This is always our key subject but it is in focus today.

If someone asks me what the stock market will do next, I will give the classic answer: “It will fluctuate”. The combination of high risks of real and trade wars, political upheaval, and monetary changes has made my forecasting system unstable. The fact that the stock markets long rise has taken it into uncharted territory makes it likely that there will be a reversal, just so things get back to normal. But earlier tries at chopping the market, in December and May, ultimately did not take. That is an anomaly but doesn't mean a future chop will not take. Today the US market is downtrending as a follow-up to late lower prices yesterday, lower housing price gains, and a low report on consumer confidence.

I am in contact with the Financial Times editors to try to teach them how to distinguish between an ADR which trades actively on the London Stock Exchange and one which trades only on Thursdays if there is a full moon. The pink paper's hacks keep publishing notes like the one I heralded for paid subscribers yesterday, saying it had rise 12.95%.. I keep getting notifications of huge moves by one of our shares which are not the result of changes in the real stock price but only a mark of how intermittently they trade in London.

The medical devices firm Smith & Nephew pondered creating an ADR listing in order to pay their new CEO Narnal Nawana a higher salary than would have been tolerated by UK shareholders

Today Chinese markets were hurt by a contempt ruling against 3 Hong Kong banks which failed to respond to subpoenas over charges they had violated sanctions against North Korea by helping a local company launder money. This is almost certainly a coincidence but Chinese pundits believe it is being used to put pressure on Xi Jinping before his meeting with Pres. Trumpet. China-linked Hong Kong bank stock plummeted on fear they would lose access to the US dollar system which includes the HK$ which is linked to ours.

More for paid subscribers from Chile, Ireland, South Africa, Hong Kong, Israel, Britain, India, Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, and Switzerland. I have to go and vote.

*The stock which the FT covers without looking at Nasdaq or Johannesburg is Naspers, which is about to set up a European listing to teach the newspaper how to cover a global company. Two stocks we own which are not British, Antofagasta of Chile and CRH of Ireland have their primary listing on the LSE.

Another Irish share whose listing is in London is Greencore Group which today revealed that JP Morgan Asset Management of Delaware upped its stock stake in GNCGY to 4.33% and with equity swap options to 4.72%. JPM is a depositary as well as a money manager and my broker. GNCGY.

*CRH was upped to buy by Jefferies Financial today.

Banksters

*The Hong Kong Chinese-linked banks which may be sanctioned by US court do not include Hang Seng Bank, nor its parent, HSBC. HSBC upgraded Hong Kong overall from reduce to neutral in the sell off and heavy short selling.

*In Sentidocomun.co.mx, Eduardo Garcia writes that Mercado Libre next month will begin offering consumer credit in Mexico to people buying goods advertised on its e-commerce platform, using its Mercado Crédito arm. MELI of Argentina operates in US$ and competes hard in Latin America. MELI stock is down 1.1%.

*NPSNY owns 31% of Tencent Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong, which fell 2.2% today over the possible threat to banks in Hong Kong. TCEHY later recovered to fallonly1.8% but was still the second most heavily traded stock today. Naspers fell 1.63% over the drop in Hong Kong. By the time I got my order in it was only down 1.4%. I think I am an arbitrageur.

*AIA Asia, the insurance firm, also was among the 10 most heavily traded Hong Kong shares today but only fell 0.54%. AAIGF then fell 1.4% in US trading.

Pharma

*Right after the $63 bn AbbVie deal to buy botox maker Allergan which now will not split, and despite the obstacles to Bristol Myers Squibb buying Celgene, global pharma rose in anticipation of more deals. Among the winners was our own beaten down Teva, which initially rose by 7.6% before slumping back down to only +6.4%. AGN rose 31%.

*Swiss Roche's buy of Spark is still not a slam dunk, however. Now the UK opened its own antitrust probe.

*Canadian Bausch Health Cos rose 4%. BHC launched its plaque psoriasis topical treatment Duobrii in the USA. It costs $850 per 100-gram tube. The heartbreak of psoriasis continues...

*Isreali Compugen rose 0.6%. CGEN.

*France's Genfit rose 0.8% at last. GNFTF is at $20.20. The NASH drug being developed by Swiss Novartis and Conatus Pharma failed a follow-on trial. However it faces competition from CymaBay Therapeutics which was rated buy by Stifel yesterday.

*However Zymeworks fell 1.4% probably because of its secondary. ZYME.

Tech & Tel

*Abhimanyu Sisodia writes about Vodafone (VOD) telco in India which is marginal for the UK firm post-merger and where it is cutting back. To encourage him to report regularly here is his note:

"VOD-Idea lost 1.582,000 subs in April but still has the largest number. Other telcos also lost out except for Reliance Jio whose owner Mukesh Ambani used photos of PM Modi in ads (and paid a 500 rupee fine for this) and state-owned BSNL which covers rural markets."

Separately, VOD is a potential buyer of the Spanish business of BT (British Telecom) according to the Telegraph, a UK daily which is often ahead of the gang on business news. BT Española is also a possible target for buyout firms. Another BT sale is of its Irish sub. The reason is Brexit of plus a lot of UK fines for violating rules against selling upgrades for its EE mobile services by direct marketing messages. It was downed to sell by Deutsche Bank yesterday.

*NTT Docomo did a deal with Trend Micro Inc to provide internet of things device security to business users in Japan.DCMYY gained 1.9%.

*CAE Inc of Canada is up 1.4% on the realization that its simulators will be required for the return of the Boeing 737-Max to the skies.

*Veoneer is up 1.2% on no news I can figure out unless it was that it finally published its Q1 results in Swedish. Its Q2 results (in English) come out July 26. It is a US incorporated Swede (for historic reasons, like its ex-parent Autoliv. The SEC is its primary regulator.

Power

*Wallstreet'sBestDividendStocks (cabotwealth.com) today published a followup to my recommendation of Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN) of Canada. It quoted me as saying that its deals in the US Midwest is cutting the AQN currency risk for US buyers. I noted that it is now into water and sewage businesses. I also wrote it up again for H2. I just picked it again for H2 along with our

*More speculative Indian ute Azure Power (AZRE) which builds solar generating capacity on the roofs of government offices and railway buildings plus private sites to cut down on India's need for dirty coal and imported oil and gas. Not only are the Himalayas losing ice because of so many people climbing Mount Everest, they are also hurting because of dirty air not all of which comes from China to the north.

Fundos

*Fibra Uno in Mexican trading rose 2.53%. FUN011 moves to its own drummer, not following FBASF.

*SPDR Gold tried to fall below yesterday's close at mid-day but wound up ahead all the same. GLD is the hottest exchange-traded fund we own.