The SEC is planning to allow a wider nickel spread between the trading bid and the ask, called the tick size, to increase market liquidity for small-cap shares traded infrequently. The regulator plans to test the easement for a year with a pilot program for stocks priced at $2 or more which trade less than a million shares/day. The test covers shares which have a market capitalization of under $5 bn.

The SEC will test 4 groups of 400 shares each, with different increments: the first with 5 cents minimum increments for quotation, but trades at any price now permitted; the second with 5 cent minimum increments allowing a few exceptions; and the third with the same increments and exceptions as the second, but subject to a trade-at requirement. A trade-at means more access for small investors because it removes minimum order size limits. The fourth group will be a control, using existing rules at penny bid-ask increments. The idea is to see if wider spreads produce more trading.

The way Wall St. is developing, making markets is not where intermediaries make money these days. They are too busy front running and doing high-speed trading.

When the 21-day period for public comment opens, I would like to make sure that foreign stocks which have low US market cap or trading be included in all 4 categories.

Our most popular article in the last couple of weeks was about how the Israeli Warren Buffett was doing a deal with the daughter and son-in-law of Donald Trump. This has a follow-up today for all you gossip-mad readers. It you are a paid subscriber, it is below; if you are a pre-subscriber with a taste for hot celebrity news, pay for a subscription which may also produce some stock gains to fund your retirement or your autograph collection.

More on this for paid subscribers along with news from Britain, China, Portugal, Singapore, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Israel, Switerland, and the Netherlands.

*To start with the hottest news, Israel's Delek Group is like Berkshire Hathaway because it used the piled up premium income of its insurance arm to acquire a huge portfolio. That is why Yitzchak Tshuva has been called the Israeli Warren Buffett. Unlike the cash-rich Oracle of Omaha, Tshuva has built up a dominant position in Israeli offshore gas for which he now needs more funds, and he arranged to sell Delek's insurer arm, the Israeli company Phoenix Holdings Ltd. The designated buyer is a US real estate family firm headed by Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, daughter of The Donald. (She converted to Judaism to marry Jared.)

The two American families work together in real estate and also were both involved in the Phoenix deal (which Delek Group was essentially going to finance Berkshire-style.) A memorandum of understanding to give the Kushner-Trumps control of the NIS 3 bn insurance company was signed early in July and the closing deadlines were missed. I assumed it was because of the Gaza crisis.

But neither the Trumps nor the Kushners have insurance savvy and both are short of cash (as is typical of real estate businesses but particularly with these clans.) So Israel's Supervisor of Insurance has apparently blocked their takeover and will now require that there be another foreign partner with more capital to join the US real estate families to get regulatory approvals. This will hurt DGRLY which wants to exit insurance to finance its big play on offshore gas in Israel, Cyprus, and even Egypt. Delek also sold 5% of its Republic US insurance arm, a refinery, and its US chain of gas stations and convenience stores, plus also former BP gas stations in France and highway fast food diners in Britain. Delek remains a big player in Israeli financial services.

*We are involved with a “Nomad”, a market-maker which launches and researches small cap stocks in the UK, mainly for its Chinese plays. These are real companies and properly audited (unlike some Chinese shares issued by the Nasdaq backdoor.) But they are tiny, like Naibu Global (a favorite, a brand with a following among Chinese adolescent sports and outdoor enthusiasts.) NBU has a £29 mn market cap and as much as a ~6% trading range (or spread.) This makes money for the Nomad, Daniel Stewart & Co, for the share listed on the FTSE AIM (alternative investment market). Nai means endurance and bu means method. For shareholders, the nai bu in Naibu means buy and hold.

*Portugal Telecom was the best performing euro-denominated stock yesterday and rose further in European trading this morning. The positive ratchet effect results from optimism about its call on assets of the defunct Rioforte Luxembourg holding company parent of bankrupt bailed out Banco Espirito Santo which I outlined Monday. But there is a new factor: its Brazilian merger partner, Oi, is plotting to bid for a larger telco, TIM Participações of which Telecom Italia owns 2/3 and wants to sell. Vivendi SA, a French telco wants to buy TIM. But now Oi has hired BTG Pactual to prepare a bid for as much as $8 bn. This news has not boosted Oi or TIM stock as much as PT's.

*Cameco was hit by a planned United Steelworkers' strike shutting its McArthur River and Key Lake uranium mills in Saskatchewan, Canada and to protect the nuclear facility CCJ issued a lockout notice effective at the same, 12:01 am on August 30. CCJ says the strike will not affect its 2014 deliveries to customers because it can draw on other production sources, purchase commitments, and inventory. The new contract negotiations have been going on for 18 mos.

*Credit Suisse reduced Bank of Nova Scotia to neutral from outperform today after its results came in yesterday. BNS was removed by TD Securities from its Action Buy list but kept as a buy. As I told you yesterday, BNS profits missed forecasts by 1 loony cent but in my view retained its Latin America lead, why we own it.

From the conference call, Latin America accounts for 55% of BNS international assets, according to Dieter Jentsch, its international banking head. The softness in Q3 was from the English-speaking Caribbean islands and troubled Puerto Rico which are treated as part of the other 45% of BNS along with Asia and Central America.

BNS also saw some softening in Chile and Peru because of a drop in mining exports to China and he expects “an uptick” in Q4. (Comments from the transcript at seekingalpha.com).

Colombia he called “a standout” and “a shining light”. Mexico “is looking strong” but like everyone else Mr. Jentsch is waiting for the reforms to be put in place.

*Cosan is up over 5% in the last two days in US (and Brazilian) trading. I guess that it may be from Marina Silva gaining on Pres. Dilma Rousseff. Silva may favor a private-sector railroad and port venture like CZZ enough to stop making trouble for this agribiz firm. She wouldn't like the sugar-cane side of CZZ but would have to applaud its ethanol and logistics side. Silva is an oddball combination of green environmentalism and Pentacostal Protestantism, of a hardscrabble Amazonian orphan youth (when she was a colleague of Chico Mendes, the assassinated Amazon anti-deforestation leader) and a ministerial post under Luiz Ignazio (Lula) da Silva (no relation.) She supports abortion law reform and allowing marijuana to be legalized but is apparently against gay marriage.

*GlaxoSmithKline won another FDA approval for its Promacta drug, now allowed to be used against severe aplastic anemia not linked to chemotherapy.

*Liberty Media has essentially won full control of Ziggo NV, the Dutch firm, pending regulatory approvals. LBTYA is the UK arm of John Malone, the US cable guy, which we own after it took over Virgin Media last year.

*Novartis signed a licenses with the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development (GATBDD) for its TB drugs found at the Novartis Institutes for Tropical Diseases, NITD. NITD will transfer its R&D program to GATBDD which will taken over the financial and development program from NVS. The main target is NITD 304, a new indolcarboxaminide class of drug which acts against drug sensistive or mulit-resistant TB strains by blocking Mmpl.3. This is a protein TV bacteria need to survive.

*Martin Ferera boasts that while Chevron's latest project Down Under has been hit by low-cost US shale gas competition, and has been unable to get sales contracts for its Gorgon liquefaction plant, things are much better at its jv Origin Energy, Australian Pacific LNG, which is older and further along. OGFGF is an Oz ute which diversified wisely into supplying gas to China whose CNOOC is a partner in APLNG.

*Martin also points out that Veresen, which has pipelines and approvals to build a US Pacific LNG plant, is looking for partners at the cheaper US export price. FCGYF of Canada is another Ferera find.

*Motley Fool Singapore wrote up Global Logistic Properties again today, because GBTZF is a good story. GBTZF released presentation slived to be held tomorrow and Friday in Australia, which triggered the latest breathless article. We have long owned GBTZF. It operates warehouses and facilities in China, Japan, and Brazil. It also creates funds for Singaporean, Canadian, and other pension and wealth management groups plus a J-REIT for which it just did a capital increase the proceeds of which are invested in high-growth markets.

*Alliance Bernstein Global High Yield Fund, AWF, is a keen buyer of US$ denominated bonds from Latin America and Africa. The greenback accounts for 75% of its holdings by currency. But its 10 largest holdings are: Brazil Treasury Notes Series F 10% of 1/1/17; the Dominican Republic International 8.625% bond of 4/20/27; the Ivory Coast Govt International 5.75% bond of 12/31/32; the El Salvador Govt International 7.65% bond of 6/15/35; the US T-bond 5.25% bond of 2/15/29; the Venezuela govt international 16% bond of 7/10/20; the Dominican Rep. Intl 16% bond of 7/10/20; the Argentine Boden 7% bond of 10/3/15; the South African R207 7.25% bond of 1/15/20; and the Vale Overseas 6.875% of 11/21/36.