Today inflation data from various regions has caused markets to fall for fear of stagflation. The UK saw consumer price inflation of 5.4% in Dec, near the high of 1992. It had been only 5.1% a month before. The Euro inflation level was 5%. Canada's was 4.8%. 

This led to a rise in the rate of interest here and moves into gold, which hit $171.59 per ounce. Moreover Kirkland Lake, a gold mine we own, saw its price jump 3.5%. 

Promises to cut carbon boosted Colombian Ecopetrol by 2.7% and Brazilian Vale by over 4%. Mercado Libre gained 1.8%. Cosan rose 4.8% in sympathy. Our UUUU gained 3.75%. However Goldman Sachs predicts that this summer will see oil at $100 per gallon which means Latin stocks will suffer and oil consumption fall. Until now energy has been the only gainer this week.

It sound odd but the real threat to markets is slowing Chinese growth which fell to 4% in Q4 from double that earlier last year. What started out as an attempt to chop real estate speculation has turned out to be a broad negative for the economy.

Bids

• Nutrien, the Canada food firm, is said to be a takeover candidate for Broken Hill Prop of Australia. It started its rise earlier this week.

• Compugen was said to be a target for takeover by BioMerieux and rose 3.65%.

• Happily Microsoft has now indicated it will not retain Bobby Kotick (accused of sexual harrassment) when it takes over Activision Blizzard. Being female I worried about this. MSFT rose 3.32% on the news.

Drops

• Unilever indicated it would not raise its offer for GlaxoSmithKline which fell.

• Britain is cracking down on misleading ads for crypto products.

• Mexican Fibra Uno fell 2.9% in UK trading today, FBASF.

 Deals

• Ballard Power got fuel cell orders from Canadian Pacific Railroad.

• British BAE Systems won another US Army deal, for onshore micro electronics but instead of rising it fell fractionally today. 

• Aberdeen in Scotland will become the center for wind power investment in the ocean, led by BP and Shell plus 15 other firms. They will build floating ocean wind turbines in deep water. Similar moves may also boost wind offshore California. It may also result in more production of hydrogen which could be delivered to continental Europe in place of oil.

• Plug Power, UUUU, is up on potential deals for hydrogen.

Drugs

• Eli Lilly is up this week despite lower healthcare stocks generally. The S&P is down 4% YTD. 

• Pfizer's Paxlovid will be available to vaccinate people by June.