Today global stock markets eroded heavily and Wall Street opened with the DJIA off by 600 points. The main cause was higher commodity prices, on which I wrote yesterday. The shortfall in oil, iron, and copper commodities and higher prices herald inflation. So does the low level of new hires also reported lately, because the jobless are not qualified for the jobs that are open, or perhaps that people prefer collecting unemployment insurance rather than working. Bank stocks are down because people are paying off their credit card bills with stimulus money.

Tesla's crash, Barron's Daily attributes to a 9,000 drop in the number of new cars it delivered last month in China. We have a Chinese car stock that was one of the reasons for the TSLA drop. It impacted the latest hot-hands fund, Cathie Woods's ARC Innovation, which lost 5% at the opening and is now back to its price last Nov.

British stocks which were a bright spot earlier are now down 2% on average today.

It is an everything-down day. Even the news is down because commenters are being careful. The only exceptions are the writers using pseudonyms. You have been warned.

My own portfolio opened down 1.5% but now buyers of stocks looking cheap have bought enough of my favorites so my portfolio is off 0.47%, mainly because of a recovery in drugs and commodities. The selloff lost steam during the morning and there may be hope after all. But don't count on it. Because the falls are so variable I am only writing up stocks that rose today. The selloff lost steam during the morning and there may be hope after all. But don't count on it.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Autos & Energy

*E.on SE. EONGYreported Q1 GAAP earnings of 31 euro cents/sh, a beat. And revenues were up 4.2% from Q1 2020 at euros 18.4 bn, another beat. Citi reported that adjusted EBIT earnings were 5% ahead of the consensus at euros 1.66 bn. Net debt at end-March was down euros 1.7 bn well ahead of esstimates of euros 1 bn. The only sour note was that EON did not raise its 2021 guidance, and the result was that despite excellent resulst, EONGY shares fell 1% to euros 10.56. The German ute could not gain traction in a big selling market.

*Nio, the Chinese electric car maker, is a winner from the drop inTesla sales, the result of it ignoring customer protests over problems with pricey cars, not exactly what capitalism is supposed to be teaching Communist China. NIO is challenging the US firm with its own high-end autos with a special sauce. It sells cars with only a lease for the electric batteries. This allows them to be recharged overnight at swapping stations which use the cheaper electricity available at low-demand hours. Its system is now being adopted by other Chinese car-makers like Geely, which is building 100 recharging stations in Chongqing port. State-owned Beijing New Energy, which will make electric taxis, is also planning swapping stations.

NIO got a lot of support from the regime for its battery leasing program, thanks to subsidies worth RMB 300,000, about $4800, not small change. It also was able to cut the price of a car with a leased battery by $10,000 from one with a permanent battery. Lower prices encourage sales. NIO rose 1.25%.

*Full Truck Alliance, backed by Tencent and Softbank plans a US IPO to raise $1.5 bn, which will mean the company is worth $20-30 bn. It offers spots on delivery trucks to small-cap firms and individuals. That estimate was before the selloff.

*Canadian Solar, CSIQ, tipped originally by green analyst Max Deml of Austria, today rose 1.85% because it will report May 20—the same news which led it to fall yesterday.

*Swiss ABB which makes electric gizmos, had its Q2 eps forecast cut today to 32.3 cents from 36 cents. This is an average from a range of estimates.

*BP plc saw its Q2 forecast drop by a US penny to 52¢ from 53¢.

*British AY, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure, a fund, gained after an outperform rating from Raymond James, also already reported. However Algonquin, AQN, a Canadian ute that owns a chunk of AY, fell 1.32%. Sterling is very strong and AQN results in US and Canadian dollars will be boosted by Atlantica.

*Johnson Matthey, JMPLY here, gained 25%. It refines and sell precious metals, not gold only but also platinum and palladium used for cleaning exhaust in cars and trucks burning gasolene.

*Earthstone Energy, ESTE, is up 0.26% more after reporting good profits YTD last week

*Forecast Ormat earnings in the current quarter were cut to 31.6¢ from 32.7¢. It is in thermal energy. ORA.

*Schlumberger Ltd dropped 2.81% at the open today. SLB.

Finance

*Swedish Investor A/B completed the sale of its venerable chain of Grand Hotels by two subs, Patricia Industries and Vectura, to FAMAB about which there is no information in English. The payment was SEK 3.9bn but the net gain was only SEK 1.5 bn because IVSBF repaid debt the hotel group owed. The stock market penalized IVSBF by 0.41%.

*The UK government sold 5% of Nat West Bank for 190 pence/sh, or a total of $1.55 bn. Among the banks which Nat West owns is Coutts & Co, the oldest bank in Britain and the world still in business. It was founded in 1692, and its customers include Her Majesty the Queen. Coutts is also among the banks being sued by Malaysia for having enabled looting of $4.5 bn from its 1MDB development fund along with JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.

*During the last three-month trading period, SPDR Gold Trust GLD recorded substantial net outflows of $7.7 bn, because its shareholders have become impatient. Now the outflows are down with April seen just $716.78 mn in redemptions. This is how closed-end funds work and if you share the worry of an anonymous writer on seekingalpha, you can just buy a gold mining stock.

*Our Kirkland Lake gold share is up 1.42% today hitting $41.55. KL is heavily traded and moving more than what the yellow metal gained. KL.

Drugs

*Novocure, NVCR, rose 3.83% in a down market thanks to hopes for its electric systems for disabling cancer cells.

*Dr. Reddy's Lab got a license from Eli Lilly to make baricitinib in India to treat Covid-19 with the arthritis med. The royalty-free, non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreement with Eli Lilly covers the manufacture and commercialization of the drug in India. RDY is up 0.3%. It will be combined with remdesivir to treat hospitalized Indian patients who need oxygen, mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. 

*Novo Nordisk of Denmark hit a new 12-mo high today. NVO was estimated to earn $4.84/share in the current quarter rather than the prior number, $4.91/sh, however.

*Canadian Aurinia Pharma, AUPH, rose 12.6% on news that its late-stage trials for lupus nephritis successfully cut disease and death. However, the website for biotech treated this as a 10% fall. Ooops. My college classmate who suffered from lupus died too soon.

*Its neighbor Zymeworks, ZYME, also rose by 1.8% but is down by half YTD.

*Galapagos, sold, did drop to a new low. I sold because of mistrusting GLPG's boosterish Dutch CEO.

*TEVA fell back to under $10 again but then rose to a higher plane. There is bargain hunting going on. 

*Grifols of Spain was a good performer in this sector, GRFS. It develops remedies using blood plasma.

Tech & Tel

*An anonymous writer on seekingalpha today predicted that Taiwan Semiconductor, recently added to our portfolio, is a potential double by 2025 thanks to higher earnings and free cash flow from last year by 2024-5. I will settle for less, filling in the gaps in chip availability with more fabs and also accepting that some heavy users will opt to build in-house. Both will cut high estimated earnings. TSEM.

*The estimate for Q2 earnings at Mercado Libre was chopped today to 11.3¢/sh from 32.1¢, both an average. MELI nonetheless rose over a half percent.

This in turn boosted South Korean Coupang, CPNG, which also is a local play against Amazon.

*Nintendo, the Japanese gameplay rose 0.75% on no news, unless you count. NTDOY.