Today we learned that Warren Buffett had the same idea as me, perhaps without having gone to the trouble of reading my site, Global-investing.com.

We also have big news about one of my French stock picks, undoing a problem in utility companies dating back to the late 19^th century. And one of my stocks for dealing with COVID-19 has begun its phase II-III trials on an antibody.

Ohio's police and firemen's pension plan has invested in gold. My daughter and two of my grandchildren live in that state so I am happy their cops and firemen will not suffer a pension loss from future inflation.

My website is in reconstruction mode. Please remain patient while my team upgrades our site. It is chaotic but is as much the fault of the US management as the Indian engineers. In the meantime, you can read my articles exclusively on TalkMarkets.

Finance

*Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) bought over 5% in each of 5 Japanese trading groups: Itochu (ITOCY), Marubeni (MARUF), Mitsubishi (MSBHF), Mitsui (MITSY), and Sumitomo (SMFG, SSUMY). We own a joint venture of the latter two and have been trying to buy into Mitsubishi for a while. Now that it is in vogue we are probably not going to get the stock but note that SMFG is down 1% despite Buffett while Mitsubishi is up 9.63%. It is cheaper in p/e terms. I finally stopped playing for pennies and bought MSBHF for $24.7 outright yesterday. Today inspired by Omaha, It is up a ridiculous 15.12%. I got lucky

*Both our Hong Kong financials, AAIGF (AIA Asia) and Hang Seng Bank (HSNGF) are soaring, by 3.5% and 9.8% respectively.

*EatonVance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Opportuniities Fund paid out 14.25 cents in August which was 17.3% from net investment income and 82.7% from realized long term gains. There was no return of capital from EXG.

*Banco Santander SAN is back in the dumps, down 3.7% today.

Waterworks

*French listed waterworks date back to the mid-19^th century. When Napoleon was Emperor, his nephew, Napoleon III, authorized two companies to provide water to the French, one in the south and one in the north. (He didn't like competition). They were called Suez and Cie Générale des Eaux. Both have become catchall operations with major French groups owning chunks of them in everything from media to cleaning up the East River near here or London's parks. They were owned by magnates like Jérôme Seydoux (of the clan which owns Schlumberger Ltd. SLB) and the Bronfmans. We own the former CGE now called Veolia, VEOEY. Both have had tough periods with dispersed assets in recent years.

VEOEY is now acquiring a chunk of Suez some 70 years after the north-south split, via a bid for just under 20% of CGE via its sub, just under the number of shares which would require a full bid. VEOEY gained 6.6% at the open. Suez ADRs, SZSAY, rose 17.4% on the pinks). All European utes are up.

Extraction

*Schlumberger (SLB) is down 1.44% as the price of oil fell back because the destruction of the US Gulf of Mexico drilling sites was less severe than feared. Cheer up. There will probably be more hurricanes.

*However Computer Modelling of Canada is up 0.85%. CMDXF has further to rise having fallen a lot.

*Norwegian Tomra Systems, which makes sorting systems, is the green alternative to landfills and waters full of plastic bags. TMRAY stock is up 3.55% today.

*Gold miner Kirkland Lake was tipped by two different writers today, Brent Hecht and Taylor Dart. KL was tipped in June by BofA-Merrill leading me to buy the dual-listed miner from Canada. It has cashed in some chips to expand further said Merrill. It is up 1.25%.

*SPDR Gold GLD is up too, to $185.12 (multiply by 10 for the implied gold price.)

*Natural gas-powered tankers from Hoegh LNG partners are in play again and HMLP is up 1%/

Pharma

*GlaxoSmithKline and its partner Vir have begun enrolling people for the Comet-ICE antibody trial in phase II-III which expects to see results by the end of this year. GSK is up 0.4%. Our pure antibody play, Grifols SA of Spain, added last week, GRFS, is up 0.81% having opened up at $16.29.

*High-flying Dr. Reddy's, picked by Abhimanyu Sisodia, is losing traction, down 1.4%. RDY is Indian. Ditto for high-flyer Beigene, BGNE which is Chinese...

*Compugen (CGEN) is upwardly mobile, up 1.9%. CGEN. Even Teva (TEVA) is up by ~2%. Both are Israeli.

*Zymeworks, a cancer play, gained .8%. It has been roiled by options trading. ZYME was picked by our Canada reporter Martin Ferera.

*Eisai, an Alzheimer's hope, is up near its high again, at $87.7. ESALY is the Japanese partner of Biogen-Idec for aducanumab and is building a campus in New Jersey to aim at the US market.

*Europeans Roche and Novartis of Switzerland and Danish Novo Nordisk and Anglo Swedish Astra Zeneca are all up RHHBY; NVS, NVO, AZN.

Tech & Tel

*Vodafone VOD is down 1.1%. Nokia NOK fell 1.9%; even Ericsson ERIC fell 0.7%. Japan's NTT-Docomo DCMYY lost 3.9%.

*A green electric carmaker with access to plenty of green (RMBs) NIO (NIO), gained 1.8% today.

*India solar power plant maker Azure AZRE of Mauritius fell 1.25%.