Back from Boston where we spent the weekend at our youngest grandchild's Bar-Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony) in the flesh, our first trip in nearly a year of lockdown. we were there but the family attended virtually, both in the USA and in Britain where both sides of the family have relatives including my sister- and brother-in-law and their sons and daughters-in-law who never attended the earlier 4 ceremonies in the flesh. We got two 5 page emails from my sister-in-law who has made me a great aunt for the first time, as Evelyn approaches age 2 and sins. The traditional Bar-Mitzvah ceremony includes a prayer of thanks (removed by Reform Jews) from the child's parents, thankful for no longer being penalized for the young person's sins.

Pandemic hotel life was weird. The was no housekeeping and no breakfast room. The room had a coffee machine but only made decaffeinated coffee which doesn't start my day, and the goody bag we picked up at the desk did not include orange juice or rolls or butter, but only icky substitutes. Hence Starbucks. We could not shut the shades to stop light flashes from the parking garage across the street.

US interest rates are lower by 0.02% today with the US 10-yr T-bill at 1.43%. The minimum wage won't hit $15. China reported slow growth in the Feb. purchasing managers' index. US PMI was better than expected. We have news from our companies including one weird share covered by Harry Geisel.

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*The share is Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure plc, quoted on Nasdaq as AY, which reported GAAP 2020 earnings of 47%, missing badly which is a good thing, and revenues plus cash distributions up 14.6% from prior FY.

Net cash provided by operating activities, on which our un-taxed dividends rely, which came in up 20.2% at $438.1 mn vs $363.5 mn in 2019, which let to the way to wonderland—cash available for distribution, on which our tax-free distributions depend. The CAFD in 2020 was $200.7 mn, up 5.5% from prior year and it is estimated to come in at $220-240 mn this year producing another tax-free gain (unless we sell our shares.) Mid-term CAFD will be 5% to 8%, on which our continued divies depend. The dividends are not based on actual earnings but on cash generated from one-off debt refinancings from the existing holdings. This cash net of transactions costs, reserves and cancelation of interest rate swaps was the result of 3 non-recourse project debt refinancing operations.

Our fund invests in energy and environmental shares. The negative earnings were the result of lower solar earnings because of higher operating expenses in North America and Kazu because of an outage. I have no idea where Kazu may be and google doesn't either.

Harry writes: “As usual, AY reported a loss in Q4 and the full year. However yield companies usually report losses, why their previous generous dividends count as returns of capital and are deducted by your broker from the cost of buying AY.” He added: “Most AY generating facilities are in Latin America and Europe, plus large ones in Arizona and California. It has nothing in Texas.” If you seek yield, buy more AY. We also own a slice of it via Algonquin Power & Utilities shares, AQN, which gained 2.72% today to $15.88 while AY opened up 4.7% to $37.85 but is now only up 3.97% at $37.6.

*BP plc CEO Bernard Looney told CERA it is set for “take-off” after a brutal year for oil for aviation.

*Indian solar stock Azure Power, AZRE, gained 10.03% today. No news. Abhimanyu may have some.

*Mercado Libre Inc, MELI, is expected to report on its Q4 and 2020 after markets close. It was the last “half-time” purchase by Pivotal Advisors' Tiffany McGee last week, another public gurette, not Catie Wood. A new shareholder, Founders Financial Securities LLC, bought 149 shares of MELI it was reported yesterday. MELI stock is up 4.68% on the news to $1714.83/sh. Its English webcast begins at 4:30 pm EST and you can dial into 877 303 209 if you register for conference 4762658. The Argentina-based Latin American internet finance and commerce stock is south of the border Amazon.

*Antofagasta gained 6.8% to $25.95 in London today on hopes for recovery demand for copper. ANFGF.

*Jaguar Landrover wrote off £1.5 bn in Q4. We sold JLR in good time.

*Institutional favorite real estate group Kennedy Wilson KW reported last week when I was on a train. Its results were greatly higher in Q4 and now it will raise $150 mn with a new debt offering, details of which are not available to retail investors like me. It trades its holdings and sold assets of $789 mn in Q4 for gains of $286 mn on the sale and another $478 mn in cash. Its fee bearing capital rose 3% by year-end to $3.9 bn and it has another $2.2 bn in additional non-discretionary capital from its strategic partners it can invest. If this happens the sums will be added to its fee-bearing capital.

Among the known jv's is a $1 bn logistics platform funded by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund to invest in Britain, and eventually Ireland and Spain, seeded with $220 mn in a portfolio of UK logistics assets which have total investments in 18 centers. KW used to own all the assets of these centers. It borrowed another $788 mn adding 7% to its debt load at a lower rate of interest of course in 2020. It owns 11% of its debt platform. It will start out as the sole owner of the new sum being raised. Its heaviest assets now are multifamily and office sites but it is moving beyond them.

*CAE, the pilot training company, is up 13.15% today after it confirmed that it is acquiring L3Harris, a US military training business, for C$ 1.05 bn. CAE is up 14.66% on the news on the NYSE, to $30.06. The acquired firm has high free cash flow and there are expected synergy gains for CAE which may also lead to buybacks of its shares. The spending on defense never stops. This makes CAE a military rather than a civil aviation company by operations and may lead to some noble anti-gun investors selling out. It will also make CAE less Canadian. The deal is expected to close in H2 after CAE has raised the cash it needs. CEO Marc Parent claims that the buy will be accreditive to EPS in the first year by numbers in the low teens.

*Hindenburg Research put a sell on Ormat Tech, the geothermal energy production, and storage company. We sold 2/3 of our stake and are sticking with the Israeli-American firm which has a dominant position in this alternative energy business. You want to own all alternatives. ORA.

*NIO is up 7.75% on news it will export its electric vehicles to Europe in H2 this year. It reports after the close today. It owns no bitcoins.

*Kirkland Lake Gold's target price was cut to C$70 from $75 by Canaccord Genuity. It named Teresa Vaz as its new CFO. KL.

*Institutional favorite Canadian Solar CSIQ recuperated by 5.67% today hitting $49.59, en route to $50 (US).

*Cosan on which I am risking my reputation gained 2.82% today. It will report on Mar. 5 for real. CZZ is unlikely to suffer because the Brazil President is turning populist over oil prices as it produces ethylene from sugar cane waste.

Drug Dealers

*Spanish plasma specialist Grifols finalized buying 25 US blood donation centers from BPL which does not stand for Buckeye Partners, an oil driller whose ticker this is. The partner of GRFS is a sub of Bioproducts Inc. of St. Anne, IL Grifols is paying $370 mn for the US centers which today unfoiled the Spanish flag over their sites. Since GRFS is Catalan this is a bit of a faux pas. But the village is in the middle of the farmlands of southern IL and they don't know about Catalans. St. Anne produced Florence Beatrice Price who was the first African American recognized as a composer of symphonies, between her birth in 1887 and her death in 1953. She also was an organist, pianist, and music teacher.

*Astra Zeneca is moving every which way after it revealed over the weekend that it has sold its 7.7% stake in Moderna MRNA for over $1.bn. It now has its own approved covid-19 jab. Today it announced a strategic collaboration to commercialize toripalimab to treat urothelial cancer and eventually other areas in China with Junshi Biosciences. AZN and Junshi will also aim to sell the drug to emerging market and other potential business partners. Junshi is listed in Shanghai. Its single jab for Covid-19 was approved by our FDA and Britain.

*Israeli Enlivex Therapeutics, ENLV, and Mt Sinai Hospital here in Manhattan will work together on Allocetra checkpoint inhibitors against diseased microphages causing gout, cancer, and other problems.

*AbCellera Biologics Inc will report 3/29 and ABCL is back over $40 in anticipation. Too soon.

*Japanese Takeda will help fund the Children's National Hospital rare genetic disease research campus built last month on the grounds of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, with a grant of $3.85 mn over the next 5 years. TAK will use Wiki for getting updates from contributors to patients in real-time. A rare disease affects one or fewer persons in 200,000. TAK gained 1.26%.

Does this offset the military rising at CAE? I hope so. Our other Japanese drug stock Eisai is only up 0.87%. ESALY.

*Israeli-Channel Islands drug stock Novacure, NVCR, is up 2.4% today after Mizuho estimated it will earn .027-.09¢ when it report March 28 and rates it buy. It earned .04¢ last quarter.

*I was just billed $124 for my ADR fee on Bioline RX, BLRX. A whopping great sum for a stock traded at $3.13-4. Being such a cheap stock of course I own a big number of shares.

*Compugen, another Israeli small-cap, gained 6.54% today reacting to last week's result in solid tumor studies for COM701. CGEN.

*TEVA rose 0.88% and its bonds we own also rose as the outlook for healthcare improved.

Financials

*Panama's Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior gained another 2.75%. This is a Biden stock pick because the US is back in the global marketplace and trade will rise.

*Canada's Scotiabank is up another 2.42% on hopes for a revival of stock markets. BNS offers options on market moves daily and weekly, with offsets between bull and bear versions. This pays off when there is volatility.

*Also gaining from moves is CBOE, which runs stock option markets in Chicago and the great world. It is up 3% to a new high of $101.89.

*Banco Santander gained 1% to $3.54. SAN.

*Finnish Sampo Oij SAXPY fell 1%. It is exiting banking stocks. Swedish Investor A/B rose 0.2% because it is not exiting banking, being an arm of the Wallenberg banking clan.

*Spider Gold, GLD, fell 0.18% which is modest indeed compared to bitcoin loses.

*One of our (and Buffett's) Japanese financial groups fell. I have not read all that Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK-B) leader wrote but I saw that he increased his US positions and outlook. We owned Mitsubishi (MSBHF, lower) and Sumitomo Mitsui (SMFG higher) before our Omaha-based rock star owned up to owning them.

*My best performing financial group today was State Street Corp STT, a USA outfit, up 6.29% after Morgan Stanley said to overweight it. SST did its first repo trade with ICE Clear US as a Fixed Income Clearing Corp sponsored member today. It now operates in the US, Canada, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Australian, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates making it the most diverse US clearinghouse. It operates in a hundred different markets where it has $81 bn of assets for which it is agent.

*Weds I collect my $138,63 quarterly dividend from Qualcomm (QCOM). 

*British Greensill Capital which backs SoftBank's $10 bn of investment funds is facing disaster after Credit Suisse suspended the funds and it may be insolvent.