I listened to Morningstar's presentation of its global prowess during its presentations to go on all week. Here are some goodies from Monday about how they can cover the whole world piecemeal with quantitative flimflam:

Its Jeremy Glaser explained how Morningstar can extend its analyst ratings to cover "more of the world." "We do have these analyst ratings. We have analysts who are covering stocks in the United States and Europe and Asia. Our research team has created a quantitative method that extends those ratings and tries to extrapolate what they think our ratings would be for stocks that we don't cover, market that we don't have analysts for, or stocks that are just too small for us to have full analyst coverage on. And using that data, we're able to get a snapshot of what equity valuations look like across the world."

If you think that is how to invest globally, I have a lovely bridge to Brooklyn I can sell you cheaply. While its broad coverage sounds less than deep, its detailed coverage also sounds weak. Here is about the UK quoting his commentary at a Morningstar conference by Clive Beagles who runs "silver" rated JOHNCM UK Equity Income Fund. It was posted yesterday but which sounds like it was from before the UK elections:

"For us, the key element actually is that certain stocks and sectors will do well as interest rates rise, and actually some might do quite badly. And some of those may be sectors that people previously have thought about as being very defensive. If you look at the rease hat we currently find attractive, it's things like financials, it's areas like commodities, or it's small caps—all of which are less fashionable."

"The more fashionable areas of the market right now would be biotech or technology or consumer staples. There might be some good-quality companies in those sectors, but they are valued on quite high multiples and it's hard for us to see how you make money in those sorts of names. You're more likely to make better returns from lower valuations as your starting point."

Yup.

However, one of the managers, for an Australian fund group, Platinum Asset Mgm (PTM) after talking about her love for luggage from Samsonite (SMSOF), which is a European company, then turned her attention to one of our share favorites, so I will quote her remarks below.

There will be no blog tomorrow morning and only a news recap for paid subscribers after lunch. Today's blog has news from Britain, Israel, Myanmar, China, Canada, The Netherlands, India, Ethiopia and Africa, with an annual report, a conference call, and a sale. We catch up on our funds today.

Ding Dong Stocks

*Vodafone (VOD) has finally if barely reversed the drop in its core service sales after 3 years in Q4 (to Mar. 30) thanks to its £7 bn "Spring Initiative" 4G offers bundling land and cell phone lines, TV, and Internet boosting revenues. UK telco VOD with 446 million mobile customers globally, eked out Q4 "organic service revenue", excluding marketing costs like cellphone subsidies, up all of 0.1%, the first plus sign after after 10 quarters of declines. Q4 revenue rose 10.1% but EBITDA, (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) fell 6.9% to £11.9 bn in the quarter.

VOD also reiterated its target of boosting earnings this FY to generate positive EBITDA after capex but before any acquisitions, spectrum buying, or restructuring.

VOD gained most from a 6% growth in sales to Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. In Europe the "gain" was that sales merely fell by 2.4% vs 2.7% in Q3. CEO Vittorio Colao stated that he sees "increasing signs of stabilization in many European markets." Post crisis, the European mobile market is inching towards recovery.

He added this morning: "We have significant opportunities ahead of us, with only 13 per cent of our European mobile customers using 4G, and our market share in fixed services only a fraction of our share in mobile."

Alas, VOD full fiscal year results again showed declining sales in hyper-competitive European markets like Germany, Spain, and Italy. However emerging countries where it had problems in past years like India and Turkey, now are coming right.

In constant currencies, FY 2014-5 emerging market sales rose 6% while European ones dropped 4.7% (stripping out M&A and forex changes). FY revenue rose 10.1% to £42.2 bn, but fell slightly after discounting M&A and FX. Full-year service revenue declined 1.6%.

Net profit in the year to March 31 fell to £5.76 bn from £59.3 bn which however included a payment for exiting a joint venture with Verizon, and is not comparable.

Vodafone proposed a 2% increase in its FY dividend to 7.6 pence.

VOD is suffering in markets it targeted with cable M&A to boost 4G: GermanKabel Deutschland, Spanish Ono, and UK Cable & Wireless. Rumors that it will eventually merge with John Malone's Liberty Global plc (LBTYA, sold) keep surfacing. My fear is that the very highly over-paid Liberty chiefs will not accept being acquired by a telco with more modest C suite salaries and benefits. That means a deal will have to be VOD buying LBTYA rather than the reverse. While owned by the US cable magnate, LBTYA is British.

VOD shares which outperformed the FTSE 100 YTD because of takeover rumors were off 2.6% in London.

*The Morningstar-rated analyst who picked one of our stocks (in addition to Samsonite) was Australian PTM's Anh Lu, who appears to hang out in Hong Kong. She said:

"The Chinese stock Tencent (TCEHY) is the best-positioned Internet company in mobile and is among the top 5 Internet companies in the world. The business is positioned to capture new opportunities including on-line payment and e-banking, which will be big in Asia once regulation will allow more competition."

Its US ticker symbol for its most liquid variant is TCTZF, a chat site we have recommended directly and indirectly (via Naspers) since 2006. I don't think Tencent is waiting for regulators to allow on-line payment and e-banking; they already exist and generate profits.

*With more contenders for its HERE sub, Nokia (NOK) is up today by 2.63%, at Є6.23. Baidu, Uber, and private equity group Apax Partners are reported by Bloomberg to be prepared to offer as much as $4 bn for the mapping software to squeeze out TCTZF. Uber alone already offered $3 bn in the last round. The next bid date is June 1. NOK is selling this sub at the top.

Extracting and Making Things

*The main reason we are looking into India industrial companies and software houses is that I am chary of the country's drug firms and banks, the easy passage to India for US investors. Why not drug firms? Because of poor conformity to FDA rules, slow production scale-up, and patent violations on which the Indian Supreme Court is now cracking down.

Why not banks? Because rating agencies warn that India's banks are stuffed with bad loans. This was reported in the Barrons' Asia daily blog which for now is free. Of the 29 listed Indian banks that have already reported on their Q4 (to March 31), none has shown lower bad debt numbers. The increase, however, may be slackening as India eases rates.

*Templeton Emerging Markets Fund whose shares I own, reported that it no longer owns Sesa Goa, Sesa Sterlite, or Vedanta Ltd. Under various names, this stock was a favorite of Mark Mobius, the EMF manager now retiring, for which he was often criticized. We own it directly now as VEDL.

*Allana Potash (AAA in Canada, ALLRF here) is on a roll. It is developing Ethiopia's Danikhil mine and infrastructure (a railway and a port) to export its output. It is now covered by major analysts from Investec, Cantor Fitzgerald, Raymond James and others smaller firms and is listed in Germany.

*Delek Group (DGRLY)is offering a full tender exchange offer to holders of its Tel Aviv Series B15 debentures worth NIS 1.486 bn in return for new shelf-registration debentures worth 1.597 bn. The interest rate of course is lower but the press release did not mention this fact. Tender by June 2 at 2:30 pm local time.

*GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) did another study whose outlook I could have predicted, showing how absenteeism among asthma patients can be cut at inner city schools when the school nurse knows who they are and can provide some care. This study, Building Bridges for Asthma Care, was presented at the American Thoracic Society by a Colorado pediatric medicine team. It was based on work done at public schools in Denver and Hartford (CT) enrolling 464 students from 3 schools and assessing their absenteeism against that of 1750 children from other schools in the same districts who were not enrolled. Absenteeism dropped 11.75% for enrolled children while it increased 8.48% for un-enrolled.

Fund notes

*Pershing Square Holdings (PSHZF) held a Q1 conference call yesterday afternoon clearly intended for US investors while preserving the fiction that shareholders for its Euronext Amsterdam shares are all abroad. Pershing Square is a building across 42^nd St from Grand Central Station. NAV at the end of April was $28.02.

Its main new move was selling out of almost all of its Irish Actavis plc shares to buy Canada's Valeant instead. (It had hoped for a takeover to get what it wanted). It has 25.84% of its assets now in VRX.

Separately, Morgan Stanley tipped ACT today. Pershing also boosted its stake in Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) from 7% at the end of last year to 17% now. This is partly because it thinks the Teamsters will not succeed in forcing a pay hike on CP. The CC also discussed Restaurant Brands International (QSR) the new combo of Tim Horton's with Burger King which is growing its business after a tax inversion deal. Its Q1 was off because of the strong US dollar hurting the C$ company.

PSHZF also boosted its stake in Pfizer's pet and animal healthcare spinoff Zoetis (ZTS) (which nobody can pronounce) although the performance so far was "not a blow-out". (Actually it lowered its 2015 guidance.) Bill Ackman or his co-presenter Michael Pearson (I could not identify the speakers) likes its "non-cyclical business" and the fact that animal meds (unlike human ones) "have no generic competition." ZTS is a US firm.

There was also some discussion of other holdings like Howard Hughes Corp (HHC) which the speaker said is not to be judged on quarterly accounts (it is a real estate holding co.) and industrial gas firm Air Products & Chemicals (APD). HHC and APD are both US firms.

Mr. Ackman talked about platform value, by which he means companies that are themselves acquisitive, buy cheaply, and then integrate the new business effectively. That was behind the Activis position. He also told listeners that Pershing has two new “secret positions”, one small on which there will be more info out next month; and the other a large cap it plans to invest 14-15% of its assets in. Most of PSHZF assets are in Canada which counts are foreign.

When my mother first arrived in NYC from Germany she opened a her bank account in the lovely Pershing Square Emigrant's Savings Bank building. She later changed banks because she moved from the East Side of Manhattan. Her former bank is pictured on PSHZF's website and documents.

*Another day, another deal. Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic Holdings (YMAIF)and Education Index Mgm (the global arm of respected Dulwich College of London) will together create a premium international school in Yangon (Myanmar) in YMAIF's Star City development area. The future British College Yangon” school, which has won construction licenses, will have a $40 mn campus with state-of-the-art classrooms, a performing art center, gym, sporting grounds and swimming pool to be open to all residents, will open for enrollment of Burmese and foreign students aged 2 to 18 staring with the 2016-7 academic year. Its headmaster will be Daryl Orchard.

*I am selling her shares of Africa Opportunity Fund (AROFF here, AOF in London) mainly because they cannot be transferred to Interactive Brokerage. I am not buying them back now. I owned the ADR but there is no trading so I am using my soon ending global trading account to exit Africa. The share is quoted in US$ but is listed on the London Stock Exchange.