May 3, 2017 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Tangents:
On this day in…
1469 – Niccolo Macchiavelli was born.
1936 – Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.
1937 – Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Gone with the Wind.”
1948 – The Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable.

And on May 3^rd, 1810, Lord Byron , on board the frigate Salsett, wrote to Henry Drury the following immortal words.  In the legend to which he refers, Leander swam the Hellespont every night to be with the priestess Hero; one night he drowned, whereupon Hero threw herself into the sea:

Now we are in the Dardanelles waiting for a wind to proceed to Constantinople.  This morning I swam from Sestos to Abydos, the immediate distance is not above a mile but the current renders it hazardous, so much so, that I doubt whether Leander’s conjugal powers must not have been exhausted in his passage to Paradise.  I attempted it a week ago and failed owing to the north wind and the wonderful rapidity of the tide, though I have been from my childhood a strong swimmer, but this morning being calmer I succeeded and crossed the “broad Hellespont” in an hour and ten minutes.
   The Troad is a fine field for conjecture and snipe-shooting, and a good sportsman and an ingenious scholar may exercise their feet and faculties to great advantage upon the spot, or if they prefer riding, lose their way (as I did) in a cursed quagmire of the Scamander [river].  The only vestige of Troy, or her destroyers, are the barrows supposed to contain the carcasses of Achilles, Antilochus, Ajax, etc., but Mt. Ida is still in high feather, though the shepherds are nowadays not much like Ganymede…
   I see not much difference between ourselves and the Turks, save that we have foreskins and they none, and they have long dresses and we short, and that we talk much and they little.  In England the vices in fashion are whoring and drinking, in Turkey, sodomy and smoking; we prefer a girl and a bottle, they a pipe and pathic [catamite]…I like the Greeks, who are plausible rascals, with all the Turkish vices without their courage.  However some are brave and all are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades, the women not quite so handsome.
   At Malta I fell in love with a married woman and challenged an aide-de-camp of General Oakes (a rude fellow who grinned at something, I never rightly knew what), but he explained and apologized, and the lady embarked for Cadiz, and so I escaped murder and adultery. –from The Book of Days.

Be careful with your words.  Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Britain’s Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, looks at lambs in a field with schoolchildren on Wednesday during a visit to the Farms for City Children charity in Gloucester, England. The charity gives young people from inner cities the chance to spend a week on a working farm. Richard Pohle/AP

A mother goose swims with her four gosling on the Main River in Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday. One gosling fell into the river with no chance to get out again. The mother jumped into the river to help followed by her other three goslings. In the end, the father decided to join as well. Michael Probst/AP

An honor guard marches during Constitution Day celebrations in the Old Town in Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday. Constitution Day commemorates the adoption of the Polish constitution in 1791, which was Europe’s first and the world’s second written constitution. Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Market Closes for May 3^rd, 2017

International Markets

Bonds

Currencies

Commodities

Market Commentary:
On this day in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Nellie Tayloe Ross as director of the U.S. Mint. She is the first woman to hold the position. She serves five terms, retiring in 1953.
NUMBER OF THE DAY
$100 million
The charge General Motors is taking to write off its operations in troubled Venezuela, where authorities last month unexpectedly seized its production plant on a court order.
Canada
By Kristine Owram
     (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks closed lower with all sectors in the red as a rout in copper prices weighed on materials producers.
     The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 77 points or 0.5 percent to 15,543.14. Materials stocks fell 1.3 percent as the price of copper tumbled as much as 4.5 percent, its biggest drop since 2015, leading other base metals lower. Teck Resources Ltd. was the biggest drag on the benchmark, falling 5.8 percent.
     Energy stocks slipped 0.2 percent along with the price of oil after data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed crude stockpiles declined less than forecast.
     In other moves:
* Tahoe Resources Inc. jumped 15 percent after the company’s first-quarter earnings beat the highest analyst estimate
* Home Capital Group Inc. fell 12 percent. Canadian banks and financial firms are showing little interest in buying the company
* Kinross Gold Corp. gained 11 percent, the most in almost a year, as earnings per share and revenue beat estimates
* Cott Corp. fell 5 percent. The beverage maker said it expects2017 revenue of about $3.7 billion, below the average estimate.
US
By Oliver Renick
     (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks ended little changed Wednesday after Federal Reserve officials held benchmark interest rates steady and continued to assert strength in the economy. Apple shares pared earlier losses after the company reported iPhone sales that missed analysts’ estimates.
     The S&P 500 lost 0.1 percent at 4 p.m. to 2,388 in New York. The benchmark rose 0.1% on Tuesday as investors assessed corporate earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed at 20,957 on Wednesday.
* Financial (+0.6%) and energy (+0.3%) stocks were the biggest gainers on day; financial shares reversed earlier drop of as much as 0.5%
* Real estate, materials and telecom shares down at least 0.6%
* Bonds decline, with 10-year U.S. Treasury yield up 4 bps
* Volume in S&P 500 16% above 30-day average
** Advanced Micro Devices trading 150% above 30-day average for 7% of S&P 500 volume
** Akamai Technologies, Delphi Automotive, Verisk Analytics and Molson Coors and Automatic Data Processing all trading with volume at least 5x 30-day average
* VIX up to 10.6
** Volatility movers: Kimco Realty, Sempra Energy, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hologic Inc. and Ball Corp have the highest put/call volume ratios in the S&P 500
* POLITICS:
** President Donald Trump hosted Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Wednesday as he weighed how to approach the Middle East
** Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his diplomatic push for a plan to establish safe zones in Syria backed by peacekeepers as he began talks with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday
* ECONOMY:
** Expectations for an interest rate hike in June jumped to more than 95%, according Fed funds futures trading, as Fed officials said economic growth wouldn’t derail the committee’s plan to raise rates twice more this year
** Apple sold 50.8 million iPhones in the quarter ended April 1, down from 51.2 million units in the same period a year earlier and less than the 51.4 million predicted in a Bloomberg survey of analysts
** About two-thirds into the U.S. earnings season, 74% of companies beat EPS estimates, versus 69% a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In absolute terms, EPS are up 14% year over year, set to be the strongest quarterly profit growth since 2011
** Market’s reaction to the robust earnings season has been muted so far, and asymmetric to the downside, JPMorgan equity strategists Emmanuel Cau and Mislav Matejka wrote in a note
** After-market Wednesday: Pioneer Natural Resources Co (PXD), Lincoln National Corp (LNC), CenturyLink Inc (CTL), Concho Resources Inc (CXO), Prudential Financial Inc (PRU), CF Industries Holdings Inc (CF), Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT), Qorvo Inc (QRVO), Facebook Inc (FB), Murphy Oil Corp (MUR), Albemarle Corp (ALB), MetLife Inc (MET), Williams Cos Inc/The (WMB), Kraft Heinz Co/The (KHC), American International Group Inc (AIG), Transocean Ltd (RIG), Alliant Energy Corp (LNT), American Water Works Co Inc (AWK), Level 3 Communications Inc (LVLT)
** Pre-market Thursday: Ball Corp (BLL), Fluor Corp (FLR), Scripps Networks Interactive Inc (SNI), Global Payments Inc (GPN), PPL Corp (PPL), Dominion Resources Inc/VA (D), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (REGN), Willis Towers Watson PLC (WLTW), Eversource Energy (ES), Quanta Services Inc (PWR), Gartner Inc (IT), Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK), AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC), Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY), Viacom Inc (VIAB), Church & Dwight Co Inc (CHD), Incyte Corp (INCY), Zoetis Inc (ZTS), Apache Corp (APA), Kellogg Co (K)
* First Word Street Wraps:
** Sprint Falls as Future Hinges on T-Mobile M&A: Street Wrap
** New Etsy CEO Won’t Turn Things Around Any Time Soon: Street Wrap
** First Solar Soars on Series 6 View, Suniva Petition: Street Wrap

Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Be magnificent!

Guard your tongue, for it is highly dangerous;
unguarded words can cause terrible distress.
A single bad word can destroy a vast quantity of good.
A wound caused by fire will eventually heal;
but  a wound caused by the tongue leaves a scar that never heals.
Valluvar

As ever,

Carolann

Consider the postage stamp, my son.  It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing until it gets there.
                                                                                                        -Josh Billings, 1818-1885

Carolann Steinhoff, B.Sc., CFP®, CIM, CIWM
Portfolio Manager &
Senior Vice-President

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
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www.carolannsteinhoff.com