March 24, 2014 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:

William Morris’s birthday today, March 24^th, 1834: Morris was founder of the Arts and Crafts movement.   He believed that simple objects crafted by hand were preferable to ornate mass-produced objects cheaply turned out by machine.  He created elegant textile designs incorporating arabesques of plants, flowers, and birds, which found their inspiration in medieval tapestries and historical fabrics and relied on traditional methods, such as hand-block printing and vegetable dyeing.

From the exhibition  William Morris: The Reactionary Revolutionary at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life. –William Morris

Photos of the day

US President Barack Obama (l.) looks at Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (r.) in front of Dutch master Rembrandt’s The Night Watch painting during a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Jerry Lampen/AP

A girl walks along ‘Graffitti Way’ at Prazeres slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Sponsored by the French oil and gas company Total SA, about 50 houses were painted by graffiti artists all the way to the top of the community, local media said. Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

Market Closes for March 24^th, 2014

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada
By Gerrit De Vynck

March 24 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell, sending the benchmark gauge lower for a second day, as data signaled a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing.

SilverCrest Mines Inc. dropped 11 percent after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that missed analysts’ estimates. Rock Energy Inc. added 3.2 percent after the company said it was increasing its 2014 capital spending. BlackBerry Ltd. climbed 3 percent after Cormark Securities Inc. raised its price target and rating for the stock.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index lost 57.21 points, or 0.4 percent, to 14,278.55 at 4 p.m. in Toronto. The gauge has risen 4.8 percent this year. The S&P 500 Index, the benchmark for U.S. equities, tumbled 0.5 percent today.

“It’s very much followed the same direction as the U.S.,” said Ian Nakamoto, director of research with MacDougall, MacDougall & MacTier Inc. in Toronto. The firm manages C$4.7 billion ($4.2 billion). “Anything economically sensitive seems to be a little bit more frothy,” he said in a phone interview.

The Markit Economics preliminary index of U.S. manufacturing slowed to 55.5 in March from 57.1 a month earlier, the London-based group said today. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. A separate report showed China’s manufacturing industry weakened for a fifth straight month.

Health-care and raw-materials shares had the largest declines in the S&P/TSX, both falling at least 2.8 percent.

SilverCrest Mines decreased 11 percent to C$2.03 after reporting adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 1 cent a share, missing analysts’ estimates for 4 cents. Rock Energy advanced 3.2 percent to C$5.24 after saying it would increase the amount it planned to spend on building out its projects from $62 million to $85 million.

BlackBerry rallied 3 percent to C$10.50. Cormark raised its rating on the stock to speculative buy from market perform. BlackBerry has gained 33 percent so far this year. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company reports financial results on March 28.

SouthGobi Resources Ltd. slipped 27 percent to 53 Canadian cents. The producer of metallurgical coal in Mongolia is seeking additional financing to avoid defaulting on a $250 million convertible debenture after the price of the commodity fell. Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd., which owns 56 percent of SouthGobi, tumbled 2.4 percent to C$3.69.

US
By Lu Wang and Callie Bost

March 24 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks pared losses in the final hour of trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average turning higher following a drop of as much as 87 points.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 0.3 percent at 1,861.58 at 3:37 p.m. in New York after slumping as much as 0.9 percent. The Dow added 13.17 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,315.94.

Stocks fell earlier as economic data signaled a slowdown in American manufacturing and some banks said Russia’s economy will enter a recession.

The Markit Economics preliminary index of U.S. manufacturing decreased to 55.5 in March from 57.1 a month earlier, the London-based group said today. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. This month’s reading was the second-highest since January 2013.

Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union are pushing Russia toward a recession as the intensity of their economic penalties increases after the annexation of Crimea earlier this month.

Banks including state-run VTB Capital say the world’s ninth-biggest economy will shrink for at least two quarters as penalties for annexing Crimea rattle markets, curb investment and raise the cost of borrowing. Sanctions that have so far focused on individuals via visa bans and asset freezes may be expanded to target specific areas of the economy.

Leaders of the U.S., the European Union, China, Japan and others meet today, seeking to mobilize opposition to Russia’s incursion into Crimea. The gathering in The Hague to discuss Ukraine comes amid growing concern over a Russian buildup on its neighbor’s border as pro-Kremlin troops seized a Ukrainian base in Crimea.

Stocks had their biggest gains in a month last week, with the S&P 500 rising 1.4 percent, as data from jobless claims to manufacturing showed the economy is strengthening. The benchmark index reached an intraday record on March 21, touching 1,883.97 before retreating.

“The market has been running into resistance at 1,880,” Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at RW Baird & Co., said by telephone from Sarasota, Florida. His firm oversees $110 billion. “Today it’s a question of what catalyst can come in and generate extra volume.”

Federal Reserve policy makers met last week as economic reports indicated the economy is pulling out of a slowdown linked to unusually harsh winter weather. Reports on housing, gross domestic product and durable goods are among the economic data due this week.

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

When one lives with concepts one never learns.  The concepts become static.

You may change them but the very transformation of one concept to another is still static, is still fixed.

But to have the sensitivity to feel, seeing that life is not a movement of two separate activities,

the external and the inward, to see that it is one, to realize that the inter-relationship is this movement,

is this ebb and flow of sorrow and pleasure and joy and depression, loneliness and escape,

to perceive nonverbally this life as a whole, not fragmented, nor broken up, is to learn.

Krishnamurti, 1895-1986

As ever,

Carolann

The future is here.  It’s just not widely

distributed yet.

-William Gibson, 1948-

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

Senior Vice-President &

Senior Investment Advisor

Queensbury Securities,

Suite 340A, 730 View St.,

Victoria, B.C. V8W 3Y7