March 21, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

On March 21, 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.
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Also on this day in 2006, Jack Dorsey fires off the first tweet, launching Twitter.

  As this summer’s total solar eclipse over North America gets closer, the University of California, Berkeley and Google are looking for filmmaking volunteers.   The two partners aim to carry out what they’re calling the Eclipse Megamovie Project.  By combining footage from more than 1,000 cameras in the path of the eclipse, they hope to create a 90-minute “megamovie” capturing the phenomenon in  a way no single human could.
  When the moon passes directly between Earth and the sun on August 21^st, the center of its shadow will trace a diagonal path across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina.  Observers located at the exact center of the “path of totality” will be able to experience the total eclipse – full moon darkness – for as long as 2 minutes 40 seconds as the moon’s shadow flies over the ground at about 1,500 miles per hour.
  The Eclipse Megamovie Project hopes to select and train some 1,000 volunteers to record as much of the eclipse as they can.  The terabytes of video data will be stitched together to create a complete, high-resolution record of the eclipse.
  “it is truly a transformative, life-changing experience and we want to prepare people for that,” says Laura Peticolas, a physicist with the megamovie project, in a press release.  An application will be released this summer so that anyone can contribute to the project via smartphone.  That footage will be used in a second, lower resolution video.
  For more information, visit the megamovie website at https://eclipsemega.movie/.

7 Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zone of a newly discovered solar system 39 light years away, making it the most promising place in the galaxy to look for extraterrestrial life.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

A blue tit gathers twigs for its nest from a garden in Vertou, France, on Tuesday. Stephane Mahe/Reuters

Smurf dolls are lined up to promote the new 3D computer-animated movie ‘Die Schluempfe – Das verlorene Dorf’ (‘The Smurfs – The lost village’) in front of Stadelhof railway station in Zurich, Switzerland, on Tuesday. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Visitors celebrating the spring equinox reach their arms up to receive the sun’s energy atop the Pyramid of the Sun at the Teotihuacan archeological site in Mexico on Tuesday. Although the official vernal equinox occurred early Monday, thousands of visitors were expected to climb the ancient pyramid between Sunday and Tuesday to greet the sun and celebrate the beginning of spring. Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Market Closes for March 21^st, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
NUMBERS OF THE DAY
400 million

The approximate number of customers Vodafone will have in India after merging its embattled business there with a local rival, Idea Cellular. The $24 billion deal would create India’s largest wireless company. 

2.01 percentage points
The 10-year break-even rate, which measures the yield premium on the 10-year Treasury note relative to comparable Treasury inflation-protected securities, was 2.01 percentage points Monday. That reflects investors’ expectation of an annual 2.01% rate of inflation over the next 10 years, nearly the same as the 2% reading on the five-year break-even rate.
Canada
By Kristine Owram
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell to their lowest level this year, reversing earlier gains, as oil prices slumped below $48 a barrel and U.S. President Donald Trump’s promised tax cuts looked less likely.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 0.8 percent to 15,313.13, its lowest close since Dec. 30. Financial stocks fell 1.2 percent as government bond yields lost ground, and the industrials index slipped 1.2 percent after U.S. Republicans warned that failure to pass a health-care bill could jeopardize plans for massive corporate tax cuts.
     Energy stocks lost 1.1 percent as West Texas Intermediate fell 1.8 percent to $47.34, its lowest close since November, on forecasts that U.S. crude supplies will continue to grow.
     In other moves:
* Shares of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. jumped 9.3 percent after it discovered more copper at a joint-venture mining project in the Democratic Republic of Congo
* Consumer discretionary shares fell 1.3 percent as auto supplier Magna International Inc. lost 3.4 percent.
US
By Jeremy Herron and Joseph Ciolli
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell the most since Donald Trump’s election as the reflation trades that bolstered the dollar and Treasury yields faltered amid growing concern pro- growth policies won’t sail through Congress. Crude slumped through $48 a barrel.
     The S&P 500 Index sank more than 1 percent for the first time since Oct. 11, with the selloff deepening in the final 30 minutes of trading after Reuters reported North Korea would pursue accelerating its nuclear program. Banks led the rout throughout the day, tumbling the most since June as Treasury yields tumbled and Morgan Stanley warned its fixed-income trading won’t pick up. 
     Industrial and material shares slumped as House Republicans warned failure to pass a health-care bill on Thursday could imperil tax and spending reforms. Oil resumed a slide as U.S. crude stockpiles are forecast to increase. Gold topped $1,240 an ounce on haven demand.
     Trump met with House Republicans Tuesday morning to rally support for the repeal of Obamacare as investors look for signs that his plans to cut corporate taxes and boost spending will move forward. Fed Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari repeated Tuesday his opposition to the Fed’s latest rate hike and argued the central bank shouldn’t rush to tighten with signs of inflation remaining subdued. 
     “With the health-care morass, the Trump effect is taking a little bit of a backseat in peoples’ minds,” said Steve Sosnick, an equity risk manager at Timber Hill LLC, the market-making unit of Greenwich, Connecticut-based Interactive Brokers Group Inc. “It feels like the market needs another catalyst. The catalysts had been coming largely from the Fed and the Trump effect. Something is spooking people.”
     Read our Markets Live blog here.
     What’s coming up this week:
* There’s a steady lineup of Fed speakers this week, headlined by Janet Yellen on March 23, while central bank policy decisions are expected in New Zealand, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
* The House of Representatives votes Thursday on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
* March PMI for France is due Friday, along with final fourth- quarter GDP figures.
     Here are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 1.2 percent to 2,343.98 as of 4 p.m. in New York, the biggest drop since September and the lowest level in a month. The index hadn’t fallen 1 percent in any session for 109 straight days.
* Banks sank 2.9 percent for the steepest slide since June 24, the day after the U.K. vote to leave the European Union.
* The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.5 percent. Mining stocks tumbled as the British pound strengthened.
* The MSCI Emerging Market Index halted a seven-day advance that was the longest rally since August.

     Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index slipped by 0.3 percent, following a 0.1 percent drop Tuesday.
* The euro was up by 0.7 percent at $1.0812, rising versus all of its G-10 peers except sterling.
* The British pound traded 1 percent higher to $1.2487 after U.K. inflation accelerated more than forecast to break through the Bank of England’s target for the first time since 2013.

     Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell three basis points to 2.43 percent after earlier rising by four basis points. The rate is down 11 basis points in the past three sessions.
* The U.S. bond rally pushed the yield advantage on 10-year U.S. Treasuries over German debt to the narrowest level in more than four months.
* The yield on 10-year German government bonds rose two basis points to 0.46 percent.

     Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate oil fell 1.8 percent to settle at $47.34 before U.S. inventory data on Wednesday and as Libya prepared to restart crude shipments from major ports.
* Copper slumped 1.8 percent to finish at $5,776 a metric ton in London, amid signs supplies are returning. Disruptions caused the metal to surge last month to the highest level since 2015.
* Gold dropped 0.1 percent to $1,233.68 an ounce, after four days of gains.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion
to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at any given moment.
Mahatma Gandhi

As ever,

Carolann

Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to
be understood.
                   -Marie Curie, 1967-1934

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Portfolio Manager &
Senior Vice-President

Queensbury Securities Inc.,
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Suite 340A, 730 View St.,
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7

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