March 11, 2021 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
Johnny Appleseed Day

1918 – Start of the flu pandemic.

It was a year ago today that the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic. In the U.S. alone, there have been more than 29 million cases and nearly 530,000 deaths. We took a look at a year like no other.

2011 – A 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people and causing the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima nuclear plant.
Ten years after an earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear meltdown and killed more than 19,000 people, the legacy of the Fukushima disaster still feels painfully immediate.

On March 11, 1941, President Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.  Go to article »  

A Utah woman found a 19th-century tombstone in her new yard.  Congratulations, you’ve got ghosts! 

People traveling to Thailand can now wait out their quarantine period on a yacht.  Mandated safety precautions, but make it fancy. 

RIP to the inventor of the cassette tape.

To photograph snowflakes, Nathan Myhrvold took 18 months to build an entirely new camera with the best sensors that captured a million pixels. Last year, he emerged with what he called the highest resolution images of flakes ever produced.  Don Komarechka, a lower tech photographer, uses a store-bought camera and a high-power macro lens to snap his snowflakes. To challenge Dr. Myhrvold’s claims, he took an image that he says was even higher resolution. His rival, whose snowflakes are sharper when printed at expansive sizes, disagreed.  Both methods produce stunning results. While Dr. Myhrvold’s images capture light passing through a snowflake, Mr. Komarechka uses light reflected off the surface, revealing “sometimes beautiful rainbow colors in the center.”

from the Late Night Hosts:

“With this passage, the government is about to send $1,400 stimulus checks to millions of Americans. There you go, baby. You’re rich! Buy yourself something nice, like rent or medicine.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“One point nine trillion dollars. That’s like a dollar for every email you got this year that started with, ‘In these challenging times.’” — JIMMY FALLON

“It’s very rare to have that, but Republicans in Congress can’t support it because Democrats in Congress do support it. If a meteor was hurtling toward the earth and Chuck Schumer said, ‘We’ve got to stop this,’ Mitch McConnell would be like, ‘No we don’t. No we don’t. Could lead to socialism.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL

“The administration says a large number of Americans could receive their $1,400 stimulus payments before the end of March. Do you know what that means?
There’s finally going to be an end of March!” — STEPHEN COLBERT

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A buddhist monk prays for the victims of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami at a beach in Iwaki, Japan
CREDIT: YUICHI YAMAZAKI / GETTY IMAGES

Paper lanterns are lit in Tokyo, Japan, for the victims of the tsunami 
CREDIT: ISSEI KATO/REUTERS

An artwork by artist Guillaume Legros, also known as Saype, is seen from the air in Benin’s floating village of Ganvie
CREDIT: YANICK FOLLY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Large waves hit the harbour wall at Newhaven, E Sussex
CREDIT: MATTHEW CHILDS/REUTERS
Market Closes for March 11^th, 2021

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
     On this day in 1991, Microsoft confirmed it was the subject of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a final ruling on April 3, 2000, finding that Microsoft had violated Federal antitrust law. That day, Microsoft stock plunged 14.5%, shedding $80 billion in market value.
Canada
By Michael Bellusci
(Bloomberg) — Canadian equities rose Thursday, advancing for a fifth straight session with cannabis shares and tech leading the charge. The S&P/TSX Composite Index advanced 0.8% to a record high. Nine of 11 sectors advanced, with communication services and real estate lagging. Oil rose the most in almost a week alongside a broader market rally as signs emerged that a recovery in fuel consumption is gaining traction. Bank of Canada officials were driven by concern about the uneven labor market recovery in deciding this week to maintain extraordinary monetary stimulus. With its purchase by Air Canada in jeopardy, tour operator Transat AT Inc. said it’s exploring a government emergency loan that could come as early as this month.
Commodities
* Western Canadian Select crude oil traded at an $11.05 discount to West Texas Intermediate
* Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,725 an ounce
FX/Bonds
* The Canadian dollar rose 0.8% to C$1.2523 per U.S. dollar
* The 10-year Canada government bond yield rose 2 basis points to 1.43%

By Bloomberg Automation:
     (Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the fifth day, climbing 0.8 percent, or 154.57 to 18,844.57 in Toronto. Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 3.9 percent. Aphria Inc. had the largest increase, rising 10.8 percent. Today, 153 of 219 shares rose, while 63 fell; 9 of 11 sectors were higher, led by information technology stocks.
Insights
* This quarter, the index rose 8.1 percent
* So far this week, the index rose 2.5 percent, heading for the
biggest advance since the week ended Feb. 5
* The index advanced 32 percent in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI
AC Americas Index gained 46 percent in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.2 percent below its 52-week high on
March 11, 2021 and 68.7 percent above its low on March 23, 2020
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 4 percent in the past 5 days and rose 2.5 percent in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of
27.9 on a trailing basis and 17 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.7 percent on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$2.9t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 14.18 percent compared with
14.46 percent in the previous session and the average of 14.43 percent over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Information Technology | 55.8807| 3.1| 9/1
Materials | 36.7818| 1.6| 40/10
Energy | 21.0050| 0.9| 16/4
Health Care | 15.8588| 5.7| 8/1
Utilities | 9.5003| 1.1| 14/2
Financials | 9.2211| 0.2| 17/9
Industrials | 4.7569| 0.2| 16/13
Consumer Discretionary | 4.4990| 0.6| 7/6
Consumer Staples | 1.4591| 0.2| 8/3
Real Estate | -0.8221| -0.1| 13/12
Communication Services | -3.5558| -0.4| 5/2

US
By Jeremy Herron and Vildana Hajric
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks jumped to an all-time high, powered by a renewed rally in tech shares as investors eye a $1.9 trillion spending injection from the federal government. The S&P 500 reclaimed a record in a broad rally led by tech and consumer discretionary shares. The Nasdaq 100 Index surged more than 2.5% as it continued to rebound from a rout that had taken it 11% below its February record. Chipmakers paced the tech advance. Twitter Inc. jumped 5.7%, while Tesla Inc. continued its recovery. Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. popped 41% in its market debut. Verizon Communications Inc. saw surging demand for its $25 billion debt sale. The 10-year Treasury yield pared an increase after an auction of 30-year notes. Jobless claims fell more than forecast, signaling labor-market momentum as President Joe Biden signed the bill Thursday ahead of a prime time address to the nation.
The dollar slumped versus major peers. “The administration has slipped a little bit of extra fuel to the equity markets with their bill. It’s going to be rocket fuel,” said Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at TIAA Bank. “We’re headed to new highs because of all that stimulus money that’s being put out there and it’s more broad-based than the first couple stimulus programs.” Risk assets resumed their broad rally with vaccinations rolling out around the world and the U.S. poised to notch economic growth not seen since the 1980s. Concern that explosion would deliver a bout of inflation eased after Wednesday’s weaker-than-expected report on consumer prices, while Thursday’s report on jobless claims showed plenty of slack in the labor market.
Elsewhere in markets, German 10-year bond yields declined and the Stoxx 600 Index gained after the European Central Bank indicated it will step up the pace of bond purchases. Copper climbed above $9,000 a ton in London and oil advanced. Meanwhile, the ECB pledged to ramp up its buying of government debt in coming months in a bid to a contain rising bond yields that threaten to derail the region’s economic recovery. While policy makers are now committing to front load purchases, they still kept the overall size of the 1.85 trillion-euro ($2.2 trillion) pandemic bond-buying program unchanged.

These are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 Index gained 1% as of 4 p.m. in New York.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index increased 0.5%.
* The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1.7%.
* The MSCI Emerging Market Index rose 2.7%.
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index sank 0.55%.
* The euro rose 0.5% to $1.1990.
* The British pound gained 0.4% to $1.3993.
* The Japanese yen was little changed at 108.43 per dollar.
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 1.52%.
* The yield on two-year Treasuries dipped one basis point to 0.14%.
* The 30-year rate rose to 2.27%.
* Germany’s 10-year yield fell two basis points to -0.334%.
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude gained 2.5% to $65.05 a barrel.
* Gold futures were little changed at $1,721.30 an ounce.
–With assistance from Morwenna Coniam.

Have a nice evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

It’s not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark.  There’s shadowy middle ground. 
Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does.  And to acquire
a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort. –Haruki Murakami, b. 1949.

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com