Before I discuss the latest stock updates, my thoughts on the recent attack in Germany...

The Yom Kippur murderer filmed his attempt to kill Jews in Halle, Germany. The city is famous as the birthplace of composer George Frideric Handel, who became British to advance his career with 18th century royal patronage. He was officially a church musician, but he also wrote lots of music for the stage, psalms and oratorios. Handel's most famous oratorio is clearly Christian, but The Messiah is less Lutheran and more Anglican than the composer himself.

Handel's private sector oratorios are overwhelming based on the Old Testament as this enabled him to keep the rights to his public non-church musical creations. Esther, Deborah, Saul, Solomon, Samson, Jephtah, Joseph and his Brothers, Psalms, Israel in Egypt, Judas Macabias, all were used for Handel's public music, performed in theaters by lay singers and choruses.

The Hallelujah Chorus being Christian so annoyed a Jewish musical friend of ours that he used the Messiah music to create a non-Christian oratorio in Hebrew, performed a few years ago at Temple Habonim, the German-Jewish Reform Synagogue on Manhattan's west side.

Old town Halle has fewer Jews than Temple Habonim today, and luckily the anti-Semitic killer never managed got into the synagogue to kill innocent worshipers on the holiest day of the Jewish year. Instead, he killed a passer-by and a patron of a Hallal cafe, and wounded others, all unlikely to have been Jewish. But they were innocent too.

The security at Lincoln Center and Central Synagogue where we attended services, seemed excessive—armed cops, dogs, bar-code readers to get in, and even an African-American security guard accompanying the senior rabbi when she took the Torah in procession among the audience. But after Pittsburgh we expected it. Now Germany has to better protect its Jewish remnant from neo-Nazis.

Yom Kippur markets saw the triumph of hope over experience, with buying of Chinese stocks expected to benefit from the latest round of trade talks with the US. I am skeptical about whether this will get anywhere despite or perhaps because Beijing really did look into the Bidens' role helping Chinese firms get US permits. That Trump will meet with vice-premier has Liu He Friday boosted treasury yields by 6.5% and also helped bank and insurance stocks. But Liu leaves Sat.

The rollout of impeachment continues with two Russians who funded Rudy Giuliani's attempt to get dirt on the Bidens' deals in Ukraine being arrested for illegal campaign financing in the US. There is way too much noise about the Chinese talks which may be cut short, unless next week's tariff hikes are suspended or an exemption found for sanctions against Huawei. It is unlikely that Pres. Trump, already under attack from congressional Republicans for throwing US allies against ISIS under the bus to make nice to Turkey's Erdogan, would risk ending his trade dispute with Beijing which has support in the US.

And the odds are against a mutually accepted currency link, in my opinion.

China is offering to buy more US soybeans for $3.25 bn per year and make other partial concessions—but nothing yet about intellectual property violations and limits on foreign ownership of Chinese firms.

And I doubt if making nice to Ireland's Leo Varadkar will do any good to British PM Boris Johnson's hope that he can remain in office when the no-deal brexit deadlines pass. Like Trump Boris is a New Yorker by birth with funny blond hair and a bad history with women. Varadkar is half-Indian and gay. But UK stocks also were boosted today by news that the British economy grew in the most recent quarter, so it may not face a recession—of course only if Boris behaves himself. Because of the holiday we have lots of news to catch up with from China to the Cayman Islands, every place in Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Argentina, Israel, India, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Korea, Angola, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and the USA.

Tech

*US underwriters are writhing in embarrassment for having planned to back the IPO of Megvil Tech Ltd., maker of artificial intelligence facial recognition systems now blacklisted by the US for repression of Muslim Uigurs in China. The backers of Megvil's IPO are Goldman Sachs (GS), Citi (C) , and JP Morgan (JPM).

*Tencent is one of the largest users of a Cayman Islands Variable Interest Equity structure to achieve a backdoor listing in US markets, which totaled $1.7 trillion at the end of 2017. TCEHY, which trades OTC, accounted for 30% of the total, at $494 bn, according to a paper published by 4 Harvard profs in the summer, quoted in today's Financial Times. Listed Alibaba (BABA) accounted for $442 bn of the total. Cracking down on VIEs would be a simple way to shut the American Depositary Receipts access to Hong Kong companies. US-based funds own another $107 bn in Tencent Hong Kong shares.

TCEHY is under the gun for capital controls if the US decides to use this to stop investment in Chinese firms. China ruled VIE structures as being illegal, and will not be able to defend the process.

Tencent is investing a half billion bucks in Hillhouse Capital's China drugstore chain. It is spreading itself too thin? An anonymous short seller on seekingalpha.com citing Chinese regulatory risk and internal factionalism and called Tencent “the ailing penguin” predicting its stock will lose 12% to 20% because of its structure. The writer uses a pseudonym, Terracotta, like the Chinese warriors, which worries me.

*US tech firms are also compromised. Apple (AAPL) has removed police-tracking and Hong Kong maps apps from its app stores under Chinese pressure.

*Abhimanyu Sisodia reports from India that Makemytrip is in a deal with TripAdvisor (TRIP) which will let users of MMYT book local activities like sightseeing without leaving the MMYT site worldwide. He thinks the cut in corporate taxes by the Modi govt will not help our travel website because people have already booked the Diwali tickets.

*Hollysys Automation Tech is one of the stocks rising the most, up 4% at the opening. HOLI, down 20% YTD, automates construction of railroads, part of the Belt and Road push by China into emerging markets.

*Fanuc lost 2.52% today in Tokyo. FANUY makes industrial robots for factories.

*Vodafone is up 2.3% after its integration of the former Liberty Media A and C shares (LBTYA, LBTYK) sold. Over the next 2 years VOD expects to cut euros 135 mn in German and Eastern Europe staff costs. VOD won a buy rating yesterday from both Berenberg Bank and UBS Group. With Intel (INTC) it is testing OpenRAN open access radio technology in Britain which may compete with 5G offerings from Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson. This uses standard hardware like masts and antennas carrying mobile calls and data as well as the same software.The system was tested in South Africa and Turkey for 2G and 4G services and cuts the costs of calls especially in rural areas.

*Mercado Libre, free of Chinese links, rose 2.1% today on Wall St. MELI works in Latin America.

*MultiChoice Group (MCHOY) rose 1.7% today but the TV spinoff from South African Naspers (NPSNY) is still down about 15% from where it came out. Our local reporter Primo Sewnunan gave some warnings about how the economy is doing last week using consumer spending as his guide. I was surprised that nobody commented on this but Harry Geisel who used to cover Johannesburg for us turns out to have been in Bali.

*Naspers (NPSNY) is up 0.85% because it is a must-buy Dutch-listed tech stock now. But its EU share Prosus nv is off 0.56%. It was ipo's Sept. 11. I suspect arbitraging is going on between the markets.

*Japan's gaming stocks are mixed. Nintendo (NTDOY) is down 2.3% on no news. DeNA gained 2%. It is down about 20% from its high lateSept. DNACF makes Pokemon games for Android and iOS devices. I am considering buying it back to get more gaming plays, but not Tencent.

Drugs

*Success in phase I trials of namodenson in non-alcoholic stearo-hepatitis and liver cancer published by Can-Fite BioPharma has taken down French Genfit, GNFTF. I think there may well be multiple NASH drugs coming.

*Novo Nordisk of Denmark is teaming up for 3 years with Bluebird bio of Cambridge MA to develop in vivo gene editing to treat genetic diseases like hemophilia. Financial terms were not released. NVO has a hemophilia drug called Esperoct but the Bluebird accord aims to avoid factor replacement drugs entirely with mRNA-based megaTAL which can edit or insert genes to stop factor VIII blod clotting deficiency at the DNA level. The Romanoff family inherited its hemophilia weakness from a Danish princess. Swiss Roche is also getting into the blood disease by bidding for Spark Therapeutics.

*Teva rose 2.6% on Yom Kippur, presumably without input from Tel Aviv, with the share hitting $6.67. It will report its Q3 results Nov. 7. It sold its logistics center in Israel to a real estate firm for the equivalent of $127 mn (NIS 445 mn) which can be used to repay debt, and then signed a 10-yr lease for NIS 22 mn per year, which can be extended for another 25 years. TEVA rose another 1.7% today.

*Canadian Zymeworks rose 4% at today's opening but ZYME fell back later.

*The new institutional shareholder in Benitec Biopharma (BNTC) in Australia is New York-based Empery Asset Mgm which runs tax efficient funds. The purchases were of new Citicorp ADRs amounting to 8.94% of the shares outstanding. We reported on the offering last week before the buyer was named.

*Further to my confusion as to why encephalitis jabs are being developed by Belgian Galapagos (GLPG) for the US Dept of Defense, sp,e 5.56% of its shares are owned by Boston's Wellington Mgm. We sold too soon when my insider contact retired.

Energy

*Everyone in the oil-patch awaits the valuation of Aramco for its IPO next month. Will the market back Prince Mohammed bin Salman's target price of $2 trillion which he is imposing on Saudi fatcats already traumatized by having been locked up last year to collect contributions? The bankers may report the price they are aiming by Friday.

*Algonquin Power & Utilities is doing an underwritten offer of 21.5 mn new Canadian common shares using a shelf prospectus to fund acquisitions already announced. AQN specializes in renewables on both sides of the border.

*Both our oil majors paid up in consortia for offshore oil blocks near existing find auctioned by Brazil. Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-A, RDS-B) with Wintershalle, Chevron, Exxon, and Repsol collected one exploration block for the equivalent of $133 mn.

*BP (BP) with Brazil's Petronas nabbed another in partnership with Brazil's Petrobras for another block for $75 mn.

Angola wants to stop flaring gas from its offshore oilfields with a LNG partnership with BP and other western companies with Sonangol.

BP also boosted its digital energy smarts by leading a fund round for Grid Edge, the developer of an artficial intelligence system for buildings to control their energy use.

BP says that the AI software can cut carbon emissions by 10-15% on average, but in some cases twice as much. The app works for airports, shopping malls, and businesses and was developed by Aston University in Birmingham, UK. BP lost 0.35% today.

*Canadian Cameco rose 3.25% in today because it is not the only uranium miner facing oversupply, but CCJ has shut in facilities.

*Norwegian LNG carrier Hoegh pref, HMLP-A, is up another 0.7% today.

*I cannot explain why Noble Energy (NBL) shares plummeted on the increase in Leviathan and Tamar offshore Israeli fields it is partner in developing. It is tracking Delek Group (DK), I'd guess.

Industrials

*Greencore (GNCGY), the Irish supplier of British supermarkets with food and salads, rose 4.8% on hopes for no border barriers.

*Also up for the same reason is CRH, the Irish cement and aggregates firm, listed in London and operating worldwide.

*BlackRock is aiming to greenwash its hefty passive investment in fossil fuels with a new active fund to buy into sustainability it will manage with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to buy into firms going green. Among the early investments is Tomra (TMRAY) of Norway, aker of reverse vending machines for recycling bottles and cans and other sorting systems for waste.

*French waterworks and waste giant Veolia (VEOEY) which also does energy management, and trades at a forward p/e of 17.5x, was upgraded by Macquarie from a hold to an outperform rating at $24.86 and by JP Morgan to overweight at $24.68 earlier this week. It will be hurt if there is a Brexit this month, because it is heavily involved in UK local government parks management (in the Mudchute Manor area among others.)

I think it is worth a gamble. We owned this firm a decade ago because except in Monopoly games, it is hard to find global waterworks firms. I paid $25.15. It promptly rose 1.25%.

*Antofagasta is up 5%+ Thurs. Chilean copper miner ANFGF is listed in the UK where it gains from upbeat economic growth data.

*On Yom Kippur, Brazilian Vale (VALE) stock rose over 2.5% despite its history of tailings dam disasters, which sound rather like sins.

*Ditto for Reckitt Benckiser (RBGLY)whose humidifier cleaners killed people in Japan and Korea, which is now rated buy by local brokerage HSBC.

Bank Insurance

*Banco Santander (SAN) rose 2.5% as US interest rates rose unexpectedly yesterday, also helped by the Fed's deciding to drop a proposale that US branches of foreign banks hold a minimum of liquid assets. It is selling $843 mn of US leases and loans to Sterling National Bank.

*Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio (BLX) the Panama-based multilateral trade finance bank, rose 1% for the same reason. It has barely any links to China.

*Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank Group, CBBYF, gained 4.7%. This may not be the case as the price is not showing on my stock brokerage account.

*India's ICICI Bank, IBN, was one of the top 8 stocks picked by Marketclub today. We sold ages ago.

Funds

*Fibra Uno in Mexican trading hit another year's high today, FBASF here (but not covered by my new broker TD Ameritrade yet) and FUNO11 in Mexico. It fell 3.5% yesterday in US trading according to E-trade. Fibra Uno will do a conference call at 2 pm NY time on Oct. 28 on its Q3.

*Aberdeen Asia Pacific Income Fund gained 0.33% today of hopes for trade talks. FAX also declared a 2.75 cent dividend making its annual yield 7.84%..

*Aurora Investment Trust (AIVTF) of Britain gained 2.43% today on hopes over remain and elections.

*Fidelity, best known as a fund manager, will also cut its commissions on stock trading to zero.

*I'm looking for a volunteer in Europe to cover the Q3 results at Investor A/B at 10:30 am CET in English. You can call in from Britain or Sweden using PIN 20756383# after reading the press release coming out at 8:15 CET.