Back in the saddle with a slightly sore left arm, I am catching up on news missed Weds. The biggest is the cross-border bid from one of our Canadian companies for a French firm. The US stock indexes today are all in the black, which doesn't mean that all my US holdings (to say nothing of ADRs) are up. But enough of them are so I am feeling like going and spending some money on getting a functional website. I am negotiating with a techie recommended by a Mexican daily blog we exchange data with.

Here are notes about the winners today starting with one in the course of being impeached.

*Mexican drip-feed company Orbia Advance Corp. is still showing dead prices up hugely under its old ticker symbol of MXCHY--$3.49 bid, $999 ask which makes me look richer than I am in Mexico. According to Schwab.com which now owns my TD Ameritrade broker, they provide the correct price but I would like a confirmation from someone working with Schwab before I hop over. ORBIA in Mexican trading is up 1% today to MXN 47.48. Its stock is followed by the US and global analysts like BofA; Barclays; Citi; Credit Suisse; HSBC; JP Morgan; Morgan Stanley; and UBS—but not Schwab.

image source

Luckily there are real gains too:

Food

*Belated news. Quebec's Francophone Alimatation Couche-Tard, operator of gas stations and Circle K food stores is bidding to take over Carrefour, a French supermarket chain with global ambitions, notable in Brazil, at a price of euros 20/sh. CEEFY rose 13.4% Weds but is still only at 6x cash flow. The Financial Times today recalls other flopped combos like Walmart with Asda in Britain, from which Walmart is now exiting. Earlier UK Tesco's Fresh & Easy US venture flopped. It warns also about French protectionism which resulted in Danone being kept totally French. Paris is saying the same about ANCUF, despite its non-binding offer having been written in perfect French. CRRFY's ADR rose over 15% yesterday. It operates mostly in France but has Atacadao branches in Brazil, shops in Thailand, and China we used and plenty more. Citi warned there are not many synergies. We own ANCUF but I am chary about the deal. The Carrefour board is full of French top dog names like Arnault and reps of the verkers, normal in France. ANCUF fell 16% this week but only 1.4% aujourd'hui. There was rien on the share at my brokerage site yesterday, why I missed this.

*Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican bakery mnc, rose11% today to $2.33. GRBMF.

*Nutrien NTR, the Canada fertilizer maker and farmer shop firm is up 1.85%.

Drug Dealers

*Beigene, BGNE, gained 8.86% today to $27.5. It is our top bio play.

*NantKwest NK reported on its phase II multi-pharm trials against pancreatic cancer aiming at T-cells and killer cells in place of chemotherapy which doubled overall survival. This aims to use the patient's own immune system to fight the cancer for which there is now no known cure. This didn't hurt our Novacure. NVCR also working on pancreatic cancer, rose 2%+ today. It's headed by Patrick Soon-Shiong, US top biotech investor and is also working on blocking covid-19 with immunity stimulators It stock rose 19.42% today. Canada's Zymeworks ZYME, which has links to PSS, gained 7.32%

*Canada's Aurinia Pharma AUPH, down from our buy, gained 3.53% today to hit $14.38 as it presents at drug confabs.

*Compugen CGEN is up 2.98% on no news. BioLineRx is down fractionally for the same reason. BLRX.

*TEVA is down 0.64% despite CEO Käre Schultz's JP Morgan Healthcare interview.

*Abcellera, ABCL, gained 1.2% and is now only down 10% from our basis.

*AstraZeneca, AZN, co-maker of the Oxford U COVID jab, gained 1.44% and is back over $51.5 again.

*Spanish (Catalan) Grifols rose 1.5%. GRFS launched a gamma globulin trial against covid-19.

*ENLV, Enlivex, is down 0.9% as is its wont.

*Swiss Novartis NVS gained 2% after winning FDA approval for ligelizumab to treat acute myeloid leukemia.*But fellow Swiss Roche RHHBY and Danish Novo Nordisk NVO only rose by fractions.

*Dr. Reddy's rose 0.53%. RDY is distributing the Sputnik V corona vaccine which appears to be less helpful than Russia claims. RDY says it is safe, not that it works. RDY reports Jan 31.

Tech & Tel

*Finnish Nokia NOK is up 5% to $4.18. Finland was forced to be neutral by Russia.

*Ericsson (ERIC) is up 0.42% because it is not willing to bar Chinese inputs being Swedishly neutral.

*Japanese NTT Docomo DCMYY, a telco being bought by its parent, rose 0.28% in the last two days.

*Fanuc FANUY, the robotics maker, is up 3.71%. Both are boosted by the yen price.

*Mercado Libre gained4.3% to $1875. MELI is the Amazon clone operating in Latin America.

*Dutch Prosus, PROSY, and South African Naspers, NPSNY, rose 3.7% and 4.13% today.

*The shortage of chips boosted Israeli-American Tower Semiconductor, TSEM, up 4.87%.

*Vodafone VOD, selling its towers rose 1.26%.

*BCE, the Canada Bell outfit, rose 0.9%. T is up 3.6%+ in relief that Trumpador is leaving.

*Qualcomm which is getting into chip making gained 2.92%. QCOM is a US share bought because its owns Israeli unlisted tech startup firms.

Mining and industrials.

*Johnson Matthey is up another3.1%. JMPLY purifies and sells platinum metals.

*Fellow London-listed Chilean Antofagasta rose 1.2% in the last 2 days. ANFGF mines copper.

*Mexican Cemex SA, CX, is up 6.75%.

Oil patch

*Schlumberger Ltd rose 2.1%. SLB. So did Royal Dutch Shell B, RDS-B. BP plc rose 2.2%.

*Energy Fuels is top stock today, UUUU, up ~20% at the open. The Canadian is buying its share “at the market”. Later its share fell to only be up 8.7%.

*Canadian Solar, CSIQ, really Chinese, gained 2.5%.

*Computer Modelling CMDXF of Canada rose is no longer being priced by TD Ameritrade. It is also charging $6.95 to trade bulletin board shares. If you use Schwab for pink sheet stocks let me know how well they do.

Banksters

*AIA Group Asia, AAIGF, rose 1.74% because the Trump-China blockade is running out of time.

*Bloomberg-Barclays 10-yr TIPS to offset inflation gained 0.4%. TIPX is less fun and safer than gold or bitcoins.

*Scotiabank gained 1.9%. It is more global than other Canadian banks which focus mostly on the US.

*CBOE is down 1.2% because the US government is not falling after all. Buys are triple sells.

*Sumitomo Mitsui is up 2.33% on the yen for yen while Mitsubishi is only up 0.9%. MSBHF and SMFG take turns.

*Swedish Investor, IVSBF, is up 3%+. It is a proxy for a Scandinavian fund.

*Sampo Oij of Finland is up 2.15%. SAXPY.