May 28, 2024, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents: St, Bernard of Montjoux, France.
May 28, 1892: Sierra Club is founded.
May 28, 1937: Volkswagen is founded.  The automobile manufacturer whose name means “People’s Car” in German.
May 28, 1933: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Securities Act of 1933, requiring all issuers of stocks and bonds to publish a prospectus disclosing risks, conflicts of interest, and ownership positions. Go to article >>

Ian Fleming, writer, b. 1908.

Catering to the ultra-rich is a booming business in Australia.

India celebrates historic Grand Prix win at the Cannes Film Festival
Payal Kapadia made history as she became the first person from India to win the Grand Prix award for her film “All We Imagine As Light.”

A household bug has unexpected origins
Move over, cicadas. Here’s how one of the world’s most successful indoor pests took over the planet.

Dallas Mavericks one win away from NBA Finals
The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 3 on Sunday to move to 3-0 in the series and knock on the door of their first NBA Finals in 13 years. The Boston Celtics swept Indiana Monday to punch their ticket to the championship series.

James Webb telescope sees ‘birth’ of 3 of the universe’s earliest galaxies in world-1st observations
The James Webb Space Telescope may have spotted the birth of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe for the first time ever, new research hints. Read More.

China’s ‘heavenly pits’: The giant sinkholes that have ancient forests growing within
China’s southwestern karst landscape is pockmarked with dozens of enormous sinkholes that look like they were made with a cookie cutter — and scientists keep finding new ones. Read More.

NASA detects Earth-size planet just 40 light-years away that’s ‘not a bad place’ to hunt for life
The exoplanet Gliese 12 b is tantalizingly close and moderately warm, situated just 40 light-years away around a red dwarf star. The potentially habitable planet could be a good place to search for alien life, scientists say. Read More.

What’s the highest place on Earth that humans live?
Inhabitants of the world’s highest settlement, La Rinconada, in the Peruvian Andes, face a unique set of challenges.  Full Story: Live Science (5/27)

DeepMind’s AI program AlphaFold3 can predict the structure of every protein in the universe — and show how they function
AlphaFold3 uses AI to helps scientists more accurately predict how proteins interact with other biological molecules. Read More.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Paris, France
Barriers are set up on the Champ de Mars for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This venue is hosting the beach volleyball and cécifoot (blind football) events
Photograph: Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Mexico City’s Unesco-listed chinampas, or ‘floating gardens’, in the southern district of Xochimilco, are a network of artificial strips of farmland built on shallow lakes. The practice of farming on staked-out raised beds divided by canals has its origins in ancient pre-Aztec agriculture, but it was the Aztecs who developed this method of cultivation into an extensive network in the Valley of Mexico. Over centuries, drainage, flood control, urbanisation and the climate crisis destroyed much of these waterways, leaving only a few oases for wildlife and migratory birds

​​​​​​​Sydney, Australia
The Australian artist Julia Gutman’s animation Lighting of the Sails: Echo is projected on to Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Sydney festival
Photograph: Roni Bintang/Anadolu/Getty Images
Market Closes for May 28^th, 2024

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:

Canada
By Bloomberg Automation
(Bloomberg) — The S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.5% at 22,265.05 in Toronto.
The move follows the previous session’s increase of 0.2%.
Today, financials stocks led the market lower, as 8 of 11 sectors lost; 131 of 223 shares fell, while 90 rose.
Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. contributed the most to the index decline, decreasing 3.1%.
Brookfield Business Partners LP had the largest drop, falling 5.4%.
Insights
* This month, the index rose 2.5%
* The index advanced 12% in the past 52 weeks. The MSCI AC Americas Index gained 26% in the same period
* The S&P/TSX Composite is 1.3% below its 52-week high on May 21, 2024 and 19.1% above its low on Oct. 27, 2023
* The S&P/TSX Composite is down 0.9% in the past 5 days and rose 1.3% in the past 30 days
* S&P/TSX Composite is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18 on a trailing basis and 15.5 times estimated earnings of its members for the coming year
* The index’s dividend yield is 3% on a trailing 12-month basis
* S&P/TSX Composite’s members have a total market capitalization of C$3.56t
* 30-day price volatility rose to 8.49% compared with 8.47% in the previous session and the average of 9.12% over the past month
================================================================
| Index Points | |
Sector Name | Move | % Change | Adv/Dec
================================================================
Financials | -75.0853| -1.1| 3/24
Industrials | -65.2212| -2.1| 2/25
Utilities | -12.7193| -1.5| 2/13
Consumer Discretionary | -9.5399| -1.2| 2/11
Consumer Staples | -8.4608| -0.9| 2/9
Real Estate | -7.1623| -1.6| 0/20
Health Care | -0.6833| -1.2| 0/4
Communication Services | -0.5862| -0.1| 2/2
Information Technology | 13.9559| 0.8| 5/5
Materials | 24.3235| 0.9| 36/14
Energy | 32.8663| 0.8| 36/4
================================================================
| | |Volume VS| YTD
|Index Points| | 20D AVG | Change
Top Contributors | Move |% Change | (%) | (%)
================================================================
Canadian Pacific Kansas | -22.1600| -3.1| 7.6| 1.2
Canadian National | -19.8400| -2.8| 29.1| 1.7
TD Bank | -14.7700| -1.6| -31.8| -11.5
Cenovus Energy | 7.4340| 2.9| -28.9| 30.3
Constellation Software | 7.8520| 1.5| -37.8| 15.1
Shopify | 10.5600| 1.6| -14.3| -23.0
US
By Rita Nazareth
(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest bond market sold off after weak Treasury sales, with traders also weighing mixed economic data and remarks from Federal Reserve speakers for clues on the policy outlook.
Treasuries extended losses after the US sold $70 billion of five-year notes at 4.553% — above the pre-auction level of 4.540%.
An earlier offering of $69 billion in two-year notes also came on the soft side.
Just a few days before the Fed’s favorite price gauge, a report showed US consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in May — though recession expectations increased as well.
“Treasury yields are rising to the high of the day after the 5-year auction was poor,” said Peter Boockvar at The Boock Report. “This follows the 2-year auction earlier today that was mediocre — and will be followed by a 7-year tomorrow.”
US 10-year yields climbed eight basis points to 4.54%.
The S&P 500 was little changed.
Nvidia Corp. rallied after the Information reported Elon Musk has indicated its artificial intelligence startup xAI — which has raised $6 billion — will use the chipmaker’s H100 graphics processing units.
Bitcoin fell as traders monitored transfers by wallets belonging to the failed Mt. Gox exchange.
Oil advanced as tensions flared in the Middle East, with a vessel attacked in the Red Sea and Israeli tanks reaching the center of Rafah.
“It may be a short week, but it looks to be a busy one,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. “With last week’s FOMC minutes sounding a hawkish tone, traders will be eager to see cool data that could make it easier for the Fed to cut rates.”
As Wall Street returned from the holiday weekend, the “T+1” rule came into effect — making US equities settle in one day rather than two.
Investors also waded through remarks from Fed Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari, who said the policy stance is restrictive, but officials haven’t entirely ruled out additional rate hikes.
Bond traders who are stuck in a waiting game over Fed rate policy may soon get some welcome support.
Starting on Wednesday, and for the first time since the early 2000s, the Treasury Department will launch a series of buybacks targeting seasoned and harder-to-trade debt.
Then in June, the US central bank is set to begin tapering the pace of its balance-sheet unwind, known as quantitative tightening, or QT.
The Fed’s first-line inflation gauge is about to show some modest relief from stubborn price pressures, corroborating central bankers’ prudence about the timing of interest-rate cuts.
Economists expect the personal consumption expenditures price index minus food and energy — due on Friday — to rise 0.2% in April.
That would mark the smallest advance so far this year for the measure, which provides a better snapshot of underlying inflation.
Swap contracts are currently pricing in around 30 basis points of Fed rate cuts for all of 2024 — which equates to one reduction as the Fed moves have historically been increments of 25 basis points.
“We now expect the first Fed rate cut to come in November or December,” said Chris Low at FHN Financial. “The FOMC is looking for multiple good inflation reports, and by good, people like Governor Christopher Waller imply they should be mostly better even than April, let alone any of the months of the first quarter.”

Corporate Highlights:
* Hess Corp. shareholders approved Chevron Corp.’s $53 billion takeover despite reservations among several prominent investors about a dispute with Exxon Mobil Corp. over a key asset.
* T-Mobile US Inc., the second-largest mobile carrier in the US, has agreed to buy US Cellular Corp.’s wireless operations and some of its spectrum assets for about $2.4 billion.
* Apple Inc.’s iPhone staged a rebound in China last month with shipments rising 52% amid a flurry of discounts from retail partners.
* Elliott Investment Management has invested more than $2.5 billion in Texas Instruments Inc. and is pushing the chipmaker to improve free cash flow, setting the stage for another campaign by the influential activist investor.
* GameStop Corp. said it brought in nearly $1 billion from a share sale program amid renewed interest for the so-called meme stock.
* DraftKings Inc. and FanDuel-owner Flutter Entertainment Plc fell after the Illinois Senate passed legislation that would raise taxes on sports betting.

Key events this week:
* Germany CPI, Wednesday
* Fed’s Beige Book, Wednesday
* Fed’s John Williams speaks, Wednesday
* Eurozone economic confidence, unemployment, consumer confidence, Thursday
* US initial jobless claims, GDP, wholesale inventories, Thursday
* Fed’s John Williams and Lorie Logan speak, Thursday
* Japan unemployment, Tokyo CPI, industrial production, retail sales, Friday
* China official manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMI, Friday
* Eurozone CPI, Friday
* US consumer income, spending, PCE deflator, Friday
* Fed’s Raphael Bostic speak, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
* The S&P 500 was little changed as of 4 p.m. New York time
* The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3%
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%
* The MSCI World Index fell 0.1%
Currencies
* The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
* The euro was little changed at $1.0861
* The British pound was little changed at $1.2763
* The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 157.14 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
* Bitcoin fell 1.8% to $68,370.57
* Ether fell 1.3% to $3,838.47
Bonds
* The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced eight basis points to 4.54%
* Germany’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 2.59%
* Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.28%
Commodities
* West Texas Intermediate crude rose 3.1% to $80.16 a barrel
* Spot gold rose 0.3% to $2,358.58 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.–With assistance from Elizabeth Stanton, Edward Bolingbroke, Liz Capo McCormick, Michael Mackenzie, Vince Golle, Craig Stirling, Jason Scott, Aya Wagatsuma, Alex Nicholson and Allegra Catelli.
Have a  lovely evening.

Be magnificent!
As ever,

Carolann
Print will never die.  Ther’s no substitute for the feel of an actual book.  I adore physically turning the pages, and being able to underline passages and not worrying about dropping them in the bath or running out of power.  I also find print books objects of beauty. – J.K. Rowling, b. 1965.

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