest rates and the threat of Greek default kept equities in check. The run of weekly calm could end as Fed officials prepare to issue new forecasts for the economy and the path of rates, while Greece has less than a week to accept the conditions for aid.

     “There are some overriding currents with Greece and the Fed next week that could change the direction of the market,” said Walter Todd, who oversees about $1 billion as chief investment officer for Greenwood Capital. “The economic data has been better than expected here. We view that obviously as a positive for the economy and the market overall.”

     While the S&P 500 is trading in the smallest range since at least 1995, with the 2015 low only 6.5 percent below its year- to-date high, options traders are speculating equity swings will return, with many bracing for disturbances in the next six days, judging by the most popular hedges against S&P 500 volatility.  That period includes the two-day Fed gathering.                           

     The Fed is not expected to raise rates, though economic reports since the central bank’s last meeting have pushed the probability for tightening in September to 53 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

     The yield on 10-year Treasury notes touched the highest level since October in the week in anticipation of higher borrowing costs this year. Chair Janet Yellen may provide clues on the pace of tightening when she holds a press conference following the Fed meeting on June 17.

     “We could see some jaw-boning by the Fed to prepare the markets for an eventual rate increase,” Chris Gaffney, president of EverBank World Markets Inc. in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview. “The data this week has all been pretty good.”

     The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for June topped all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, while retail sales surged 1.2 percent in May. The gains bolstered speculation the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.

     However, the data weren’t enough to push the S&P 500 back to record levels, as the gauge finished the week 1.7 percent below its May 21 high. The index has gone 15 trading days without a record, the second-longest drought since it topped its 2007 high in 2013. It has averaged about 5 days between records in that period.

     After four months of negotiations, Greece and its creditors ended the week at a renewed impasse with the euro area due to withdraw its financial safety net at the end of the month. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the country to accept the framework for financial aid, while International Monetary Fund negotiators left talks earlier in the week.

     “There’s a lot of noise along the way, certainly it looks negative that the IMF pulled their negotiators out of there, but at the end we believe the Greek crisis will work itself out,” Gaffney said.                       

     Seven of the 10 main S&P 500 groups advanced in the week. Financial stocks got a boost from higher interest rates, rising 1 percent to lead gains. Utility shares, sought by some investors for their high dividend yields, slumped 0.5 percent.

     Citrix Systems Inc. climbed 8.5 percent after an investor called for an overhaul to the software company. Jesse Cohn of Elliot Management Corp. said the company should consider selling two of its units, expand its share buyback and recruit more talented managers.

     Energy producers dropped 0.9 percent. Transocean Ltd. lost 7.3 percent to lead a slump among offshore drillers after Barclays Plc’s investment-banking unit initiated coverage of the group with a negative outlook, in part citing low oil prices and an oversupplied rig market. Shares in energy companies also slipped amid concerns about a record pace of production from OPEC’s biggest members.

     Airlines slumped 3.6 percent in the week after American Airlines Group Inc. joined Delta Air Lines Inc. in saying its benchmark revenue gauge will decline more than forecast as domestic demand decreases. Southwest Airlines Co. slid 5.8 percent and Delta lost 4.1 percent.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Be magnificent!

You are never alone because you are full of all the memories, all the conditioning,

all the mutterings of yesterday; your mind is never clear of all the rubbish it has accumulated.

To be alone, you must die to the past.

When you are alone, totally alone, not belonging to any family, any nation, any culture,

any particular continent, there is that sense of being an outsider.

The man who is completely alone in this way is innocent and it is this innocence that frees the mind from sorrow.

Krishnamurti

As ever,

Carolann

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

                                                         -Vidal Sassoon, 1928-2012

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM

Senior Portfolio Manager &

Senior Vice-President

Queensbury Securities Inc.,

St. Andrew’s Square,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7