The social forces inciting investor euphoria and then suddenly flip them into mass panic are like those which cause disasters as crowds head for the exit. A mass panic among Muslim pilgrims to Mecca in 1990 killed thousands.

Herd panic is triggered by darkness, noise and yelling, lack of information, ignorance, fear. People assume that they are trapped and stampede toward the doors, not realizing that this increases the danger to themselves and others.

In financial panics the same destruction occurs, and also partly results from ignorance. But financial panics also are fed by resentment. Market participants assume that some villains are profiting from knowing more than they do. Some alleged market panic-sowing villains are the product of rubbishy urban myths: Putin's Russian oligarchs or Communists; the giant squid (AKA Goldman Sachs); the Fed's supposed gold suppression scheme; the Bilderberg Foundation; the Rockefellers or the Rothschilds; secret Masonic or Zion or Vatican kingmakers, other conspirators.

But others in the roll-call of potential villains really do exist: bent dealers, co-opted regulators, Ponzi schemers, insider traders, suborned rating agenies, ultra-high-speed traders, algorithmic traders, market corner pools, price cartels, stock promoters, short-sellers, front-runners, pump-and-dump adivsors, greedy holdouts, swap dealers, hedge and private equity funds, manipulators of interest rates, mortgage poolers and red-liners, credit default swappers, the fiddlers of currency exchange rates, the fixed fixers of the gold price, bitcoin thieves, scammers, phishers. These baddies all exist and profited from the global financial crisis.

There can also be buying panics where people ignore the risks and rush into ipo's, internet stocks, the Nifty Fifty, biotechs, German unification plays or 3D printing ones, rare earths, China stocks.

The newest panic is over the Ebola virus.

Today we have a new stock pick which is hard to buy and more about Brazil, Canada, Mongolia, Argentina, Russia, and Britain.

*Here is how to play the increasingly lousy relations between Russia and the west, after more bloodshed at the Ukrainian border today.A new stock idea has finally been executed. I had to work to test it before publishing it here. We used to own the GDRs of OSJC Grupa Cherkizovo, a giant Russian meat-packer and sausage-maker. Its US version was cancelled and I sold the share which still trades in US dollars on the London Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol CHE. It also trades in Russia of course. The cusip is 68371H209. I got it through E-trade's global trading desk without a charge via a human being after trying to buy it on-line from the brokerage in London without success.

This stock is likely to benefit from Putin's ban on food imports from countries operating a financial embargo against Russia over its Ukraine operations. like the EU, the US, Scandinavia, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. CHE has a great market-oriented website in English and reports under normal accounting rules.

My trade got in just before London closed for the weekend at $12 per share. The bid is $11.75 but I paid the ask. Readers who want to copy my trade should wait till Monday. If you want to make your life simpler you can also buy into a meat packer from a country privileged to continue sales to Russia like Argentina or Brazil. Or even Israel (which, however, is closed today.) If you insist on acting today, go for either JBS, the Brazilian firm (JBSAY on the pinks, which also owns meat-packing assets in the USA) or Cresud S.A.I.C.F., CRESY, the Argentina company headed by billionaire Eduard Elsztain who has become an Israeli resident or Brazil Foods (BRFS).

JBS is actually pulling out of Argentina slaughterhouses because of politics impeding exports of beef. It reported an 8% fall in Q2 profits to Rs 254 mn, $111 mn) yesterday because of the costs of hedging and its high debt service costs which ballooned by 35% y/o/y, both from forex changes. This hit the impact of 32% higher sales to Reais 28.9 bn in the quarter. It owns Pilgrim's Pride in the US and Mexico and may be vulnerable to Russian import bans

CRESY is cluttered up with credit card finance, banking, retailing, and real estate company shares from his other companies including store group Alto Palermo, APSA, and property developer IRSA, both of which are also traded on Q.

I am wary of Elsztain whom I have run into a few times. Globes Israel, a web site, commented on his attempt to take over the IDB holdings there, a deal arranged by a rabbi, Yoshiyahu Pinto, who has a history of illegal campaign finance payments and bankruptcy here in NYC. Globes recently wrote:

“Considering that both Cresud and IRSA are public companies, Elsztain is taking the money Argentine[s] and American[s] have invested in his companies for his own speculative investment, the object of which is to salvage the IDB group. The investing public in Argentina may be less active than the one in Israel, but still, Elsztain might well be constrained...

“His good relations with Pres. Cristina Kirchner attract attention. The administration recently initiated reform in the construction industry encouraging residential apartments. The reform includes mortgage-financing breaks. That this move will benefit the [mortgage] bank Elsztain controls has not escaped media notice. Elsztain has also come under fire from the opposition in Argentina [over] the mining company he chairs, Austral Gold, because of tax breaks the company enjoys.” On CRESY, caveat emptor.

Brazil Foods is unlike the other two companies as it doesn't have a dominant family shareholder. It was formed by merger of Perdigão and Sadia 5 years ago, and is dwarfed by JDS. It no longer trades in the USA.

*A way to buy BCE without paying the full price would be to buy Bell Aliantstock (particularly if you are Canadian), suggests The Investment Reporter from Canada. BCE already owns the majority of shares but you can buy its target for lower than the value of the BCE stock being offered, $31. If you are Canadian you will also get favorable tax treatment as you will be able to roll over capital gains. Be sure you pay under $31 for BA in Toronto. The deal will close in Nov. pending govt approvals.

*The American and British private eyes who sought the whistle-blower over GlaxoSmithKline's corruption scandal have decided not to appeal their jail sentences. GSK.

*Following up on two notes yesterday. First Energy (Calgary brokerage) wrote up Computer Modelling which subscriber KH forwarded:

South America lagged our estimates [It accounts for 21% of sales.] Revenue continues to be lumpy as CMG only recognizes revenue when the cash is received from PDVSA [Venezuelan oil co.] EBITDA was behind our estimate of $14 mn and the Street as $11 mn. EPS of $0.08 came short of the Street estimate of $.10 and our estimate of $0.12. Results were behind our forecast largely as a result of higher costs relating to staff and less than expected revenue. We are encouraged by the successful release of the DRMS [dynamic recovery modelling software] system. With a reduction in estimates, we are reducing our target price to $15.50/sh and our ranking from outperform to market perform.” All figures loonies in IFRS. CMGRY in the USA.

*Cosan held an English-language conference call and Q&A with analysts after the Portuguese one yesterday, with CEO Marcos Lutz and CFO Marcelo Martins, plus an IR mgr. Unfortunately the transcript by www.seekingalpha.com was full of errors. The CC occurred when I was writing yesterday.

Overall business was positive in this year's Q2 mainly thanks to a shift in exchange rates and non-recurring factors across the board. The big negative was its cost of ethanol bought from jv Raizen Energia (only 50% owned) and what the stuff then sold for on the market which CFO Martins expects to reverse in H2. He also predicted strong fundamentals would produce a recovery in margins and EBITDA (cash flow) in the rest of this year.

However revised guidance now has cut volume of sugar crushed in this year's harvest from 61-63 mn metric tonnes to only 58-60 mn; and that of sugar sold from 4.4-4.7 mn to only 4.2-4.5 mn. Moreover, Senhor Martins also said that ethanol sales volume is now expected to be only 2.2 billion liters, vs earlier estimates of 2.3-2.6 bn liters. These volume drops are not expected to affect the cash flow which was not revised down because Cosan expects to reduce operational costs.

It will produce revised guidance only with Q3 results “considering the transport business” where things are up in the air. Cosan awaits official CADE (Brazilian antitrust authority) OKs for merging its Rumo Logistics with America Latino Logistica (ALL). Rumo (and Cosan lubrificantes) will “impact negatively” in future quarters.

The Comgas network had a sales drop because of 2% “reduced economic activity” in Q2, “weaker than expected for some of our businesses”, according to Martins. He forecast weakness in gas demand also later in the year, but wound up arguing that “fundamentals for all businesses continue extremely strong.” CEO Lutz said Comgas “is resilient”. “We might see a lower volume on the industrial side [but not] a big impact on the negative side on the full year.” He also said Cosan lubes [transcript said moves] “is the one business that won't meet [transcript said need] the budget on the EBITDA side.”

CFO Martins added: “we are very confident that we see a recovery for the margins of most businesses maybe with the exception of Cosan Lubrifiantes”. On lubes, he argued “we're seeing a recovery in the EBITDA margin in the 3rd quarter [so] we're having a better quarter than the 2^nd.”

In the Q&A we learned that “Raizen Energia impacted [negatively] by reais 20 mn during this quarter” and that CZZ is “obviously trying to reduce even further the capex for the company, one of our biggest objectives moving forward... I think it's fair to say we're seeing big improvement in terms of cost reduction, one of the main factors in the lower sugarcane and ethanol production”, Cosan's older commodity business.

CEO Lutz said about fuel distribution that “we have not seen the gross margins of the fuel business shrink in this last quarter.” The EBITDA margin fell only because of “one-time events.” He sees “maintenance of our margins and expect a lot better EBITDA margins than last quarter.” He added: “This business is a very resilient one. Despite having [exposure] to GDP, the bulk of the business will actually be on the same levels and with some growth.”

On Rumo-ALL Lutz warned: “it is tough to give clear guidance given that we don't know exactly the timing of approval and when we will deploy and start doing what should be done”. He cited “no World Cup” (good) and election time (bad.)

A mystery remark by Lutz during the Q&A: apparently because of the Rumo-ALL merger “we have transported all the volume that we plan. What happened was really on the revenues side where we unilaterally decided not to charge fees that for now there is, let's say, an armistice on the judicial issue against ALL... Expect this for the remainder of the year.”

So if I understood rightly, Rumo Logistics are not charging fees for shipment. This can go on, again from Lutz's remarks, for up to a year until the CADE antitrust approvals have been given. But it also appears that “the spin off, the logistics business is going help us tremendously because we're going to a transformational profit from the business that is more stable [and] has a more predictable tax generation.”

Now Rumo's spinoff will possibly be reversed and according to Mr. Lutz, having started Rumo “with two terminals in an investment of Rs 100 mn we have a business worth Rs 1 bn. And now were are trying to improve even further with the merger with ALL.” “It is a capital intensive [transcript said incentive] business.” “To expand the capacity in the railroad, we're going to invest with some special amount of money. ..The assumption is that money is going to come in part from the BNDES [transcript read NDS. The BNDES is the Brazilian govt fund for development.]

Thanks to its varied businesses cobbled together over the past 6 years, Lutz says Cosan is running “completely different business impacted by completely different factors.” On the one hand commodities like sugar and ethanol and gas stations. And on the other ports and logistics. The new business he expects will produce “an immediate reflection” in the stock price. After pondering this sprawling operation. Stay with Cosan. CCJ is up today because BHP Billiton is spinning out assets.

*Seekingalpha.com has two new articles about Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF or AOF in London; and Mongolia Growth Fund, MNGGF, half sold, whose main listing is in Canada as YAK. Both are narrowly traded funds which we bought a year ago. AOF is a closed-end fund; YAK may be converting to a REIT. The author did not in fact provide full info on AOF which issued new C shares earlier this year.

*Benitec Biopharma is up sharply again today. BTEBF is an Australian developer of RDA silencers to eliminate bad proteins and clean up genes. I got the share idea from Dr KSS, a medical writer on www.stockgumshoe.com who may also have been plagiarized on Seekingalpha.com.

*Selling too soon is not only my failing. George Soros's family investment arm sold out of Monster Beverages in Q2, before the Coca Cola deal announced today.