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The week after daylight savings will begin with the S&P index falling 0.24%, according to Barron's. It ran an interview with 93-year-old Henry Kaufman. He is negative about the lack of competition in financial institutions and the money printing frenzy, telling Randall Forsyth “when bonds actually must be sold, their marketability isn't real.”

Last week saw some pretty hairy trading in GameStop (GME) and two IPOs which produced record rises, Coupang (+41%) and Roblox (+54%). I expect a correction. I am interested in Coupang because Korea is barely visible on the NYSE for regulatory reasons. It is losing money, but it is a full service internet operator and likely to grow with Korea as did Mercado Libre, according to Barron's.

Stocks in View

My pick for 2021 hit both highs and lows last week, according to Barron's, behaving more like a new listing that an old and established company. But there was a similarity. Our Cosan is now in limbo as there will be no US trading until its new listing as CSAN, rather than CZZ, goes live. It does still trade in Brazil.

While there is no formal US trading, there are still people selling and buying and the stock was quoted in a range of $15.27 to $16.44 last week; good for market-makers. Its year's high before the suspension was $16.64. Do not trade Cosan. Wait for the re-listing.

The Nasdaq didn't follow other exchanges up last week. This may hurt Sweden's Investor A/B, IVSBF. Astra-Zeneca-Oxford (AZN)'s COVID-19 jab may be associated with more blood clots—or not. AZN is flat as Wall St. doesn't believe Oxford can screw up. Being married to an Oxford man, I know this is not true.

Canadian Nutrien (NTR) was tipped by Raymond James Financial because inputs like fertilizer and seeds are not going to stop selling despite NTR upping potash prices by $55 per metric ton to $304. It also raised the target price to $65 from $58 (US).

An article about rare earths by Myra Saefong in Barron's (from MarketWatch where she covers commodities) failed to mention our Energy Fuels (UUUU) developing rare earth extraction from uranium sands in the US, Canada, and Europe. It is more appealing than a rare earths fund. Barron's wrote up telcos tipped by BofA-Merrill, but failed to mention BCE from Canada, a growth and value stock up 10% in the last month. We recommend it for its 6.18% safe yield.

CAE issued 10,454,545 new shares at $27.50 last week, only in Canada, including green shoe options. The stock closed at $28.14 on Friday, but traded as low as $25.25 and as high as 29.99. The money will pay for buying US-based L3Harris (LHX), a military training and technology firm, for $550 million.

Among the heavily traded shares last week were a couple of our favorites: Nio (NIO), which rose 19.4%; and Nokia (NOK), up 8.8%. NIO rivals another electric vehicle maker, while NOK is a play on 5G telco. Vodafone (VOD) turns out to have been a major source of revenue for Greensill Capital, which filed for bankruptcy last week. It will find another fund source.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B) said its PA petrochemical complex goes operational next year. Taiwan Semi (TSM), a near 20% holding of our Taiwan Fund, lost 2.1% last week on the chip shortage. TWN rose 3%.

AIA Group Ltd of Hong Kong (AAIGF) reported Friday on its full year 2020, but my brokerage, TD Ameritrade-Schwab, failed to cover this. It reported a volume of new business up 33% to $2.765 billion, most from Hong Kong itself (up 66%), but also 20% from Mainland China where it is the only foreign-owned insurer allowed to operate, currently in Tianjin and Shijiazhwang, and it just added Sechuan.

It eventually will operate in 11 more provinces and municipalities by 2030, four times as many as now, as long as China allows this. In China, it increased sales by 5% early in the FY (February through March), but then lost about a third in the rest of the year. The same pattern applied in in Asian markets, where it is a key player in Thailand with 15% market share; Singapore with 11%; Malaysia with 7%; and other places with 17%.

In Singapore, the COVID-19 period saw flat sales and in Malaysia, which is under-insured, sales were up 20% pre-Covid and 10% in the rest of the year. It has 38 million insurance policies in force -- 16 million of which are group policies.

The insurance business is resilient and surprisingly insensitive to interest rate changes, moving no more than 1.7% up or down because yields are up or down. Asia is under-insured, with newly comfortable customers seeking private policies. AIA attracts me also because it is good at selling insurance during a pandemic, thanks to a long history of remote digital policy sales. Despite this, some 57% of policies in force are traditional, with 91% requiring regular premium payments.

Not all markets are as profitable as China (14%) or Hong Kong (10%), and currently the group lost 7% on policies written in Thailand, 2% in Malaysia, and 11% in other markets. However, its coverage ratio rose to 374% last year vs. 366% in 2019. Last year borrowings were a modest 8.6% and leverage was 11.9%. Gains before investment returns and dividends rose 19%, and investment results nipped that to 16.5%. It upped its dividend by 2% last year to 7.57% in Hong Kong bucks.

Here are some examples of how it meets insurance hunger. In Thailand, medical claims are paid out cashlessly to the provider without the insured person having to do anything except report, saving immense hours of work. In China, 30% of new agents are recruited and trained electronically. Malaysian marketing is 100% digital in marketing. In India, Tata Bank uses personalized policy proposals to sign people up for life insurance and then digitally collects their payments each month from their bank accounts.

Tata accounts for 60% of new Indian policies. In South Korea, Galaxy, a watch-maker, provides customer lists for selling health insurance, allowing it to reward long-term savers for healthier living. AIA also gave COVID-19 coverage to 25 million policies without charge.

Earthstone Energy (ESTE) reported Friday and beat earnings by 4¢ at 9¢, but missed on sales (of 36.68 million) by 5.1 million because of the drop in oil prices. It also repaid one third of its debt thanks to boosted free cashflow of $72 million. I covered the conference call, but I did not know the analyst consensus.