There will be at least one more day without a freshly baked blog, as my website is still unreachable. For the record, the culprit almost certainly was our webhost, Blue Host, part of the Endurance International (EIGI) company, a listed stock. One of its Arizona employees appears to have forced my global-investing.com website to require ridiculous and excessive Captchas without end. This locked me out and briefly also cut me off even from my emails. Now they say because our site uses drupal they cannot restore it.

Hence we are relying on the kindness of others...

TalkMarkets, in which my company has invested, is a website which features content from over 1,200 leading authors. The site is posting our blogs until further notice. Just hit the site and look for my articles here. My tech team leader says the issue with my own site was due to Bluehost upgrading the PHP from 5x to 7x which created compatibility issues diagnosed as a security lapse by the hosting company. It looks like my team is close to a resolution. On to the blog...

Materials

*As discussed yesterday in my article Here's What To Buy As Gold Hits Historic High, I bought shares of Trans-Siberian Gold (TSG.L) on the London exchange at the opening, not with my US bank in the end, but with a UK bank used by a British family member. Buying non-ADRs is an increasing hassle. The stock rose 8.90 in the course of the day hitting GBX 104. Remember those are British pennies, not pounds. The stock is a bargain at a p.e. Ratio of 13.9 and a dividend of 3.8%. It next reports Sept. 18. I think the price may well fluctuate in the interval in which case I will buy more.

While its top operating officers are now Russians its board is mostly British and South African.

*Candian Kirkland Lake Gold, KL, is up 4.3% after briefly topping $51.37 on the NYSE open.

*Cemex (CX) rose 9.54% despite reporting lower sales and earnings because the market expected worse. It has for the past weeks let the world know about what it would report.

CX Q2 earnings were down 17% to $279 mn like-for-like and controlling interest net was minus $4 mn. Operating earnings before other expenses dropped 17% to $279 mn and eps was 1¢/sh down a nickel from last year. Sales fell to $2.91 bn from $3.4 bn.

CX actually sold 6% more cement in the US but not elsewhere. The positives include operating cashflow (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization down 6% from prior Q2 at $554 mn and EBITDA operating margins actually up from 18.3% last year to 19% this year. CX net debt rose another $51 mn from Q1. BofA-Merrill rates CX buy with a target price of $3.5, now $3.1.

Its two Texas terminals won a US Environmental Protection Agency Star status.

Drugs

*European Union attempts to insure sufficient covid-9 vaccines by preliminary deals are hitting snags over pricing. The EU is forever struggling to avoid becoming a patsy for private companies, in this case Sanofi (SNY); Pfizer (PFE), and Johonson & Johnson (JNJ). Britain has already bought up future vaccine supplies from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), SNY's partner, and Astra-Zeneca (AZN) (Cambridge University). The US has paid up with drugmakers but requiring that they ace trials before they can get the money. However under the impact of multilateralism it is harder for the EU to cover its risks of losing money or liability issues. PFE here is the partner of a German outfit, BioNTech (BNTX), which is ahead of the race for mRNA. They plan to charge $40 per dose and expect 2 will be needed. CureVac (Private) and Moderna (MRNA) also got US money, the latter more today. I think it is disgraceful for drug companies to collect subsidies for unproven drugs without agreeing to deliver them at cost if they work. (Cost normally includes a markup for sales so it is not purely altruistic.)

*Sepatately AZN signed up MD's Emergent Biosolutions (EBS) to manufacture its covid-19 jab for $174 mn. .

*Preliminary results from a trial of Compugen's (CGEN) COM701 with Bristol-Myers (BMY) drugs in a solid tumor trials with a 66% response rate. Brian Coleman of Domino Analytics of San Francisco wrote on seekingalpha.com. We reported that already before our site went down. CGEN gained 1.6%.

*Teva (TEVA) was given a $12 target price by Goldman Sachs and rated neutral. It is $11.5.

*Eisai (ESALY) of Japan gained over 2% after its Alzheimer's partner Biogen (BIIB) was upgraded by Morgan Stanley 2 notches to overweight with a new TP of $357 from $254. The BIIB news came in Barron's after BIIB Friday said it would deliver multiple papers on aducanumab at the online Alzheimer's Assn. Conference this week. ESALY is also a potential winner from aducanumab.

*Full year forecasts for Thermo Fisher (TMO) were boosted after it reported last week. It is my biggest US holding and is up 2% today. TMO was recommended by the late David Carrick of the late Dean Witter.

Energy

*Cameco (CCJ) of Canada is under a heavy options attack right before CCJ reports Wednesday. Because the uranium miner won a tax case against Revenue Canada in June, it should show good one-time gains.

*Schlumberger Ltd (SLB) of Curacao was upgraded to buy by Citigroup (C) and also increased its ownership stake by $46 mn, or 281%. SLB's target price is now $25 vs $22. SLB was rated overweight by Morgan Stanley. UBS raised its tp to $19.5 from 18. However Gurufocus is bearish as is anonymous “Fun Trading” on seekingalpha.com who says to use SLB for short-term trading as it is cutting its work force by 25%. This is therefore probably the work of 21,000 disgruntled ex-employees as cutting your wage bill is good for shareholders. CEO Olivier Le Peuch was actually upbeat on H2.

*Nio Inc which trades as N31A in euros, fell another 7% in Frankfurt today on fears of China-US trade wars. Here opened down 3.21% and is now down 2.75% at $11.5. Having sold half my NIO shares in early Feb. I am happily ahead.

Tech & Tel

*Tencent (TCEHY) this morning made a bid to buy the rest of Sogou, a Chinese websearch firm it already owns 38.4% of. SOGO stock rose 47.6% and its parent Sohu (SOHU) also rose on the Hong Kong privatization. Prosus (PROSY) and Naspers (NPSNY) which are big holders of TCEHY gained 1.31% amd 0.54% resp.

*Mercado Libre (MELI) of Argentina rose 4.8% today hitting another YTD high at $1036. It reports Thurs. after the close. BofA-Merirll put a sell on it but I am not listening.

*Chinese Hollysys (HOLI) is trading between $12.22 and 12.02 but in fact is not tradable at Merrill on-line. It makes robots.

*NTT Docomo rose 3.5%. DCMYY is Japanese.

*Swedish Ericsson (ERIC) is up another 2.7% after hitting another year's high. ERIC gains from China bans. Finnish Nokia (NOK) whose equipment is more expensive, gained only 0.91%.

Food

*Grupo Bimbo (BMBOY), banker to the world, gained 0.6% today. It is a Mexican MNC.

*Alimentation Couche-Tard of Canada, ANCUF, which runs highway shoppes in the US and worldwide, is the one I am buying.

*Recycling firm Tomra Systems (TMRAY), maker of reverse vending machines and potato sorting systems, gained 3.71% today.