June 28, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
June 28th, 1914: Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie are assassinated.  This ultimately triggered the First World War, which with over 370million deaths was one of the bloodiest war of all time.  Five years later to the day, the Treaty of Versailles formally ended the war.

1997:  Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear during their WBA heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas. Go to article  

Stonewall Riot, June 28, 1969: Start of Gay Liberation movement.

Peter Paul Rubens, artist, b. 1577.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau , philosopher, b. 1712.
Gilda Radner, comedian, b.1946.
Mel Brooks, actor, b.1926.

Pack your bags, Barbie fans!  The iconic doll’s pink Malibu Dream House is available to rent ahead of the movie’s release. And yes, it comes with big Ken energy.

Bones reveal our ancestors’ morbid past.  Ancient human relatives butchered and possibly ate one another about 1.45 million years ago, a new study shows.

That’s one costly science tragedy.  A New York janitor heard ‘annoying alarms’ and turned off a freezer, ruining 20 years of school research worth $1 million, a lawsuit says.

A toast to a spirit you’ve never heard of.  Arak, the Middle Eastern drink, is having a revival across the globe. A new generation of distilleries is bringing the classic drink to fresh audiences

A ‘captured’ alien planet may be hiding at the edge of our solar system – and it’s not ‘Planet X’
The cold and mysterious Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system may be hiding a rogue exoplanet, new research suggests. Read More.

White Gladis the orca may have been pregnant when she started attacking boats
White Gladis was so hellbent on stopping boats in the Strait of Gibraltar that she engaged in attacks instead of protecting her newborn calf. Read More

Climate change causes a mountain peak frozen for thousands of years to collapse
Part of a Swiss mountain’s summit has collapsed, sending more than 3.5 million cubic feet (100,000 cubic meters) of rock crashing into the valley below. Read More
PHOTOS  OF THE DAY

Galle, Sri Lanka
Nursery school children dressed in traditional Kandyan costumes pose for photos during a cultural event before the Esala Perahera festival, which celebrates the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha
Photograph: Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images

Hatay, Turkey
A couple who got engaged before the earthquake marry in the container city where their families are staying
Photograph: Dia Images/Getty Images.

Sands in the TV show Castle
Photograph: Eric McCandless/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images.  RIP Julian Sands.
Market Closes for June 28^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1939, Pan American Airways began the world’s first regularly scheduled transatlantic passenger service when its Dixie Clipper pontoon plane took off from Port Washington on New York’s Long Island, bound for the Azores, Lisbon, and Marseilles. Ticket price: $375 (one way), more than $8,000 in today’s money. The 22 passengers got six-course dinners and a scheduled flight time of a mere 22 hours.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the third day, climbing 0.4%, or 85.76 to 19,818.85 in Toronto.
The index advanced to the highest closing level since June 19.
Today, information technology stocks led the market higher, as 8 of 11 sectors gained; 143 of 229 shares rose, while 81 fell.
Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 4.1%. Interfor Corp. had the largest increase, rising 8.0%.
Insights
* This quarter, the index fell 1.4%
* This month, the index rose 1.3%
* The index advanced 3.1% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 14% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 4.9% below its 52-week high on Feb. 2, 2023 and 10.9% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.6% in the past 5 days and fell 0.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.9 on a trailing basis and 13.7 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.4% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.13t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 11.12% compared with 11.06% in the previous session and the average of 11.62% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology | 22.8348| 1.5| 9/2
Consumer Staples | 17.5528| 2.1| 10/1
Energy | 15.7558| 0.5| 33/6
Financials | 10.7516| 0.2| 19/9
Communication Services | 6.6966| 0.8| 4/1
Consumer Discretionary | 5.0987| 0.7| 11/4
Real Estate | 2.6510| 0.6| 16/5
Health Care | 1.2245| 1.9| 4/0
Industrials | -0.8361| 0.0| 18/8
Utilities | -2.7368| -0.3| 2/14
Materials | -3.7143| -0.2| 17/31
================================================================
| | |Volume VS |
| Index | | 20D AVG |YTD Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Couche-Tard | 13.9900| 4.1| 34.1| 14.3
Shopify | 12.9900| 1.8| -21.6| 82.2
Canadian Natural Resources | 7.6600| 1.4| -18.6| -3.1
Bank of Montreal | -3.1390| -0.5| 2.3| -3.7
Thomson Reuters | -3.5070| -1.8| 8.4| 16.0
Canadian Pacific Kansas | -7.2190| -1.1| 34.3| 3.8
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street traders took Jerome Powell’s hawkish signals in stride, with bond yields dropping.
Stocks fluctuated in one of the last few days of a quarter that saw a blistering artificial-intelligence rally.
A slide in chipmakers offset gains in other technology groups, with Nvidia Corp. slumping on concerns over an eventual US tightening in chip-export restrictions.
Giants Tesla Inc. and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. gained.
Swap market bets on further tightening barely budged after the Federal Reserve’s chief downplayed the odds of a recession while signaling officials could hike for two straight meetings, if needed.
With the Fed set to disclose the results its stress test Wednesday, traders took a more cautious stance on the financial industry.
While analysts don’t expect any huge negative surprises, a gauge of banks fell.
Several executives have recently tempered shareholder expectations regarding dividend increases and stock buybacks — which had been the focus of investors in previous years.
“Quarter-end positioning could drive volatility through the end of the week,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide. “Investors are increasingly pricing in a soft landing. A reacceleration in earnings will be required to drive the next phase of the market move.”
Mutual funds bought stocks for the first time since February in the past month as fear of missing out outweighed economic concerns, according to Barclays Plc strategists.
“FOMO has seen frustrated bears turning into reluctant bulls,” the strategists led by Emmanuel Cau wrote. “It is noteworthy that equities were being bought despite the negative economic and market outlook” of most investors.
Meantime, BlackRock Inc. introduced a bullish call on AI amid a rally that’s putting the Nasdaq 100 on pace for its best-ever first half of a year.
“A mega force like AI can be a big driver of returns even when the macro environment is not your friend,” wrote strategists including Jean Boivin, Wei Li and Vivek Paul. “A longer-term investor can look past some of the near-term pain.”
In other corporate news, General Mills Inc. fell after the food producer gave a guidance that suggests price hikes will no longer make up for slowing sales as inflation-weary shoppers cut back on spending.
Netflix Inc. gained as Oppenheimer raised its price target.
Elsewhere, oil rose after a US government report showed nationwide stockpiles fell the most in two months, outpacing market expectations.  
Key events this week:
* Eurozone economic confidence, consumer confidence, Thursday
* US GDP, initial jobless claims, Thursday
* Atlanta Fed President Rafael Bostic speaks, Thursday
* China manufacturing PMI, non-manufacturing PMI, balance of payments, Friday
* US personal income and spending, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, 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 0.1%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index rose 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.4%
* The euro fell 0.4% to $1.0915
* The British pound fell 0.8% to $1.2641
* The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 144.43 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 1.8% to $30,106.98
* Ether fell 3.2% to $1,832.1
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined five basis points to 3.71%
* Germany’s 10-year yield declined four basis points to 2.32%
* Britain’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 4.32%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.2% to $69.21 a barrel
* Gold futures fell 0.3% to $1,918.40 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Brett Miller, Tassia Sipahutar, Sujata Rao, Denitsa Tsekova, Isabelle Lee and Peyton Forte.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
If knowledge is treasure, judgement is the treasurer.  He that hath too much knowledge without judgement
is made more for another man’s use than his own.  –William Penn, 1644-1718.

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