Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. I normally say Kaddish for my maternal grandparents but there is no place near with a Minyan (quorum) this year. They were deported from their home in Hesse, a German province, and moved to an old age home in the Frankfurt Ghetto. From there, they were deported in 1942 in cattle cars to Belarus where they were murdered. Both my grandfathers were German army veterans. My mother did the research in Yad vShem, the Israeli archive. She was their 5^th daughter. Because they were too proud to accept money from a son-in-law, they stayed in Germany instead of emigrating as my father's parents did.

The crazy market continues, fed by newbie investors ganging up on short-sellers in Game-Stop and a few other names, including one in our portfolio. The Dow Jones opened down 377 points, about 1.1% while other indexes fell more, the Dow 30 by 1.5%, Q by 1.2%, and the S&P 500 by 1.5%. My personal portfolio lost 1.75% today, despite several holdings at unsustainable high levels. Stand Back!

As China slipped backward, Japan took over as the Asia winner, notably the Zaibatsu Mitsubishi, MSBHF, which rose 5.83%, while rival Sumitomo Mitsui, SMFG, fell an inexplicable 6.47%. Japan's Fanuc (FANUY), a maker of factory robots, which I have long favored, rose 3.15% today. This is nice but may not last given how the market is being moved.

The stocks being manipulated include Finnish Nokia (NOK), apparently being touted at the Reddit chatroom along with BlackBerry, BB, which gained 10.2% and GameStop GME up 122.32% (that is not a misprint), and the hedge funds shorting it mostly capitulated.

While NOK is not a penny stock, it is being driven by players from the fringe market, using stimulus money and ganging up on chatrooms. NOK is up ~40+ % today, an inexplicable rise, to $6.728. It rose 5.3% in pre-market US trading. It hit a 12 mo high today at $4.43.

Also on the upside is Sampo Oij, SAXPY, the Finnish fund group. Investor A/B of Sweden is another popup share, but with a reason, and moreover, it stopped popping because something came up after it hit a new high of SEK 636.8 in Stockholm today, falling back 0.9% there to SEK 631.4. The reason for the rise is that according to today's Financial Times, its private equity arm EQT bought a US outfit, Exeter Property Group for $19 mn which excited the market. Moreover, it reported adjusted 2020 revenues rose 34% in kronors over the level of 2019, to 362 mn, a nice jump. Despite this, it fell 1.26% here. Having reported less than brilliant parent company results Jan. 21, it fell to a lushious p/e ratio of 12.1x earnings, yielding 1.85%. IVSBF and gained from spinning off a bank holding, Nordea.

There was a reason the stock fell. Investor owns a chunk of Nasdaq because it was the European clearinghouse for that US market. After the Swedish close Nasdaq Clearing revealed that it had been fined 300 mn Swedish crowns, about $35 mn, for failure to crack down on a power trade in 2018 prior to its default. The private trading firm owned by Norwegian Einar Aas left a hole of euros 114 mn ($140 mn) in the clearinghouse which other market makers had to cover within 2 business days to avoid defaulting themselves. Moreover, Nasdaq Clearing violated EU rules by investing its own funds in derivative contracts after the default, said to have been triggered by huge fluctuations in market spreads for energy production because of too much hydro-electric output because of heavy rains. This is from Reuters today.

As both Gen. Joe Shaefer and your editor bought one of IVSBF's holdings, ABB, and because I watch AstraZeneca (about which more below) for us it is not a black box financial holding company.

I also watch Ericsson, another position in IVSBF, which competes against NOK but is more friendly to China. ERIC jumped as much as 9% today hitting $13.09, combining Chinese numerology (lucky 8) and Western (unlucky 13.) IVSBF's stake in Hennes & Mauritz gained 4.1% today, which also might have boosted the parent.

The Nasdaq in US trading also suffered from the Einar Aas collapse, down 1.2% despite heavy trading volumes led by winner Microsoft MSFT, a share I own.

*Indivior rose 13.14% Tuesday and 11.4% last week. INVVY also corrected today, down from GBX 146.9 to 138.4, off 4.4%.

*TD Ameritrade, where I have my account, has restricted transactions in GameStop (GME), and AMC Entertainment AMC plus unnamed others. It is a sub of Charles Schwab brokerage.

There is a way to play this market, and I don't mean options trading long or short, because the volumes are gigantic. The place to bet on options is the CBOE, the now global Chicago Board Options Exchange, which lets people bet on volatility. Its index rose 5.63 points today. The stock is mostly owned by institutions.

Note that despite support to Taiwan from the new Administration, the Chinese jet flyovers have spooked the country's stock exchange and our Taiwan CEF TWN has fallen 3% this week, to $32.28 from $33.26 (Friday's close.)

Drug stocks

*A weird winner is Esperion, a US firm I own, up 19.97% at double the normal daily volume at 11 am. Its home website warns that spoofed emails allegedly from unauthorized individuals or entities purporting to be from the lipid-lowering company are being spread on the internet. ESPR topped $38.53 after opening at $31.83, not exactly a routine move. This is the only place where I found a company warning about internet spoofs.

*Cayman Islands-based Theravance, TBPH, is up 3.3% but still down YTD.

*Novavax-ExoProTher Medical is holding up. I panicked over its two names in Globes-Israel articles, but that matters for Israeli investors interested in fighting cancer with electricity.

*Japanese Eisai is up a fraction, reflecting the new boom in Tokyo. ESALY

*Abcelera Biologics is up 1.9% today, hitting $48.70, a new high for us. ABCL

*However mighty Beigene dropped to $328.3 today because of fear of China. BGNE

*The BBC last night took on Ursula Van der Leyen, the European commissioner, who attacked Astra-Zeneca for delays in its Dutch factory's production of its covid-19 inoculation which meant it might not meet the March target date for the jabs for European countries. Ms. Van der Leyen was pictured at a half dozen dates last year saying that there should not be competition from European countries to build up their virus supplies at the expense of other countries, particularly in the developing world. The hypocrisy of her new stance also led to criticism in the Financial Times today. Obviously, if AZN could have produced more of the virus it would have done so. European jabs are not being hauled off elsewhere. In fact in the USA AZN has cut the number of vials going to inoculation centers by arguing that a 5^th injection can be given instead of 4, using specialized needles that are not always available.

*Spain's Grifols, GRFS, is up 1.15% on a new appreciation of antibodies, in which it specializes, given the new virus mutations.

*Zymeworks which Martin Ferera tipped, is up 1.6% today. It operaties in British Columbia where there is a Canadian biotech grouping. ZYME

Commodities

*Oil commanded $53.19 per barrel, up 1.1% and this boosted the price of oil companies. The US stockpiles lost just under 10 bn barrels last week according to the EIA.

*Metals fell: gold off 0.2% to $1846.8/oz; silver off 0.8% to $23.325, and copper down 2.2% to $3.5395. These reflect more negative views of the recovery.

*Lower oil prices boosted BP plc by 1.1%; Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B) however fell 0.05%, no big deal. Schlumberger Ltd however fell 0.81%. SLB helps find oil and gas mostly outside the USA. It was recommended today on SeekingAlpha and by Goehring & Rosezwyg analysts because there will be a market for oil and gas as the world turns green unless people trash their cars and appliances.

*Johnson Matthey is more or less flat, however. JMPLY specializes in platinum group metals used for exhaust.

*NIO, the electric vehicle maker, is up a tad in the wake of Tesla gaining 3%, but it is down 7% this week.

*Ecopetrol, the Colombian oil company, is setting out to become more native by buying out the govt-owned pipeline network.

*Exxon XOM is making changes to its board to show more sympathy for green investors, following the moves by Shell and BP in Europe.

*UUUU, Energy Fuels, is up 4.94% and near its 2021 high. It's rated buy by HC Wainwright & Co.

*Brazilian Cosan CZZ gained another 2.86% as its offer to buy out those against its reorganization took hold. At 17.98 it is still well below its high before the proxy vote, of $23.