March 30, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: Happy Friday Eve.

March 30, 1858: pencil with attached eraser patented by Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia

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
Sean O’Casey, playwright, b.1880.
Eric Clapton, musician, b. 1945.

These US restaurants and chefs are James Beard Award finalists.  View the finalists for this year’s James Beard Awards, one of the culinary world’s highest honors. Some of these chefs and restaurants might even be in your area.

Rare T-Rex skeleton set to be auctioned next month.  This dinosaur skeleton is expected to fetch nearly $9 million when it goes under the hammer. Its teeth are quite impressive — and frightening…

Object mistaken as a galaxy is actually a black hole pointed directly at Earth
In a distant galaxy, a supermassive black hole spewing radiation at near light speed has shifted its angle by a whopping 90 degrees to point directly toward Earth — a sharp turn that’s puzzling physicists.
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the hungry black holes at the cores of many other galaxies.  Full Story: Live Science (3/29)

DeepMind’s AI used to develop tiny ‘syringe’ for injecting gene therapy and tumor-killing drugs
Scientists have developed a molecular “syringe” that can inject proteins, including cancer-killing drugs and gene therapies, directly into human cells.  And the researchers did it using an artificial intelligence (AI) program made by Google’s DeepMind called AlphaFold.  Full Story: Live Science (3/29)

We’re nowhere near reaching the maximum human life span, controversial study suggests
Scientists have long debated the greatest possible age of a person, with previous studies placing the limit at up to 150 years.   But in the past 25 years, no one has surpassed the record for the world’s oldest person, held by Jean Louise Calment, who died at age 122 in 1997.  Full Story: Live Science (3/29)

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The sun rises in front of the Christ the Redeemer statue
Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

London, UK
The Patagotitan mayorum, the most complete giant dinosaur ever discovered, displayed during the press preview of the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur
Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Planica, Slovenia
Slovenia’s Rok Oblak in action during the Men’s HS240 at the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup
Photograph: Borut Živulovič/Reuters
Market Closes for March 30^th, 2023

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
📈 On this day in 1999, Priceline.com went public in one of the hottest initial public offerings ever. Shares priced at $16 and ended the day at $69, up 331%. A month later, the stock topped $162. A mere year and a half after the IPO, Priceline.com stock traded under $5, making it a symbol of the dotcom crash.
Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite rose for the fifth day, climbing 0.5%, or 103.34 to 19,940.99 in Toronto.
The index advanced to the highest closing level since March 9.
Constellation Software Inc/Canada contributed the most to the index gain, increasing 2.4%.
Filo Mining Corp. had the largest increase, rising 6.6%.
Today, 191 of 234 shares rose, while 39 fell; 10 of 11 sectors were higher, led by financials stocks.
Insights
* This quarter, the index rose 2.9%
* This month, the index fell 1.4%
* So far this week, the index rose 2.3%, heading for the biggest advance since the week ended Jan. 13
* The index declined 9.7% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index lost 13% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 10.2% below its 52-week high on April
5, 2022 and 11.6% above its low on Oct. 13, 2022
* The S&P/TSX Composite is up 2.5% in the past 5 days and fell 1.4% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.8 on a trailing basis and 13.1 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3.3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.19t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 12.60% compared with 12.51% in the previous session and the average of 10.36% over the past month
================================================================
|Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | 25.2221| 0.4| 26/2
Industrials | 18.0612| 0.7| 23/4
Materials | 13.2836| 0.5| 41/10
Consumer Staples | 9.5505| 1.1| 11/0
Utilities | 9.5411| 1.1| 16/0
Communication Services | 7.9777| 0.8| 6/0
Information Technology | 7.5459| 0.6| 8/3
Consumer Discretionary | 4.3751| 0.6| 13/2
Energy | 4.1710| 0.1| 24/15
Real Estate | 3.9976| 0.8| 20/1
Health Care | -0.3904| -0.6| 3/2
================================================================
| | |Volume VS | YTD
| Index | | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors |Points Move| % Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Constellation Software | 7.8180| 2.4| 62.5| 20.2
Brookfield Corp | 4.4380| 1.1| 1.5| 0.5
Couche-Tard | 4.1350| 1.2| -12.1| 13.6
Agnico Eagle Mines | -1.9830| -0.9| -23.1| -1.2
Shopify | -3.3020| -0.6| -18.4| 33.8
US
By Isabelle Lee and Carly Wanna
(Bloomberg) — Technology stocks propelled US stocks higher as Federal Reserve officials reiterated their resolve to lower inflation.
The S&P 500 gained 0.6% — even with financials under pressure — while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose 0.9%, pushing further into a bull market.
Treasuries were little changed and the dollar was weaker against major peers.
The gains come as market watchers digested a round of Fed commentary suggesting more monetary tightening was necessary, even after the collapse of three US banks earlier this month.
Boston Fed President Susan Collins said tightening was needed.
Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said the Fed can raise rates more if inflation risks persist.
And Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he’s committed to getting inflation back to 2% and that it’s not yet fully clear what impact the financial-system turmoil will have.
“With cracks in the banking system becoming apparent, the Fed’s job has become even harder,” said Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.
“Recession risk remains in focus given the Fed’s historical track record of struggling to tighten policy while easing the economy to a soft landing.”
President Joe Biden’s administration also called on regulators Thursday to tighten the rules for mid-sized banks in response to the recent bank failures.
Stress in the financial sector has increased the chance of the Fed tipping the economy into a recession with its rate hikes.
However, Collins echoed remarks by Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week that pain in the banking sector may be worth 25 basis points of tightening.
Tighter credit conditions could remove the need for more hikes later, she said.
Analysts have agreed, saying it could be the equivalent of a far more aggressive hike.
“The plausible range is anything from nearly zero to 200bp or more in the event that stress were to broaden and deepen,” Krishna Guha, Evercore ISI head of central bank strategy, wrote.
“We will all need to update as the data comes in and that updating could be quite rapid.”
Investors expect US rates to sit around 4.3% by the end of the year, around 70 basis points lower than the current level.
However, several strategists have said markets are wrong to expect rate cuts this year.
The labor market remains robust, though US unemployment claims ticked up for the first time in three weeks.
And high inflation — as measured by the so-called PCE Core Deflator due Friday — is expected to have persisted last month.
Elsewhere in markets, oil rebounded, gold gained and Bitcoin traded around $28,000.
Key events this week:
* China PMI, Friday
* Eurozone CPI, unemployment, Friday
* US consumer income, PCE deflator, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
* ECB President Christine Lagarde speaks, Friday
* New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 rose 0.6% as of 4:02 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.9%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%
* The MSCI World index rose 1.2%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%
* The euro rose 0.6% to $1.0907
* The British pound rose 0.6% to $1.2391
* The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 132.65 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $27,970.47
* Ether fell 1.3% to $1,780.87
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined one basis point to 3.55%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 2.37%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 3.52%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.9% to $74.34 a barrel
* Gold futures rose 0.7% to $1,999 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Vildana Hajric.
Have a lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann

The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well. –John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1874-1960.

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