March 30, 2022 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: March 30, 1858 – pencil patented.

In 1988, explorer and educator Helen Thayer, 51, becomes the first woman to trek solo to the magnetic North Pole. She is accompanied by her dog Charlie, a husky mix trained to warn of polar bears. Thayer spends two years planning for the 364-mile, 27-day journey, training in the Cascades near her home near Snohomish. She walks and skis to the pole pulling a 6-foot-long sled with 160 pounds of gear and supplies. (Compiled from HistoryLink.org).

On March 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr. Also wounded were White House news secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer. Go to article »

Maimonides, physician, b. 1135.
Vincent Van Gogh, artist, b. 1853.
Eric Clapton, guitarist, b. 1945

A thriller by Dolly Parton and 4 other books to put on your reading list, from Jake Tapper’s book club.  The only thing more fun than a thriller by Dolly Parton would be a rendition of “Thriller” by Dolly Parton.

Avocados cut heart-disease risk, a study has shown.

The Hubble has found the most distant star ever seen, from when the universe was nearly new.

Apparently the world’s best Guitar Hero player was cheating.

Former Yale employee stole a lot more than paper clips. (h/t Scott Kominers)

Late Night: The hosts discussed Donald Trump’s missing phone records.
 
“Instead, for all of those hours, all the White House phone records just say, ‘Scam likely.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“I’m sure he was just busy volunteering somewhere, I mean, or maybe working on his watercolors, could be any of that.” — JAMES CORDEN

“This is the thing with Trump — you never know. You never know if he’s more evil or lazy. He could have been plotting the overthrow of the government, or he could have been watching Fox News in the bath — you just don’t know!” — JAMES CORDEN

“And now after making the discovery, the House committee is investigating whether Trump used burner phones. It’s always reassuring when a president acts like a character in ‘The Wire.’” — JIMMY FALLON

“Trump denied it, saying, ‘I’ve never had a burner phone. I’ve had a couple of burner wives, but no burner phones.’” — JAMES CORDEN

“So now the big question is, which White House toilet did he flush them down?” — JIMMY KIMMEL

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Terry Smith, who is undertaking the coast-to-coast route he started in Cumbria, hits snow in the Pennines
CREDIT: Owen Humphreys/PA

A group of African penguins, which are considered under threat of extinction, walk on a beach
CREDIT: Ozgur Guvendik/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The setting sun reflects off power lines as a motorist in a pickup truck travels on the Trans-Canada highway in British Columbia
CREDIT: Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/AP

Market Closes for March 30^th, 2022

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International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

MARKET COMMENTARY:
On this day in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed to purchase the Alaskan territories from Russia for $7 million (roughly 2 cents an acre)—a price so preposterous that newspapers around the country immediately tagged the deal “Seward’s Folly” and christened Alaska “the polar bear garden.”
CANADA
By Geoffrey Morgan
(Bloomberg) — Canadian groups slipped Wednesday as concerns about the war in Ukraine spurred a continent-wide selloff in information technology and consumer discretionary stocks. he S&P/TSX Composite declined slightly to 22,075.96 in Toronto.
Shopify Inc. contributed the most to the index decline and had the largest percentage move, decreasing 5.4%.
Today, 116 of 239 shares fell, while 116 rose; 4 of 11 sectors were lower, led by information technology stocks.
Insights
* This quarter, the index rose 4%
* This month, the index rose 4.5%
* The index advanced 18% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 15% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 0.3% below its 52-week high on March 22, 2022 and 18.6% above its low on March 30, 2021
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 0.7% in the past 5 days and rose 4.5% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.7 on a trailing basis and 14.2 times estimated earnings of  its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 2.6% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.52t
* 30-day price volatility fell to 12.36% compared with 12.51% in the previous session and the average of 13.19% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
* Information Technology | -46.9996| -3.0| 4/12
* Financials | -27.9900| -0.4| 14/13
* Real Estate | -5.1908| -0.8| 1/22
* Health Care | -1.7825| -1.2| 0/7
* Consumer Staples | 0.1974| 0.0| 6/5
* Consumer Discretionary | 1.2372| 0.2| 6/8
* Communication Services | 4.8106| 0.4| 5/2
* Utilities | 6.6660| 0.7| 14/2
* Industrials | 7.6980| 0.3| 10/19
* Energy | 7.8669| 0.2| 21/10
* Materials | 42.2327| 1.5| 35/16
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
* Shopify | -39.1700| -5.4| -20.3| -49.5
* Brookfield Asset Management | -9.6370| -1.3| -25.1| -5.9
* Bank of Nova Scotia | -6.2940| -0.8| 106.7| 2.1
* Teck Resources | 6.2500| 4.0| -14.0| 41.3
* Franco-Nevada | 6.9470| 2.7| -22.9| 15.3
* Canadian Pacific | 7.0960| 1.1| -48.2| 14.5
US
By Stephen Kirkland and Vildana Hajric
(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell for the first time in five days as hopes faded for de-escalation in the war in Ukraine and investors assessed the risks to economic growth from accelerating inflation.
Oil rebounded from a two-day slide.
The S&P 500 extended declines in afternoon trading, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slid 1.1%.
Apple Inc. fell, ending its longest rally since 2003.
Treasuries rose across maturities, after a brief inversion in a segment of the curve on Tuesday signaled the prospect of a recession.
In Europe, short-dated notes led a selloff as traders bet higher-than-expected inflation will force policy makers to end their era of negative rates.
Russia said talks with Ukraine yielded no breakthroughs and that it was regrouping forces in a push to complete the takeover of the eastern Donbas region.
The White House said Russian President Vladimir Putin feels misled by his advisers on the war.
Reports that New York City Covid-19 cases were rising again also weighed on sentiment.
“We’re skeptical of getting ahead of ourselves here with regard to hope,” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, told Bloomberg TV. “While we respect that the amount of liquidity that’s out there and the desire to ‘buy the dip’ after we saw a correction in the S&P 500 and a bear market in the Nasdaq, the reality is that risk has really fundamentally gone up, whether you’re talking about geopolitical risk,” or fundamentals. “We continue to caution folks about the vulnerability of earnings here.”
Oil rose back over $107 a barrel in New York.
The dollar slipped, the euro climbed and the yen bounced from a six-year low after the Bank of Japan pledged to buy more securities than planned and include longer-dated debt.
President Joe Biden plans Thursday to invoke Cold War powers to encourage domestic production of critical minerals for electric-vehicle and other types of batteries, people familiar with the matter said.
The announcement sparked a rally in lithium producers.
The economic damage from the war is worsening across Europe as already-record inflation soars further and Germany faces a danger of recession because of its dependence on Russian energy.
Germany triggered an emergency plan to brace for a potential Russian gas cut-off as President Vladimir Putin insists that the crucial fuel should be paid for in rubles.
Russia may expand the list of commodities for which it demands payment in rubles to include grain, oil, metals and others.
On the economic front, U.S. companies added 455,000 jobs in March following a revised 486,000 increase in February, according to ADP Research Institute.
The data are consistent with the Federal Reserve’s view that the labor market is robust and precede the government’s monthly employment report on Friday, which is currently forecast to show that private
payrolls increased by about a half million in March.
Fed Richmond Bank President Thomas Barkin said he’s open to raising interest rates by half a percentage point at the policy meeting in May, depending on how strong the U.S. economy is at that time.

More Commentary:
“Markets will get tested again,” said Carin Pai, head of portfolio management and equity strategy at Fiduciary Trust International, which has more than $102 billion in assets under management and administration. “We’re going to see greater volatility this year. It’s not that we’re bearish at this point, we’re just taking a bit more of a cautious stance, taking a little bit of risk out of our portfolios especially now that the markets have recovered somewhat from the lows we saw.”
“It’s always hard to predict what the Fed is going to do, it’s even harder in an environment like this,” Troy Gayeski, chief market strategist at FS Investments, said on Bloomberg TV.
“It looks like they learned the lessons from ’18 and they are going to move very delicately on the balance sheet. But it’s going to be a sloppy, choppy, messy year. And after the recent rally we have had which some are categorizing as a bear market rally … it’s very hard to get excited about any type of risk-on trading.”
“I don’t think it’s quite the bear market, but I would say — what is the upside of equities from here — I don’t think it’s that much,” Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors, said on Bloomberg TV. “But the downside risks are so great. Not only is, of course, the geopolitical crisis going on. But then you have the Fed hikes. It’s time to dial down risks.”

Some key events to watch this week:
* China manufacturing, non-manufacturing PMIs, Thursday
* OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial meeting to discuss production targets, Thursday
* New York Fed President John Williams to speak, Thursday
* U.S. jobs report, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 fell 0.6% as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.1%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%
* The MSCI World index fell 0.3%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%
* The euro rose 0.6% to $1.1153
* The British pound rose 0.3% to $1.3133
* The Japanese yen rose 0.9% to 121.83 per dollar
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined four basis points to 2.35%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 0.65%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 1.67%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 3% to $107.38 a barrel
* Gold futures rose 1.1% to $1,940 an ounce
–With assistance from Andreea Papuc, Abigail Moses, Joanna Ossinger and Isabelle Lee.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. –Mark Twain, 1835-1910.

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