On Saturday, the Financial Times reported on the SNB's program to invest in foreign equities to stop the Swiss franc from rising so high nobody could afford a watch or a ski holiday, which would have ruined the country's economy. In its 6^th half year the Swiss National Bank's US stock portfolio produced a record gain of $1.1 trillion, or SwFr 1 trillion. The SNB is the only one using equities rather than only bonds. So every time there is a drop in one of its large US holdings, mostly in the tech sector, the SNB buys more. Now the Swiss government has indicated that it wants some of those dollars.

Welcome to a new month. And to a new GE share, equal to 8 former ones and moreover up 2.5% on its first day trading as a blue chip again.

Oil prices fell sharply today, by 3.5% to $71.37/barrel, despite the US dollar also falling. Canadian markets were closed today.

We have an Israeli company reporting today which is proving particularly hard to get data about, because the Globes Israel site is not accessible except by using Facebook, which however doesn't give you the promised access. As they say in Jerusalem, Oy vey. We also have news from another company whose truncated earnings we wrote up last week.

My husband and I are now firmly booked to hop the ocean to London which we have been plotting to do since March, but not at the cost of quarantining ourselves. 

Tech

*Reporting company mentioned above is Tower Semiconductor, TSEM, of Migdal Ha-emek in Israel. TSEM had a brilliant Q2. It achieved both a new record in sales and a beat in profits. Moreover it also predicted higher sales for the rest of the year helped by its new deal to produce chips in Italy at a pending fab plant, which gives it global creditility althoug it will not get into production until next year. TSEM earned $30.96 mn in the June quarter, or 29¢/share and 34¢/sh adjusted for options and amortizations. Revenues came to $362.11 mn. TSEM forecast H2 sales near to H2 of $385 mn.

Its gross profits in the quarter were up 28% to $74 mn and the operating profit was up 54% to $34 mn. This has been a good pick for us as it is up 8% ytd and 30% in the past 12 months. It is becoming a favorite of hedge funds and institutions. It opened up more but now it's up 5.3%.

*As noted earlier there is confusion galore between Taiwan Semiconductor, TSM, another share we own, and TSEM. TSM is up .74% today in error. It also saw bearish options in huge volumes.

*CFRA rates Nokia a hold. NOK rose 1.18% to $5.11. It had unusual options trades.

*Ericsson ERIAF rose 1.17% after it won some Chinese 5G radio contracts. Sweden is more neutral than Finland.

*Multichoice which offers ads and telephones in Africa, gained 3% to $8.54. Perilous South African or Ethiopean politics and riots increase demand for information and contact. MCHOY

*Mercado Libre MELI caused a problem for Zacks' forecasters because the analyst community is unable to agree on the outlook for the Latin-American version of Amazon.

*South Korean Coupang rose during the market session by 4.8% but wound up only ahead 1.5% at $36.74. It is way down from our buy price but now is tipped by Larry Ramer of InvestorPlace as a buy. CPNG is now under investigation for manipulating search algorithms, according to the Financial Times. It is accused of favoring its own suppliers over those paying to show on the site. I'm sorry I bought this baby but I am too stubborn to sell soon and low.

*Hollysys of China HOLI is under several offers for a takeover. We sold before its situation became impossible.

Energy

*Energy Fuels (UUUU) reported a loss of $10.8 mn in Q2 but used its lower cash mark to markets and warranty liabilities to chop this figure to $7.2 mn, because its stock rose. It also has $79.4 mn in cash. Like its brass we are waiting for the US uranium reserve to go live which will boost our stock. We also like its plan to sell to International Consolidated Uranium $24 mn of its non core mines in Utah and Colorado. We love its deal to provide vanadium and uranium radio-isotopes to Rad Tran LLC for medical use. Its loss YTD is $21.7 mn and its full year loss $13.8 mn. This share rose 4.64% but then crashed. But frankly it is not doing well in the interim. It lost 15¢/sh this Q2 up from 12¢ last yearalthough its assets rose to $242.18 bn from prior Q2 of $183.206 bn. But its net loss topped $21.692 bn vs prior Q2 level of 13.844 bn. Its long-term liabilities were up a bit to $13.852 bn from 13.376 bn. Its operating lostt came to $17.189 bn from $4.276 bn. This is a very risky speculative stock which I like because I am a nuclear energy believer.

*Canadian Solar unhooked from the Chinese meltdown and rose to $40.43, up 0.5%. CSIQ

*CSAN of Brazil, my stock of the year, rose 2.24% today to $20.06, a new high. Cosan CZZ runs gas stations in Brazil and Argentina offering cane waste additives which cut carbon, together with Shell.

*Azure Power AZRE lost nearly 5% to $24.67 on fear of covid-19 Delta variant in India.

*Plug Power was hit with bearish options at $30. PLUG lost 1.45%.

*Ormat, the geothermal energy producer and storer, a US-Israeli combo, gained 2% today to $71.13. No news I can find. ORA.

*Schlumberger Ltd fell 1.21% today. It got a lot of support last month. SLB is Dutch Antillean and owned by a lot of Alsatian French descendents of the founders.

*BP rose 0.07% but thats ahead of Royal Dutch Shell B which wound up flat at $39.55 at the close after trying to rise several times in the day. RDS.B.

*Chinese electric car-maker Nio rose because Tesla did, and because it delivered 7931 electric vehicles in July, up 124.5% from prior July. There also were bullish moves in its options. It is up 3.67%.

Drugmakers

*I bought another round lot of Novacure, from Israel via the Channel Islands, for $147.5 per share. Its truncated location leads to confused reporting but NVCR really does have a breakthrough to treating with electricity, its tumor treating fields.

*Fellow Israeli Teva hit $9.9 in European trading and at the opening here was up 2.5% to $9.91 but fell back to only a gain of 1.92% to $9.84. It is developing a covid-19 jab and was boosted in part because Uncle Sam is paying Moderna (whose jab we got) $1.525 bn for a million doses. 

*Israeli smallcap Compugen, now doing two trials, fell 0.52%. You have to stick with these companies when they bet the farm as CGEN just did. CGEN later rose 13.75% to $8.55.

*Alkermes rose 3.5% after it got FDA approval for Nemvaleukin alpha to treat mucosal melanoma today. ALKS is fast-tracked.

*Theravance rose after Michael Marcus on citinib website wrote about its covid-19 and other products besides nezucitinib, the unsuccessful CV-19 drug. TBPH.

*Japanese Eisai rose 2.5% after it and its partner Biogen Idec decided to fund a 5-yr phase 4 trial of Aduhelm to treat partients with Alzheimers who get the drug versus others. ESALF

*Japanese Takeda rose 2.24% despite the Irish tax appeal court ruling against TAK over its appeal against having to pay the taxman for the break fee of 2014 when Shire (which TAK later acquired) was not bought by AbbVie. It now goes to the Irish Supreme Court.

*Enlivex gained 14.34% after it designated Tsvi Palash to design its new Allocetra manufacturing plant in Israel. Mr Palash has a high reputation but this is still odd. ENLV

*Genfit of France gained 2.72% today on more odd foreign market movers.

*Glaxo gained .41% and briefly hit $40.29.  

*Roche of Switzerland rose 6.6% after our FDA approved its post-exposure covid-19 antibody cocktail for cutting hospitalization time and deaths.

*Merck had unusual options.

Finance

*Lazard, the fund manager rose 2.35% to $48,33. LAZ reported Friday.

*Banco Latino-Americano de Comercio Exterieur fell 2.5% after BLX wemt ex-div.

*Swedish Investor A/B, the Wallenberg holding company we own shares in, rose 3.62% to $24.99, on no news. Its holdings in Nasdaq may explain this given the Swiss report on its equity holdings or its ERIC position. IVSBF

*AAIGF, AIG Hong Kong, rose to $12.37 today.

*CBOE which now has added markets to its options business, rose 1.66% today to hit $121.17. It was tipped by ValueLine, to my surprise. We had bought it earlier.

*State St Bank is up on its getting a prize for market making for fixed income execution and order managemnt.

*SPDR Gold, GLD, had unusual options. It fell from $169.82 to to $169.61 during the market day but now is up to $169.72 after hours.