My second Moderna jab hurt more than the first one did as we were warned. But despite my sore arm, I slept like a log and so did my husband.

Inflation risk: Today markets were barely up except for Nasdaq after Wednesday's high, and new concern about US growth after the new jobless numbers from last week showed 795,00 new applicants, vs a 760,000 forecast. This has cut the fear of inflation which ultimately affects commodities and interest rates. However, the latest CBO forecast for the 2021 deficit is $2.3 trillion—not counting any new $1.9 trillion stimulus spending by the Biden lot. This is an improvement from the 2020 deficit of $3.13 bn. Unless it is repaid, the level, even at meager interest rates, will hit $35.3 trillion by 2031. Despite the possible drop, price inflation risk is high now: new highs for crude oil after stockpiles fell more than forecast; for uranium; for platinum; for copper. I hope Biden will cut the stimulus plans.

Amsterdam vs London: Sterling fell against the dollar after rising most of Feb., which boosted the indexes. Now Amsterdam trades more non-British stocks than London does. One of my stock faves. CBOE, the data provider to institutional investors, saw its European real-time quotes increasingly going live on Xignite as part of post-Brexit arrangements in London from which Euroland traders are now banned. The Anglo-Dutch combo covers 6000 stocks from 18 different foreign markets. This is not for retail investors, however.

*Royal Dutch Shell B fell 2.1% in London today. The Amsterdam A shares fell 2.29% because they are subject to Dutch taxes, an argument for London, along with English, which most Dutch speak. RDS-B.

Dumping China: I feel vindicated for selling off some of our very visible China shares, notably Tencent and now Beigene (TCEHY and BGNE) after an executive of the former firm was arrested over WeChat material he sent to the Communist Party's disgraced anti-graft VP Sun Lijun, according to the Wall Street Journal. China is cracking down on big companies not controlled by the Communist Party. BGNE is more or less controlled by a local mayor in the city it is run from. I sold at $370 and it hit a new high at $378.14 today so my exit was premature. But I avoided a $4 ADR fee. It is up 36% in bucks YTD. The country cannot produce chips at a rate to back its tech prowess because of US blockage against its semiconductor companies. We are in this via Israeli-American chipmaker Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) which gained 2.2% Weds to $32.47, near its 12-mo high of $32.61.

*I kept AAIGF, AIA Group Hong Kong because it can leave Hong Kong more easily than a Honkers and Shankers HSBC sub can.

image source

Reporters:

*Today Sampo Oij reported what it called very strong results, a misnomer. As I learned years ago when I first covered Nokia, Finnish stock boosting is rampant among Finn firms allegedly reporting their outlook. SAXPY, the Finnish financial holding company cut its earnings by euros 1.541 bn with impairment charges on its total portfolio of euros 899 mn and another euros 262 mn for the Nordea Bank spinoff. Adding this back still left pre-tax profits at euros 1.541 bn vs 1.69 bn in 2019. Moreover, EPS was a mere 7 eurocents vs euros 1.69 bn in the prior year. Excluding Nordea from 2019 EPS showed an even bigger drop, from euros 2.16/sh. It also took off for one-off expenses for the acquisition of Hastings Group.

Numbers were also less than brilliant. Return on equity last year was 3.1% vs prior-year level of 12%. Net asset value per share came to euros 19.682/sh vs euros 20.71 last year. The board has now authorized another cut of euros 7.5/sh to cover more Nordea misses. The Finnish firm on Feb. 4 paid a dividend of 39 euros/sh for 2020 and this will be topped up with another euros 1.7/sh to be paid May 15. This prior year final dividend was euros 1.5 last year. Its payout level is nice but hard to justify based on 2020 results. It rose thanks to data massaging and payout to $1 under its 12 mo's high, $22.05.

*Today Cameco, CCJ of Canada, was tipped by writer Brandon Chapman on Talk Markets, to which I also contribute. He covered the quarterly and year-end results yesterday, which saw uranium production rise 4% to 2.8 mn lbs in Q4, offsetting a full-year fall of 44% to 5 mn lbs because of mine shutins because of covid-19. Cigar Lake is uranium costs US$15-16/lb vs a market price of $29.63 and is likely to be restarted soon. Sales in Q4 were off 39% in volume and only 3% in the full year. The share rose 8.5% yesterday on the news which Chapman says broke a long term resistance level. Because of new smaller nuclear electricity plants, CCJ expects to see a steady rise in the CCJ price by well over 200% to C$20.79-23.26 from current levels (C$15.95/sh) which, however, he says are still overbought. Chapman works for TheoTrade, an educational site with a free daily blog from which I quoted. This is their first posting on uranium. More on commodities below. Today after the 8% gain Weds. CCJ fell 2.7% after BofA-Merrill cut its rating to neutral with a Target Price of C$17.50. Its analyst Lawson Winder calls CCJ the “most liquid Western uranium miner” but thinks the target price level CCJ cited “is unlike in the near to medium term on current supply/demand outlook.” Analyst Andrew Wong of Royal Bank of Canada goes further, rating CCJ underperform with a TP of C$15.

*Canadian UUUU, Energy Fuels, rose another 4.81% today. It is a purer uranium play and also into rare earths. I am a believer in nuclear fuel.

Drug Stocks

*The big mystery on my return to the office was the steady erosion of the share price of an Israeli major, despite its having matched the consensus sales forecast while beating on earnings per share. The stock is TEVA. The sales came from mostly new products like Austedo, up 38% from prior quarter, and self-jabbing Ajovy for migraines, up 42% (because DIY jab was only launched in the final quarter.) Moreover, there was periferal good news.

CEO Kare Schultz in the conference call said that they were near a deal with the US over its opioid drug violations (no longer in focus because so many other companies are now tangled up in this.) He also said TEVA is planning to start making covid-19 inoculations to boost supplies. While I admit that my own favorite Teva chief was Jeremy Levin, an American Jewish Zionist, who was fired stupidly in 2017 when he suggested that the Israeli firm would have to cut back its employment of unionized Israelis, I think Schultz, a Dane, is very competent and better at PR than Levin, who was more of a scientist. The stock lost another 5.05% so far today, after opening at $12, now at $11.32. So what ails TEVA, which means health in Hebrew?

One remark by Schultz may have led to the selloff. He warned against drug companies relying on Chinese active ingredient inputs (pharmacos) for future drug supplies. This is a potential big negative for the industry.

Maybe there just are too many shareholders who have been hit by a loss. My personal basis is tiny because I bought TEVA when it was tipped to me by Swiss Rothschild analysts in Paris as a likely competitor to the Big Three Swiss drug giants. Their number is now down to two, and we own both, Roche and Novartis. Compared to them, TEVA is a mouse in comparison but it does make pharmacos.

*Roche, RHHBY is up today because its rheumatoid arthritis drug cuts the risk of death in severe Covid-19 infections according to Oxford U. The drug, Actemura (tocilizumab) works even better when combined with dexamethason, a corticosteroid which is out of patent. Roche is up 0.4% on the news after opening up 0.7%. Unlike Teva it pays a divvie, 2.6%.

*Danish Novo Nordisk soared after the New England Journal of Medicine today published the phase III trial of diabetes treatment semaglutide for treating obesity in non-diabetics at 68 weeks. It reduces hunger by mimicking the glucagon-like peptide GLP-1 which hits the bloodstream after a meal, by reducing hunger. Of the 1941 overweight adults in the trial, half got semaglutide and half a placebo. All got counseling about diet and exercise. The semaglutide participants were 86.4% more likely to lose at least 5% of their weight than the placebo recipients (at 31.5%). They were also 69.1% more likely to lose 10% of their weight than the placebo recipients (at 12%), and 50.5% more to lose 15% of their weight than the placebo recipients (at 4.9%.) This is a very convincing set of results for the peptide. Note that the mean change in body weight for those given the real drug was minus 14.9% while the control group weight loss was an average of 2.4%. A negative; 4.5% of those getting the drug dropped out because of “gastrointestinal events” while only 0.6% of those on placebo did. Your editor got into NVO because of its obesity projects. The stock is up 3.84% today to $73.91 and hit a 5-yr high of $73.92 at the open. Moreover, it pays a dividend of 2.37% which is guaranteed non-fattening.

*AstraZeneca whose jab is under a cloud for failing to protect those at risk from the South African mutant, and because it cannot meet the orders of the European Union in the current quarter, today got good new: The WHO has recommended that its anti-Covid 19 jab be used on anyone aged over 18 to stop the virus. AZN stock is up a tad but still well down from its $64.94 12-mo high.

*Ditto for Glaxo which has fallen 20% YTD for no real reason. Today GSK announced it would sell to the Sandoz arm of Novartis its off-patent cephalosporin anti-biotics business, for up to $150 mn over the next 4 years. They had sales of about $140 mn per year and Sandoz is buying the remainder after GSK sold its lines in Germany, the USA, and Australia earlier. Still to come are sales of its Japan, India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau cephalo lines under different brand names.

*Merck rose at the opening after it announced that it would work on Covid-19 vaccinations but it also fell back later in the morning by over 0.5%. Maybe the market is worried about antivirus saturation. MRK.

*Spanish Grifols lost heavily today. So did my newest stock pick not yet written up here, French Genfit, which this week reported good phase 2 results against NASH (liver disease). GRFS; GNFT.

*Dr. Reddy's, picked by Abhimanyu Sisodia, is one of the few non-Swiss drug winners today. RDY.

*My other winner is Thermo Fischer Scientific, TMO, up 1.83% on The Economist writing that it is spending $200 mn on a new Lithuanian facility for making nucleotides (DNA enzymes used to make mRNA vaccines.) The US firm apparently is a leader in the alternative to growing viruses which can be snipped into E-coli cells, themselves trigger a reaction to the protein they contain.

*Takeda, TAK, fell as did

More Industrials

*Antofagasta (ANFGF) whose prime market is London, did not budge today despite the boost in prices for platinum, but it did gain Weds.

*Eon SE, EONGY, was tipped by Thomas Gagan in seekingalpha. It is a German ute producing powr all over Europe.

*Naspers, NPSNY which sells cellphones and ads via its sub MCHOY, Multichoice, is up 2.65%. MCHOY is up 2.63%. This is showing that NSPNY is no longer a back door to Tencent.

*Mercado Libre is up 2.55% today at $1995/sh. It is Argentinian. MELI.

*My 2021 pick, Brazil's Cosan, CZZ, broke into the $20 range for the 1st time since July and now $20.18

*BAE Systems won a $184 mn US Marine Corp order for more Amphibious Combat Vehicles bringing the total ordeer to $366 mn. BAESY is now working on an even better ACV.

*Azure Power of Mauritius which supplies India is down 9.14%. AZRE sells solar panels.

*CRH of Ireland rose 1% on the potential boost in cement demand.

*Canadian Solar, a less obvious Chinese risk stock, maker of solar panels. is up. CSIQ.

*Ex-dividend Schlumberger Ltd of the Dutch Antilles is down 2.52% today. SLB is $25.95..

*Vodafone regained some of its losses today, up 0.65% on currency factors. It earns euros, not sterling. VOD.

*Mexico's global bakery firm Grupo Bimbo is up 5.82% hitting $2/sh. GRBMF.

Funds and Finance

*Bank of Nova Scotia, BNS, will payout 5.11% (US $2.83) after it chopped its divvy by 0.0054 cents US in Dec. Scotiabank is the most generous payer out among the Canada banks.

*I sold Mexican REIT Fibra Uno, FBASF, in part because it is untrackable because of pink sheet restrictions, in part because I worry about its complex currency basics. I got $1.1/sh vs a buy level of $1.25.

*Despite French government backing for Suez preventing it from bidding for control of the fellow ute, Veolia Environnement gained 1.5% today. VEOEY is at $27.46, still down from its year's high of $32.

*Canadian General, CGRIF, is one of the few shares up because of currency factors.

*Investor of Sweden, IVSBF, is up 0.72%. It is a a kind of fund.

*WIP, SPDR FTSE Internat'l Gov't Inflation Protection ETF, is up. I'm not the only inflation hawk.

*TIPX, SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 3-10 yr TIPS, is now down fractionally but opened higher today.

*SPIP, SPDR Portfolio TIPS ETF fell 0.22% as it is not inflation hedged.