March 23, 2011 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Of interest in today’s Globe & Mail:

March is International Listening Awareness Month….By some estimates, people only retain about 50 per cent of  what they hear immediately after they hear it, and only 20 per cent beyond that.  Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, offers tips on how to be a better listener:

• Don’t take notes at meetings.  Try watching who’s speaking instead – pay attention to what you miss while you’re usually looking down at your notebook.

• Clear your mind. Focus when you’re talking to others.   Pay attention to what you’re thinking when they’re speaking: if you’re planning out a response rather than listening to them, you need to work on your focus.

• Ask questions or ask for specific examples if you still  want clarification.

• Don’t argue, understand.  Having a tough conversation?  Don’t just plan your rebuttal – really listen, then start with where you agree and move the discussion toward a solution by asking them to help you understand their point.

photos of the day

March 23, 2011

Flowers and a portrait adorn Elizabeth Taylor’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. Taylor died early Wednesday. Reed Saxon/AP

An advertisement for one of Elizabeth Taylor’s signature fragrances. Her alluring violet eyes are the stuff of Hollywood legend.

PRNewsFoto/File

A robin is silhouetted against a waning moon as it sits in a tree in Overland Park, Kan.

Charlie Riedel/AP

Market Commentary:

Canada

By Cecile Vannucci and Nikolaj Gammeltoft

March 23 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks gained as gold producers advanced after unrest in Libya and the Middle East and Europe’s lingering debt crisis spurred demand for alternative investments.

Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc., the world’s two largest producers of the metal, rose at least 1.1 percent today as gold futures advanced near a record. Kinross Gold Corp., Canada’s third-largest producer, gained 3.5 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index gained 87.18 points, or 0.6 percent, to 14,087.18 in Toronto.

“Commodities are doing well and the real strength today is in the gold producers, which makes sense when you look at everything that’s going on in the world,” said Thomas Caldwell, chairman and chief executive officer of Caldwell Securities Ltd., a C$1 billion ($1 billion) money management firm in Toronto.

The S&P/TSX fell 0.1 percent yesterday for its first decline in four days. It had gained 3.6 percent from March 16 through March 21 for the biggest three-day advance in more than 10 months as raw-material producers in the index rebounded.

Those companies had tumbled 7.8 percent from March 4 to March 16, as some investors sold metals to raise cash following declines in world equity markets.

Gold futures for April delivery rose $10.40, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $1,438 at 1:34 p.m. on the Comex in New York.

Barrick Gold climbed 3.7 percent to C$51.05, while Goldcorp rose 1.1 percent to C$47.64 and Kinross Gold increased 3.5 percent to C$16.09.

Equinox Minerals Ltd., a Perth, Australia-based copper mining company with operations in Africa, surged 6.8 percent to C$5.34. The Globe & Mail reported Chief Executive Officer Craig Williams said Inmet Mining Corp.’s rival bid for Lundin Mining Corp. appears to be “dead.”

Equinox bid C$4.8 billion ($4.9 billion) for Lundin, which rallied 3.8 percent to C$7.38. Inmet, which offered about C$3.2 billion, rose 2 percent to C$64.44.

Mercator Minerals Ltd., a copper and molybdenum producer in Arizona, surged 7.6 percent, the most in the Canadian benchmark, to C$3.83 after two shareholders said they want to reconstitute the board because of its “failings.”

Teck Resources Ltd. declined 0.3 percent to C$51.90 after saying labor disruption and difficult weather conditions have slowed production in the first quarter. The Vancouver-based company cut its 2011 coal sales forecast to between 23.5 million tons and 24.5 million tons because of difficult winter weather conditions, according to a regulatory filing.

Energy companies in the S&P/TSX Index dropped 0.7 percent, the most in the Canadian index as a group, after U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne raised the supplementary tax on North Sea oil profits to 32 percent from 20 percent. Nexen Inc., operator of the Buzzard field in the North Sea, had the biggest decline in the gauge, tumbling 7.9 percent to C$24.19.

US

By Rita Nazareth

March 23 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, paring yesterday’s drop, as higher metal prices lifted commodity producers and Wells Fargo & Co. said government data showing a record low pace in new-home sales will likely be revised higher.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. rose 5 percent, while Alcoa Inc. added 3 percent, as copper paced gains in commodities amid a surge in stockpile orders for the metal. Walt Disney Co. added 1.9 percent as investors re-elected Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs to the board of the entertainment company. Jabil Circuit Inc. jumped 11 percent for the top gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index after the electronics manufacturer’s earnings forecast topped analysts’ estimates.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent to 1,297.54 at 4 p.m. in New York after slumping as much as 0.8 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 67.39 points, or 0.6 percent, to 12,086.02. Crude oil advanced 0.7 percent to $105.75 a barrel.

“Investors are looking for some good news,” said Richard Sichel, who oversees $1.5 billion as chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co. “Earlier today, we had the disappointing home sales data adding up to all the international uncertainties out there.  Later, you have the Wells Fargo statement attributed to turning the market around. What people need to understand is that we can have a pickup in different parts of the economy and housing will fully rebound later. There’s growth in this country and elsewhere. There is economic momentum.”

The S&P 500 fell yesterday, halting a three-day rally, as oil rose amid fighting in Libya and concern grew that Europe won’t find an immediate solution to its debt crisis. Bonds of Europe’s most-indebted countries sank.

The Portuguese parliament today rejected the government’s deficit-cutting plan in a vote that raises the chances of a bailout and which Prime Minister Jose Socrates has said threatens to push the country toward early elections. Lawmakers backed resolutions against the government’s stability and growth program, Jaime Gama, the parliament’s president, said in Lisbon.

Stocks extended losses in the first hour of trading after purchases of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in February to the slowest pace on record and prices dropped to the lowest level since December 2003. Sales decreased 16.9 percent to a 250,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a gain to a 290,000 rate, according to the median estimate. The median price fell 8.9 percent from the same month in 2010.

A gauge of homebuilders in S&P indexes added 0.5 percent, erasing an earlier decline of 0.9 percent. Wells Fargo analyst Carl Reichardt said the February home sales data may be revised up and didn’t reflect the market “reality” as bad weather hurt the market. PulteGroup Inc. climbed 3.6 percent to $7.40 after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. added the homebuilder’s shares to its “Conviction Buy” list.

“We need to get good reports that remind everyone that the global economy is still doing OK,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management, which oversees about $340 billion. “News out of Europe raises concern that their crisis won’t go away anytime soon. In addition, you’ve got the Middle East burning and keeping energy prices elevated.”

A gauge of raw-materials producers gained 1.4 percent, the biggest gain among 10 S&P 500 industries. Freeport added 5 percent to $54.88. Alcoa rallied 3 percent to $16.95.

Copper climbed for a second day in New York as orders to draw metal from inventories jumped the most in 11 months, feeding speculation that demand will outpace supply in 2011.

Canceled warrants, as the orders are known, surged 45 percent, the most since April 21, to 15,525 metric tons, daily London Metal Exchange figures showed today. LME inventories of copper shrank for the first time in six sessions. Prices also gained as figures showed that euro-area industrial orders increased for a fourth month in January.

Walt Disney gained 1.9 percent to $42.24. Investors re- elected Apple’s Jobs to the board of the entertainment company, rejecting the views of proxy advisers who say health issues may impair his ability to serve. Jobs was re-elected with 12 other nominees at the shareholder meeting today in Salt Lake City, with 74 percent of the votes cast backing the group, according to a preliminary count. The Apple executive, absent from the meeting, owns 7.3 percent of Disney and is the largest shareholder.

Jabil Circuit advanced 11 percent to $20.99. The St. Petersburg, Florida-based electronics manufacturer forecast third-quarter earnings excluding some items of at least 55 cents a share, beating the average analyst estimate of 53 cents in a Bloomberg survey.

Discover Financial Services rose 5.4 percent to $23.44. The payments network whose stock has outperformed three larger rivals posted record profit and boosted its dividend. Earnings and sales beat the averages of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

AOL Inc. rose 4.7 percent to $19.86. The Internet company that agreed to buy the Huffington Post was raised to a “buy” from “neutral” by UBS AG, which said advertising growth may accelerate in the second half of the year.

Bank of America Corp. fell 1.7 percent to $13.65 after saying the Federal Reserve objected to its planned dividend increase. The lender “will continue to work with the Fed and intends to seek permission for a modest increase in its common dividend for the second half of 2011, through the submission of a revised comprehensive capital plan,” Bank of America said in a regulatory filing.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America is the only U.S. lender among the largest four that didn’t announce a higher payout after the Fed finished a review of the companies’ financial health and capital plans last week. Lenders including Bank of America, which had a 64-cent quarterly payout until 2008, slashed dividends during the financial crisis to conserve capital as loan losses piled up.

Adobe Corp. slumped 3.7 percent to $31.68. The largest maker of graphic-design programs forecast second-quarter profit of 47 to 54 cents a share, missing the 56-cent average of analysts’ projections compiled by Bloomberg.

The benchmark index for U.S. stock options fell for a fifth day, losing 35 percent for the biggest five-day slide since May, and declined below its level before the Japan earthquake as stocks rallied around the world. The VIX, as the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index is known, fell 5.2 percent to 19.17. The index measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the S&P 500.

“All the signs are that the economy is not only stable, but it’s picking up momentum,” said Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Palisade Capital Management LLC in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which oversees $3.8 billion. “All these problems are going to gradually diminish and that means we’re going to have gradually higher stock prices.”

Have a wonderful evening everyone.  Be magnificent!

Contemplation is seeing the here and now. -Swami Prajnanpad,1891-1974

As ever,

Carolann

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. -Henry Miller, 1891-1980