Today I face what the locals call an “embarras de richesse”, a pot of cash from mySunday profit- and loss-taking (both because of taxes; I don't want to go into hock to Obama, Cuomo, and de Blasio, all off whom tax my earnings plus capital gains outside my IRA. That means half the money is in my IRA, by the way, because my investments in taxable and tax-free accounts are similar, both following my newsletter's advice.

So like Warren Buffett I am going into cash because the pricing on Wall Street doesn't offer enough temptation. In fact I will put the cash into our bond picks until the inevitable reversal I expect takes place, after which I intend to redeploy the money into new idea my team of journalist-detectives will turn up around the globe. Meanwhile I have yield recommendations which my readers know about, in foreign preferreds.

My main reason for selling a reasonably balanced bunch of gainers and losers (outside the IRA) was that my performance has been too good lately. In the past 12-mo our gain has been 10.84% on our holdings, according to the Dow-Jones newsletter tracking newsletters, Hulbert's Financial Digest. The performance level is relatively comparable to the 5-yr performance level of 11.33% and the 10-yr of 12.14%. That is our steady Eddie side.

But the range of outcomes this year has been very mixed compared to historic ranges. The level of huge gains and huge losses is much greater than normal vs our track record. That is what is scaring me.

Today we have interesting but unclear news from our advertiser, www.bullionvault.com, a very cheap and safe and legal way to buy physical gold. You can click through to their site from ours. Now they will offer US clients with enough funds to cover the shipment of their bullion the right to take certified delivery of 100 grams or more of their gold. The cost of course depends on what insurance the client ultimately takes on the bullion delivered. I could should I wish too just put my gold into my existing bank safe deposit box.

I am not really interested in having bullion (as opposed to jewelry) around the place. Others may be more interested, but until I get the costing details from the advertiser I would not advise taking delivery mainly because I think owners should be ready to trade their gold, and because it all depends on the cost.

But having said that, hard money investors might be reassured about the bona fides of bullion vault, which is one of the World Gold Council's investments to market the gold its members mine. The best known of these marketing entities is the SPDR Gold Fund, GLD, but this is another very respectable and straight gold investment vehicle.

There will be no blog tomorrow as I am returning to London with my passport-less hubby. He will have to spend a fortune getting a new passport for the return to the USA. But the malefactors did not get his wallet which would have been worse.

I am grateful to all the readers who told me to never carry my passport with me. In France you are legally required to have an identify paper with you and a passport is the thing you use if you are a foreigner.

*Banco Santander (SAN) reported attributable profits up 22% y/o/y at euros 2.756 bn, or 12 eurocents/sh, a brilliant performance by an Iberian peninsula family-run bank which contrasts with what happens across the border in Portugal. SAN like Banco Espirito Santo is a listed bank which is closely associated with a founding family active in management today. SAN's banking base is strong, a capital ratio of over 12% and core capital at 10.9%, important metrics in bank regulation.

The excellent performance resulted from a 54% rise in profits at its UK bank, which came to euros 755 mn. This is where the next generation of the dominant family of SAN is proving itself. Note that the UK operation, accounting for 20% of operations is headed by a daughter of the chairman, Ana Patricia Botin, the likely heir to the empire.

The UK operations were cobbled together by Chairman Emilio Botin who put together a bunch of troubled UK banks: Abbey National, Bradford & Bingley, and Alliance & Leicester during the early years of this century and during the global financial crisis. He would have bought more had not the UK government worried about competition.

Spain, its 2^nd largest European market at 13% did even better, with earnings at euros 513 mn up 79%. This was offset by a 3% decline in Brazil to euros 758 mn, partly currency related, which is SAN's No. 2 banking center where it books 19% of operations. It also has operations (by size) in the USA (9%), Mexico (8%), Chile (7%), Poland (6%) Germany (5%), and other countries in Europe and Latin America.

The bank also reported a net profit figure about half the big one in which capital gains from the sale of Altamira and its consumer credit card lines was excluded, along with the reversion of excess reserves which covered former non-performing loans which performed. These one-offs reduced the net profit to euros 1.453 bn. But the key indicator was that non-performing loans fell 5.545% in the quarter vs last year's Q2; the level in Spain fell 7.6%! I think these are clear indicators of how good management is and I want to count them.

*I had some grumbling correspondence about the impact of the banking crisis across the border in Portugal on our Portugal Telecom which you all know was the target of my most recent shopping splurge. Rioforte holdings, which owes euros 847 mn to PT, ($1.15 bn) has assets now slated for liquidation by the “bad bank” set up by the Banco de Portugal CB to hive off the commercial bank in Portugal from the Luxembourg holding companies so they can be cashed out without panic. Portugal will not take the debits from BES onto its own books.

Rioforte interests include Brazilian and Portuguese agricultural holdings, energy companies, hospitals and healthcare entities, real estate, and the Tivoli hotel chain and other tourist facilities. The cash-out is likely to cover what is owed PT, and given that it is a Portuguese innocent bystander in the crash of BES, it should be repaid. It will lose still on its mini-ownership stake in the BES holding company where it is a potential loser of capital alongside other investors: a French bank, a Brazilian bank, and a bunch of US mutual and hedge funds including Blackrock. The odds are not very good for Rioforte because the first call on the sales proceeds will go to the Portuguese retail investors who bought into the bank's May capital increase which was supported by comfort letters from the stock market and CB. These shareholders have now been wiped out and politically they are first in line for the proceeds.

Here is what I wrote to the grumbler:

PT has been used as a proxy for BES, the bankrupt Portuguese bank which owes it money and which it owns a few percentages of directly, mainly because BES is not trading. this has reached an extreme but now the Lisbon govt has set out the terms of the bank's rescue which essentially wipes out the shareholders and jr bond holders. in theory PT will be repaid out of the rescue fund but I am not certain of that; its shareholding is being wiped out and the cross-shareholding by a BES holding co in PT ditto, will also be wiped out but the situation is very fluid.

The very high last 22% dividend will probaby not be repeated, and indeed was never going to be repeated since it was part of the takeover of Oi in Brazil which in theory is going ahead. The deal is a contract which passed scrutiny from the authorities in Brazil and Portugal and our SEC. so PT will, I think, become a mainly Brazilian cellphone operating company, which will be wonderful as that is the fast-growing side of the market. the forward current declared dividend is about 7.5% okay but will fall as the stock price recovers.

The market hates uncertainty and PT is about as uncertain as they come. Its last dividends was 13.63 cents/sh which came from capital as well as earnings as the level was about 1.25x what it earned. The 22% yields are over but reflect the very low PT price now.

Here is what I feel now:

I rode it down because it reminds me of Nokia and other troubled positions which turned around in the end. the key is that there is nothing rotten in PT; it is all related to other stuff. So I am sticking to my guns despite a general malaise about the markets which led me to my Sunday trades to take profits and also some losses. just hang in there. markets are manic depressive. and I am doing the same. I do keep an eye on the thing; it is just that PT itself is stumm, only the rest of the Lisbon gang are putting stuff out, I think it is mainly from fear of the SEC as they are in a deal mode. This adds to the uncertainty. The stock is trading at about 5x earnings and I am sure that the deal will go ahead. Now that Telefonica of Spain has bid for the VivendiBrazil telco that is on the block, I think the worth of the Oi merger is becoming clearer. TEF actually got its Brazil telco by buying VIV from PT. Still hovering around Brasilia are other telcos, notably America Movil which wants to recreate the monopoly it lost in Mexico in another Latin American country. It will be blocked by the govt. But there are plenty of other players including British and US telcos waiting in the wings.

*Global Logistic Properties announced it would buy a 15.3% stake in China's largest state-owned warehouse logistics company for 2 bn yuan ($325 mn). Together via a jv they plan to build up China's warehouse and logistics facilities to meet its online shopping boom. The GBTZF partner is China Materials Storage and Transportation Development Co. CMSTD is expected to invest over 3.6 bn yuan ($583 mn) to develop up to 1.3 mn sq m in China which has a shortage of modern facilities. CMSTD is also Singapore listed. The Singapore exchange reports that BlackRock now owns over 5% of GBTZF.

*Daniel Stewart Brokerage issued an update on Naibu, NBU:UK following an H1 report.

Revenue rose 8.4% y/o/y to RMB1,030m in H1. Revenue from shoes accounted for 53.6% of the total with most of the rest from clothing, with 2.l2% from accessories. After the winter line was presented at sales fairs, its orderbook rose 5% over prior year's. That's the good news.

The bad is that China's labor shortage is hurting NBU plans to add 6 new production lines this month and its plans to operate in Quangang have been abandoned. It is now trying to rent or sell the facility for making shoes. In the interim it is getting supplies from outside firms but there will be lower profits from these outsourced lines as a result.

In Dazhu (Sichuan Province) the construction of a new inland facility continues and the company paid a RMB 22 mn 2^nd installment pending a land use rights certificate being issued. Work is expected to begin in October and completed is expected in the spring of 2016.

Stewart analysts now forecast a lower 2014 profit margin at 25% vs the 27% level last year and a lower growth forecast of 6% this year from 7% earlier. It expects before-tax profits to hit 11% for FY`14 at RMB 384.9 mn vs RMB431 mn earlier. EPS to be 46.1 UK pence/sh, also down because of FX factors. The p/e ratio is still 1.2 (really!) and the yield 12.2%. NBU trades at a level below its net cash and the next 4 pence dividend will be paid August 15. The share is at 54 pence. While I sold my stock in another China clothing firm I want to be present in this sector.

*Today despite being ex-div, Guangshen Railway rose 3% to HK$20.66/sh. This is the Red Rooster train operator in China's oldest enterprise zone, around the Pearl River basin.

*Belgium's Galapagos got a second milestone payment of an unrevealed amount in addition to the euros 20 mn disclosed earlier, for a 2^nd new oral osteoarthritis drug candidate GLPYY discovered, paid by French privately held Servier.

*Coca Cola Hellenic exited its ADR not to avoid Sarbanes Oxley rules, but because of other reporting costs. With a Greek family and Coca Cola of Atlanta as controlling shareholders, the CCH board backed Paul Sarbanes, a Greek American, when he developed the post-Enron shareholder protection rules, and CCH will continue reporting on its terms. However it will not restate consolidated quarterly earnings into US GAAP. It currently trades as #8R51013.

*Mexican Fibra Uno hit another local high at NMP 47.47. I have now sold half, all from my IRA, at $3.54. I will work out the gains only when I am in the USA.

*From my taxable account I took a bath on Hadassit Bio Holdings, which I sold at 85 cents/sh.

*This produced a capital loss equal to about have my gains from a part sale ofNokia. My NOK costs were $2.80 and my sale price $7.88.

*Over Canadian Solar, I got in at $9.17 and exited at $24.05. CSIQ.

*With Marine Harvest, I got into lox at $11.40 and out at $13.68. I think one reason I sold this wonder picked by Harry Geisel is that I am fed up with being offered farmed salmon at Paris restaurants with low-ball menus.

*The Thai Fund, TTF, cost $17;42 and I sold for $11.66. Another loss.

*Reproached selling half our Mongolia Growth Fund, which cost me $3.74/sh with proceeds of $2.30, a trade not done, note that we can always buy it back in 3 months. At this stage I think Mongolia, where I have never been, is trying to figure out how it will tax and benefit from mining in the country. The decision is still in the air and upon it depends the MNGGF plot to win from Western style real estate in offices and shops. This is not a done deal in my view. The reader who complained about this seems to have bought and sold MNGGF over the period during which I covered it, but I was too scared to. I set too high an exit price and still own the shares.

*Why I did not sell Polish Investable ETF EPOL? I remain convinced that Poland has higher to go. It is the big kahuna is Eastern Europe, It is where Germany offshores production. It is a farm exporter able to gain from modernization of its fields (like Ukraine did). It is where half the food in France now seems to come from. It is the producer of all that cheapo processed food being sold by the German discounters in Britain, Aldi and Lidl. It is also likely to gain protection from any Russian nastiness from the US and the EU than other less-beloved countries in Eastern Europe.