It’s hard to believe that the S&P500 and TSX delivered positive returns during the first quarter. After all, inflation is still high, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) continued to increase interest rates in March, consensus 2023 earnings are down almost -12% from their peak and on March 10th, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed -the second largest bank failure in US history. During the first quarter the S&P500 total return was +7.5% in US dollars. Adjusting for currency, the S&P500 returned +7.4% in Canadian dollars, as the Canadian dollar appreciated about 2/10ths of a cent, closing the quarter at US$0.7398. The TSX total return was 4.6%.