It was rather cool reading the latest issue of Barron's because it looked like it had been written by one of my readers. There are lots of articles about stocks I have written about lately. Here is what they tell you.

*Bausch Health Care (BHC) is spinning off its Bausch & Lomb eye meds sub which accounts for about 45% of sales. Canadian Valeant, after terrible press from an SEC lawsuit two years ago, changed its name to BHC.

*Its European trader, Rupert Steiner, wrote about a happier future for Vodafone predicted by Deutsche Bank and New Street Research. We have suffered over British VOD since the merger of Racal and British General Electric Co. The analysts expect the spinoff in Germany of its mast business will give the firm funding to boost 5G business. Thanks to covid-19 its sales were up in Q2 but it lost £455 mn because of travel and business slowdown.

*Asia reporter Craig Mellow boosted Chinese electric vehicle makers, notably NIO (NIO) and stated that a car battery cannot be used to steal personal data. I am not so sure. If people have codes instead of keys, there can be leaks. NIO is up 12.4% in the past week.

*Jack Hough, the weekly's columnist, pretended to be a TikTok fan, but in the end turned out to be like me, an owner of Microsoft stock (MSFT). MSFT appeals because it has already gone through the process of cutting back on anti-competitive behavior, whereas the rest of the internet plays are still an investigative target.

*While Taiwan Fund (TF) was not specifically mentioned, it is an obvious way to play the country's stronger support against China, citing Cumberland Advisors. TF hit a new year's high. See below for more,

From my Friday blog that did not go out right:

*An exclusive Reuters article said BP PLC (BP) will sell up to 40% of its oil and gas assets—regardless of price—over the next decade to fund its renewable energy investments. I noted that Sir John Browne, former BP CEO, invented the term Beyond Petroleum as what the company stood for. There have been two CEOs since who did not go for this,

*Astra-Zeneca (AZN) sold 100 mn doses of the Oxford University Covid-19—the only one in phase III trials already-- to Japan.

*Now a negative. Again Barron's didn't produce the data on closed-end fund net asset value and discounts which we use to keep an eye on our holdings. CEF data used to be created by Thomas B. Herzfeld, who runs Herzfeld Cuba Fund and now even CUBA data is not available in the weekly, supposedly provided by Lipper. As usual Canadian General Fund, is at the biggest discount, although it produced a nice 12%+ return in the past year. Also in the black are Korea Fund, (KF); Lazard Global Return (LGI); New Germany (GF), at a new high; New Ireland (IRL), if barely; Swiss Helvetia (SWZ); and Templeton Emerging Markets (EMF). Among fixed-income CEFs the winners are Eaton Vance Global Developing Equity Income (EXG); Aberdeen Asia Pacific Income (FAX); Aberdeen Global Income (FCO); and Templeton Emerging Debt (EMD). A good return and a discount from asset value make CEFs a great way to go global. The top performers make sure their numbers go out each week.

*New highs in or portfolio include Mercado Libre (MELI); Kirkland Lake Gold (KL), recommended by Merrill from Canada; and Abhimanyu Sisodia's pick Dr Reddy's (RDY), an Indian maker of generic drugs. In the earnings call Teva (TEVA) CEO Kare Schultz undermined the plan to make Kodak a US maker of Advanced Pharmaceutical Ingredients for generic drugs, citing high wages and regulatory obstacles.