Today the Chinese flash purchasing managers index number came in below the 50% level which marks positive growth, at 48.3%. This sound worrying but the period for which data came in included the long hiatus for the lunar New Year of the Horse.

Sell-offs in China give us a chance to exercise our good judgment and find niche investment ideas not dependent on the overall growth of the Chinese

I donated to Harvard at my last round-number reunion which I then couldn't attend because my husband fractured his spine. I couldn't leave him or take him to Cambridge. According to Bloomberg today, I should never have given: Harvard has $2 mn of endowment for every enrolled student.

So Harvard and other Ivy League universities have too much money which leads to misallocation of resources, in Harvard's case a plot to take over Allston across the Charles River. The Harvard endowment was boosted by over $1 bn in 2013 alone.

The other negative is that all that endowment loot isn't providing education to low-income students. Most Pell Grant students come from families with below-average incomes. Among the Ivy colleges, Bloomberg notes, only 16% of students have Pell grants. In the least endowed colleges, 59% of students get Pells.

Moreover, the Harvard Endowment as a non-profit doesn't pay income taxes on its investment gains, another $1 bn last year. And of course a Harvard degree is an instant entry to the bourgeoisie and tends to ensure high income to people whose parents already had high incme. "Cut off Harvard to save America," writes Richard K. Vedder on Bloomberg.

More for paid subscribers follows from Sweden, The Netherlands, Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Israel, and Finland. Two companies reported and are written up with investment advice below.

*As we reported yesterday, a group of state-sector China companies (Bank of China, investment group Hopu, and an insurer) is taking a 34% stake in the China portfolio of Singapore's Global Logistics Properties for $2.35 bn. This confirms that the Beijing authories want to boost local consumption, which requires warehouse and logistics sites. (GBTZF) also is doubling its acreage in Brazil but faces far more competition there from Australian and US as well as local logistics firms.

*Your editor still has not managed to snatch shares of Naibu Global, because the price has been pushed up despite the sour news from China, probably by others reacting to Vivian Ng's article yesterday tipping  it. NBU trades on the London AIM market. It is of course a likely beneficiary from new support for shopping therapy from Beijing.(NBU)

This is a small cap with a relatively small float. I was squeezed out both yesterday and today because readers offered more money than I was prepared to pay. Of course I don't trade before the article is posted to keep us even, unless I tell you.

*Results came in today for Yandex, the dominant operator of search engines and related services in Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Of course the battle of Kiev is scaring off investors, so the share fell c8% today but the numbers are good. In Q4, revenues rose 37% y/o/y to 12.1 bn rubles, equivalent to $369.2 mn. Excluding traffic acquisition costs and 75% spunoff Yandex Money, a non-GAAP accounting adjustment, the level was up 28% which may be a better future indicator.

Net income from operations in Q4 came to RUR 3.9 bn or $119.8 mn, up 26% and net income was RUR 3.3 bn or $102.2 mn, or 29.3 cents/sh (my calculation) or 31 cents for adjusted EPS (Dow-Jones.) In a democratic market you can choose which one to use. The mean DJ estimated EPS was 9.86 cents/sh so YNDX roared ahead of the consensus.

The net income margin on sales was 34.1%. (Rubles were translated into US$ at the level of the last day of 2013, under SEC rules).

For the whole year revenues came in at 39.5 bn rubles ($1.207 bn) and net income was RUR 13.5 bn ($411.7 mn.), up 64% from 2012 levels. Adjusted income was RUR 12.1 bn ($371 mn), up 38%.

Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh noted that new paid search algorithms, more ads, and more partners (notably mail.ru, which we  own via Naspers) accounted for the rise in earnings. He also said "We will continue to create services that benefit our users across the markets in which we operate." Ads are a service in eastern Europe and accounted for 2/3 of revenues in Q4.

The adjustment which makes the two years non-comparable in Q4 and overall results from (YNDX) having sold 75% of Yandex Money in July 2012. This enhanced its earnings for the year and removed the entity from consolidation.

YNDX performance going forward was artificially enhanced after it issued $600 mn of 1.125% convertible 5-yr notes in Q4 and spent some of the loot to repurchase 10 mn shares in mid-Feb. It will further buy back up to 15 mn shares later this year. It forecast that sales growth in 2014 will be 25% to 30%. Naspers, NPSNY, is a South African multinational media group. Yandex is Dutch but conforms to Russkiy rules on what you are allowed to post on the internet or cellphones.

*Even more ambiguous (and more negative) results were reported by Ratos, the Swedish holding company investing in troubled Scandinavian entities. It reported another rotten year with a 2% decline in NAV and a negative cash-flow. This was the result of impairments and write-offs in three main holdings: DIAB (5% of the total); Euromarkt (also 5%) and Jøtul (1%.) Your editor is keen on the latter, a Franklin stove manufacturer. In Q4 it wrote off another SEK 443 in DIAB (after 234 mn earlier); and SEK 90 in Jøtul (after 74 mn earlier). RTOBF did not add to its writeoffs in Euromarkt which hit SEK 25 mn last year.

All that red ink hit the bottom line but CEO Susanna Campbell said "the 4th quarter marked another step in the right direction." Who could have guessed from the figures?

For the year 2013, before tax profits hit SEK 1.083 bn vs prior year 767 mn, or SEK 2.13/sh vs 1.90. The main reason was the exit gain from divestiture of Stofa, turning in SEK 895 mn. The profits were before dilution under which Ratos issued preferred shares to finance acquisitions. It is doing this again but as the existing mandate having run out, it wants a new shareholder authorization.

The existing mandate running to the annual meeting would allow Ratos to issue new class B shares amounting to 9.7% of existing shares to go shopping for acquisitions with. The new mandate being sought would be for the issue of another 1.25 mn class C or D preferred shares amounting to less than a half percent of shares out. While this sounds good, the new C or D shares (or both, I think) would come at a high price, as they would be redeemable at 115% of the issue price before May 2017 and at 105% thereafter. The new C and D shares moreover would get a quarterly dividend of SEK25/sh or up to SEK 100/sh/yr until 2018 after which the payout would rise to SEK28/quarter or 128/sh/yr. There would be no pre-emptive rights for existing shareholders who would see their bottom line watered down.

What makes this most pernicious is that the price at which the new prefs will be issued has been left unstated, dependent on the board's estimation of market conditions. They are what Martin Ferera defined for the UK market: "C shares." Moreover the board, led by Ms Campbell, is planning to reward itself with options related not to Ratos' performance, but to its investments via issued synthetic options. While this means there won't be any real watering of our shareholding, it introduces a conflict of interest between us and the board managing Ratos, starting with Ms. Campbell.

For 2014 she is upbeat but cautious, expecting "earnings improvement" and "market stabilization" among Ratos' holdings in what she calls "lean companies." But she also warned that "the pace of recovery in many markets will be relatively slow." The result will be more transactions which "could make 2014 an interesting year" presumably triggering the C or D issues, or both.

The dividend was maintained at SEK 3/sh. While FH in Scandinavia has not weighed in, my instinct is to sell Ratos at $9.11 bid and $9.32 ask, down from $9.8. We are losing money on this trade.

*Nokia is wobbling today on confirmation that the Microsoft deal will be completed despite India running interference, and on speculation that NOK will spend the loot on beefing up its NSN exchange operations with an acquisition of Jupiter Networks. Reuters reports that NSN CEO Rajeev Suri last year discussed the merger with the California firm to build up its feeble US presence. (JNPR) (NOK)

*Compugen is presenting a series of papers on advances in cancer immuno-therapy at international cancer conferences next month. The Israeli drug discovery company has a pipeline of novel immune checkpoints which may work as treatment targets in oncology or immunology. These have been discovered by in silico (software based) study of proteins and monoclonal antibodies. CGEN's approach was validated last year by a major miletone deal with Bayer, but it has plenty of other product candidates in-house. I has opened a new research sub in San Francisco to lure American drug firms in.

*More trouble with Lot's wife. Israel Chemical faces new pressures from environmentalists inside Israel who won a Supreme Court ruling that its royalties paid for the Dead Sea Works must be made public. The greens also got their legal costs. As noted yesterday, (ISCHF) also faces competition from the other side of the sea, from Jordanian miners of bromine and potash. We are considering a switch to a different Israeli firm.

*A leak from Turkey's Vatan daily confirms that Delek Group is in indirect negotiation (via Noble Energy and back to back sales by its subs) with Turkey as well as with Egypt and Jordan for shipping gas to Muslim countries as I speculated yesterday. (DK)

*Teva is selling to Clal Biotech for $72 mn its 16% stake in Andromeda Biotech which is developing a drug for type 1 diabetes, diapep277. (TEVA)

*India's Dr Reddy's hit a record high in Mumbai today, rupees 2715/sh. (RDY)

*GlaxoSmithKline's Anoro (umeclidinium) against chronic obstructive pulmonary disease won approvals from the EU (CHMP) which normally is followed by the Commission.