Oy vey. Today any hope for a market resurgence was shattered by a mounting rise in covid-19 cases in much of the developed world, along with even previously buoyant Hong Kong. Heavy volumes further stressed investors leading to panic selling. The only exception among my holdings seems to be GE. In this market, beating forecasts only works sometimes. Microsoft (MSFT) beat too but its shares are down. The German DAX index fell 4% on new restrictions over the pandemic.

Moreover, brokerage accounts at newly-merged TD-Ameritrade and Schwab are not providing corporate results on a timely basis. This came with BP plc (BP) yesterday leading me to put out a special bulletin. But my brokers failed to provide results from two other reporting companies to customers including another foreign major. Today the gaps persist.

An information gap only adds to the tendency of retail investors to sell first and examine later. While I know it sounds self-serving we really do need to keep our cool. I am struck by the most recent e-mail from Value Line received today, which for the first time ever failed to tell readers to buy and hold its most highly rated shares for the long haul.

Let's start by covering the missing reports of Tuesday, with apologies. Our BP report yesterday was surprisingly good but no known analyst has put a buy on it, only DZ Bank AG.

*Swiss Novartis Tuesday reported Q3 net up 8% to $3.47 bn, beating the consensus forecast of $3.32 bn, but revenues were barely up, by 1% to $12.3 bn, and below-average analyst calls for $12.7 bn. Moreover in the NVS conference call, CFO Harry Kisch warned that a resurgence of the pandemic could cut sales further if hospitals and health systems are overwhelmed. The Swiss franc is worth about $1.1. 

NVS suffered from delays in non-essential sales of dermatology drug IL-17A (Cosentyx) while only the most desperately needed oncology and gene therapy drugs sold more than in the prior quarter, for example, Zolsens for spinal muscular atrophy in babies. NVS also lowered its forecasts from low to medium double-digit earnings for the year to low double digits.

Separately, NVS today signed an expensive deal with Molecular Partners AG, a Swiss small-cap developing two Covid-19 vaccine hopes which do not have to be kept cold. NVS paid CHF20 mn upfront and also bought F40 mn of shares, 6% of MLLCF which trades OTC here. It will also pay F150 mn more in milestones and F22 mn in royalties if the jab works. MLLCF is up 28% today on the news.

*Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) reported sales of £8.6 bn in Q3 down 8%. Again the best-seller drugs were ones that are not delayed, for oncology meds. Adjusted operating margins were 30.8%, ahead of the prior quarter but below last year. Earnings per share hit 25 pence, down 9% while free cash flow was minus £200 mn. Like NVS, GSK cut its forecast for the full year EPS calling for a loss at the high end of its prior estimate, -1 to -4%. Credit Suisse upped it buy because of sterling falling vs the dollar, which didn't happen today. The elephant in the room is the December or January coronavirus results from trials being run by Sanofi of France, with GSK providing the booster.

*Because of the contractors' failure to set up our website to collect credit card orders within 3 weeks as promised, I am writing up RDY rather than paying Abhimanyu Sisodia to do this, because I don't have to pay myself. It reported early today.

Dr Reddy's (RDY) in India reported a beat in 2021 Q2 results (it uses a March 30 year-end) thanks to huge gains in API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) sales up 20% to the equivalent of $8.5 bn and global generics sales up 21% to $39.8 mn. Sales were the equivalent of $666 mn, up 2% from the prior year, and ahead of the consensus forecast of $646 mn. Gross margins were up 5% from last Q2.

However thereafter things were more mixed. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (cash flow) rose 1% from prior quarter by were down 12% from Q2 2020 at $172 mn from $195 mn. Cost of sales topped $307 mn vs a mere $277 mn last Q2. While sales, general, and administrative costs were flat, R&D costs topped $59 mn, up from 50 a year ago. Other operating income was flat, while finance income was $3m vs 2mn.

Profits rose 2% sequentially and were up 12% from prior Q2 but were down to $104 mn from prior year $149 mn because of a tax rebate which was not repeated, the biggest change. Thus. EPS was 62¢ vs 90¢ a year ago. Abhimanyu recommended the share in the first place before the site went down.  If they don't respond to my queries about the delay from their promise of 3 weeks to set up the site I will publish the name of the New Jersey company which has let me down. The issue is not only collecting revenues but also family matters I need to deal with.

Other news

*Eduardo Garcia writes that Mexican REIT Fibra Uno (FBASF) is selling 3 properties there for $310 mn which took the share of this very volatile stock down 2.7% (in pesos). The properties are an industrial site, an office block, and a retail site. The latter is FBASF's forte. It is also now backing a government investigation into monopolies in residential housing sales, which I think will not help it in Mexico.

*BAE Systems is selling a thermal camera core to the US military for security and targeting, called Athena 1920. British BAESY makes the aerial camera in Lexington, Mass.

*Veoneer, a maker of electronic auto safety systems, was downrated to underperform today by Credit Suisse, down from neutral, because the stock has tripled since Feb. I like VNE mainly because I don't drive as much anymore as a New Yorker and like to have a bit of help.

*Finnish Nokia (NOK) and Canadian Shaw (SJR) have jointly created a 5G private mining LTE network for Teck Resources. This will allow more shared information inside the miner but not available elsewhere.