Pharma And Religion
Tuesday saw Wall Street anxious to avoid a 2nd down day in a row despite politics and health issues. Trump in his first press briefing since the attack on Capitol Hill claimed his remarks to the mobs of his followers was “totally appropriate”. He also claimed that Congressional attempts to impeach him were “causing tremendous anger”, according to a note from the New York Times. He fanned the flames again.
Retail sales fell sharply in Britain and took down stock markets.
Pharma and Religion
*The European Medicines Agency got a conditional marketing authorization application from AZN, AstraZeneca for the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Oxford University. The decision on permitting use will be made by Jan. 29 after a review by CHMP. The European Commission will then fast-track its decision-making process, aiming to grant a conditional marketing authorization "within days," the EMA said. The news came after AZN stock fell in London. More below.
*Glaxo GSK and partner Vir will test VIR:782 COVID-19 antibodies in UK patients with mild to moderate infection in a phase I-II trial authorized by British AGILE, which uses advanced statistics on drug trials. VIR-782 is an antibody that enhances both clearing of infected cells and T-cell function. This is their 2nd monoclonal antibody trial after they messed up an earlier trial with bad data collection. Glaxo shares also fell in London.
*Beigene BGNE opened up 8% to $304 but fell to $299.82 84.84 today, up about 5%. BGNE's cancer drug Tislelzumab, an anti-PD1 monoclonal antibody that binds to CcyR on macrophages, was licensed to NVS, Swiss Novartis NVS.
*Fellow Swiss Roche reported enhanced survival in phase III trials of Tecentriq with Avastin in resectable liver cancers, compared to Bayer's Nexavax, cutting deaths by 34% and overall survival of 19.2 months vs 11.4% months with the Bayer drug. RHHBY.
*Danish Novo Nordisk NVO presented at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference and there may be a nice write-up tomorrow I can quote on Thursday. No blog Weds. as I am getting my COVID-19 jab.
*Abcellera ABCL is up 9.4%% today to $40+ but is still down 21% from our basis.
*Enlivex, ENLV, fell 1.2% but is still in double digits.
*Aurinia, AUPH, a Canadian, is up 5% from our basis at last.
*TEVA rose 3.2%, a bellwether for Israeli drug firms Compugen CGEN gained 0.9%. Novacure, NVCR, our newest Israeli, gained over 3% to $175 today and 5.7% since we bought last week as it joins pharma conferences and becomes better known. Bioline RX fell 3.8% to $2.8.
*Muslim headed Canadian Zymeworks gained 3.2% at $58.19 (US). ZYME.
*Moncef Mohammed Slaoui who heads the US Operation Warp Speed (who may stay on for Biden) is a Moroccan-born Muslim American who headed GSK vaccines before he retired. Never make any assumptions on drug executive's religion. Slaoui favors giving 2 half doses of the Moderna drug against COVID-19 to maximize impact.
*India's Dr. Reddy's fell 1.4%. RDY has a Jewish CEO.
Green from green
*NIO over the weekend showcased its electric vehicle over the weekend which boosted its share, written up by Barron's on-line which I failed to look at yesterday. It also is partnering with Nvidia DRIVE's on using the “Adam” computer on a chip for electronic autonomous smart sedans to ship in China next year. It was cut to neutral from buy today by Citibank.
*Miner Energy Fuels, UUUU, which will remove rare earths from its own and other miner's uranium, which tripled since Dec. 2020, today fell over 6.3%.
*Brazilian Cosan, CZZ, one of my picks for 2021 because it is integrating offshore holdings to the parent company, gained 2.66% today in the pre-market. It is even higher now, up over 10% YTD.
*Mexican Cemex, CX which is lowering the clinker in its cement to cut emissions, rose 3.87% today.
*Johnson Matthey JMPLY which refines and stores platinum group metals, rose 3.25% in UK trading.
*Veoneer, sold too soon, estimates its growth will accelerate in 2021 and the VEON share rose 4.2%.
*Ormat, which extracts and stores geothermal energy, fell another 1%. We sold most of our ORA last week.
*Veolia VEOEY, a French ute aiming to buy a rival, gained 4.2% today.
Green from grime
*Crude oil prices rose to the highest level since last Feb. before COVID-19 and the impact was huge on Schlumberger SLB, up 4.6%; Royal Dutch Shell B RDS-B, up 1.92%, and BP plc, up 1.8%. Shell was attacked by greens for its dirty operations from its floating LNG freezing in Australia which was brought back on. Mizuho of Japan raised BP's target price to $27 and shell's to $51.
*Earthstone Energy, ESTE, rose 9.76%, our best performer after insiders bought at $3.99 last week. It is now $5.77.
Financials
*Unlike Tesla TSLA which recovered ~6% of the 8% it lost Monday, Bitcoin fell another 8.59%.
*Bank of Nova Scotia CEO Brian Porter yesterday spoke at the RBC capital markets day and the transcript came out on seekingalpha. He talked up the recovery in countries BNS is heavily into like Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia which are reflating faster than developed countries. Scotiabank un Porter has exited some smaller markets in the Caribbean (where there were money laundering risks) and Thailand, Puerto Rico, and El Salvador because their growth was unimpressive. It closed 300 branches in these places. This let BNS boost its presence and technology in Latin American countries, notably Chile which is a favorite partner of China for commercial and corporate business. It is the leading Canadian bank in the Americas for M&A and capital markets and wealth management. This will offset some of the rate pressure short-term in Canada and new hiring there. It also plans stock buybacks when authorized by Ottawa. Canada nice means RBC was kind to Porter but he made the BNS case. It is expected to hit C$68.3 per share in its Q2 (now) and earn C$5.26 per share in the current year according to the National Bank of Canada which today reported on what Porter was forecasting.
*Allianz was tipped by Labates investor relations for owning Pimco, which is not news. The analyst says the ticker is ALIZF, is the German otc price, and it is down 0.79% today. My broker sold off the share when the more affordable ADR was canceled.
*Franklin Templeton is forming a new research group in the UK. BEN is up 3.3%.
*Charles Schwab SCHW, my new brokerage (it bought TD Ameritrade) was upgraded to buy by Bank of America-Merrill and rose 2%. Moving my account to it is proving difficult and bureaucratic.
*Commerzbank warned German stock market BaFin regulator about risks of Wirecard a year ago, and was ignored, the Financial Times revealed today.
*British fund Atlantica Yield, AY, which gained 4.2% Friday lost 2.1% today, half the rise. It is now at a daily low of $43.8. It is part-owned by Algonquin AQN, the trans-border US-Canadian ute which lost1.36%. AY offers very high tax-free income and is recommended by Harry Geisel. If you sell it you will have to pay US capital gains taxes on the loot so just hang in there.
*Hong Kong insurer AIG Group, AAIGF, rose 3.4%. Hang Seng Bank, which runs the index, did not trade again.
*Secy of State Mike Pompeo eased restrictions on relations so Taiwan Fund TWN rose by 0.62%.
Tech & Tel
*Mercado Libre MELI which funds shopping in Latin America, rose 3.5% on the rise in US interest rates.
*Cash-strapped Vodafone, despite high expected proceeds from telecom tower sales, fell 2.1%. UK VOD is global.
*Finnish Nokia NOK gained 2.6% because its neighbor and rival Swedish Ericsson ERIC yesterday called for an end to Sweden's boycott of Chinese chips for cellphones. While both countries have a history of neutrality Finland suffered more for it than Sweden.
*South African Naspers NPSNY, a global media-telco firm, gained 1.23%. Prosus PROSY, its European variant, rose 1%.
*Mauritius solar plant supplier to India, Azure Power, is up 2.8% today and is up over 500% from our basis. AZRE.
Food for thought
*Nutrien of Canada gained 4.4% today hitting $53.6 (US), up over a third from our basis. NTR.
*Global highway food and gas seller Alimentation Couche-Tarde, ANCUF, is down 0.5%.
*Norwegian Tomra Systems rose over 2%. It makes recycling machines for empty bottles and sorting systems for foods like potatoes and apples, pharmaceuticals, and plastics. TMRAY.