Melinda French Gates will be the honoree at my Radcliffe commencement this year, but I probably will not go there even virtually because the whole point is to meet your old buddies at a simple outdoor lunch after the ceremony. She is divorcing her partner in charity donations, Bill Gates, but continuing to push for female charity donations on behalf of their jointly run and funded foundation.

Today markets are in a better mood than earlier this week. Hurray! Only one company we still hold is reporting today. Yesterday Larry Summers issued an inflation warning. Yesterday evening some Fed governors joined in. Today Warren Buffett issued an inflation warning. But all this was nullified by much lower filings for unemployment insurance last week, 444,000 vs much higher forecasts.

The US Treasury plans to require IRS reporting on US cryptocurrency trades of $10,000 and up to prevent tax evasion. 

Image Source: Pixabay

Green from green stocks

*Canadian Solar, CSIQ, is today's top performer after it reported Q1 sales up 32% from prior year to $1.09 bn, up from its own $1 bn guidance and beating the consensus forecast of $1.05 bn. The boost came from higher sales in the US and Japan, the latter a new market, despite lower numbers of solar modules shipped. Its gross margins at 17.9% were the highest ever for the company and were up from a prior quarter level of only 13.6% thanks to higher margin product sales which offset higher costs of manufacturing the panels.

Net income was up 228.6% from last Q1 at $23 mn or 36¢/sh, missing the consensus forecast of 41¢. It doubled its stoarage project pipeline according to CEO Dr. Shawn Qu, and generated $83 mn in operating cashflow and $152 bn in holdings of cash and equivalents.

CSIQ estimates Q2 reveneus at $1.4-1.5 bn, ahead of the consensus forecast of $1.37 bn. Full year guidance is $5.6-6 bn in revenues, vs the current consensus of $5.64 bn.

Iniially CSIQ fell 1.8% for missing the EPS figure but now it is up 5.7% as markets got optimistic.

*Tomra Systems, which makes bottle recycling and drug, plastic, and food sorting systems which cut waste, is up 3.35%. TMRAY is Norwegian.

*Energy Fuels, UUUU, is down about a half percent to $5.92 on a lower price target for the developer of uranium and rare earth production. HC Wainwright cut its target price of $7, keeping it a buy.

*UK Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure plc rose 3.35% on Q to $37. AY is a key holding of our Canadian AQN, Algonquin Power & Utilities, which gained 1.44%. The link is back.

*French waterworks ute Veolia VEOEY, making peace with former shareholders of Suez SZEVF, is up 1.2% at $31.36.

*Swiss ABB, which we also own via Investor A/B, is up 1%. Both Gen. Joe Shaefer and I opted to buy into it directly and we are now ahead over 12.5%. It is the former Asea Brown Boveri.

*South Korean Coupang was up over 3% today despite a bearish $30 put sweep after an overpriced IPO. CPNG.

Drug Dealers

*I may have been misled by Investor's Digest of Canada about Cardiol Therapeutics. I quoted an article on the front page of the magazine by its editor Robin Poon yesterday, in the Canada government backed stock advisory. However Cardiol was also featured to day in the OTC Markets website and blog I get. So there may be a campaign going on at the venerable magazine. Officially it “reports on investments but does not sell them.” I don't know Mr Poon but was close to Barry Martland, his predecessor running the newsletter.

*Astra Zeneca's covid-19 jab given as a booster to people already having received a full vaccination appears to boost immunity in British trials which are continuing. The news boosted AZN stock to a new high YTD at $7.63, but it fell back to $57.52, still up 2%.

*Merck is up perhaps because of the spinoff I wrote about yesterday and because of the following. MRK.

*Teva is up 1.94% and its bonds are also up after a write-up by Financial Morning Post today for supplying the psychedelic supply chain, alongside Merck. Usually, TEVA is beaten up for its addictive drug sales but today it is lauded for working on depression and mental health drugs by Canada's FMP.

*GlaxoSmithKline rose 0.88% after Innovia bought back a 32% stake owned by the UK drug firm for $382 mn or $12.25/sh, a 3% discount. GSK bought its Ellipta partner respiratory drugs decades ago.

*Bristol-Myers BMY gained thanks to a trial result for its melanoma treatment combining Relatimab, a new compound, with Opdivo, an older one, showing better progression-free survival than from Opdivo alone. Meanwhile, its FDA application for a license for Opdivo to treat esophageal and gastroesophageal cancer after surgery and radiation therapy is being voted on now. It's up 2.52% today.

*Israeli Bioline RX is back in clover today, up 5.37% now after opening up even more. BLRX.

*Compugen, which I recently averaged down, is up 4.64%. Israeli CGEN uses AI systems to find drugs with potential impact on diseases and is still down 300% from its peak last summer despite earnings beats.

*Novocure is up 3.84% after it got another FDA exemption from the planned numbers for another campaign, this time for non-small cell lung cancers. This cuts costs and time of phase III trials using NVCR's electricity tumor treating fields together with immune checkpoints or platinum-based therapy.

*Canadian Zymeworks is up 2.73%. ZYME.

*Takeda is up 1.23% but Eisai is down 0.5%. TAK and ESALY are Japanese drug-makers.

Chinese checkers

*I sold too soon. I always do. Trip.com Group, TCOM of China whose quarterly report was full of mystery lapses and moves by the government came out yesterday, leading me to sell despite claims of better times coming. The stock rose 2.32% today hitting $41.66, about 1% over what I got yesterday. I still think this company is at high risk of losing support from the state.

*Electric car-maker NIO is back in the black today after dropping in the wake of Tesla during the cryptocurrency selloff yesterday. It is likely to gain from Chinese licensing rules on electric vehicles and from subsidies for recharging batteries leased by the car-maker. This cuts the price people pay for their package and for letting them be recharged while driving away with a fully charged one. TSLA also rose.

Fundsz

*Goldman Sachs is using Lazard Asset Management to run $1.2 bn of its foreign stock funds. That may reflect the LAZ use of closed end funds to cheaply add to foreign positions, why I bought the stock. There may be impediments for a US firm like Goldman to do this directly.

*Taiwan Semi-Conductor is up .75% and TWN, Taiwan Fund, 1.3% despite a renewed Covid-19 outbreak. Cisco Systems today aid it expects the chip shortage and high prices to continue to yearend.

*Potential Korean alternatives are unlikely to function in this time frame so Korea Fund is down.

Materials

*SPDR Gold is up, GLD. So is Kirkland Lake Gold, KL.

*Irish cement maker CRH is up 0.22% but Ireland Fund IRL is down 2.03% after its tender offer for 25% of its shares for 98% of NAV was accepted yesterday.