After the football championship yesterday there was nothing for Wall Street to do except rise to new heights today. As the dollar is down again over fears of inflation, the boost was greatest to foreign companies and the largest gains went to stocks already up a lot. So the top performer today was one of our already wild biotechs. Once again the newsfeed from my brokerage account is overwhelmed. There is a lot of news.

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Pharma

*The 2^nd top riser was oncology firm BioLine RX Ltd, BLRX of Israel, incorporated in the UK Channel Islands, went up 13.758% to $3.965 after opening at $4.04. I bought it because its electric cancer therapy may work against pancreatic cancer, for which there is no known treatment. I bought at $2.575 but was unable to persuade my UK-based cousin with pancreatic cancer to join the trial. She is a fatalist as she could afford the electric chopper easily, but I am not close enough to her to talk her into it.

*Enlivex, ENLV, hit a new high of $22.65 up 19.2% on positve data on its Allocetra for treating COVID-19 in a tiny group of severe and critically ill patients.

*Fellow Israeli small-cap Compugen is up over 7%. CGEN will report this Thursday on its Q4 and FY.

*TEVA is up 3.25% and now steady over $12.

*Zymeworks is up 1.5%. ZYME. a Canada outfit was tipped by Martin Ferera.

*Novocure NVCR is up 4% to $182.85 after hitting a year's high at $189.67. It was upgraded to hold from sell by Zacks after Kestra Advisory Services revealed it had upped its share holding by 8360% in Q4.

*New COVID-19 mutations boosted the shares of testing systems maker Thermo Fisher Scientific, TMO, by 2% at the opening, but it fell back and is only up 0.8% now. It is my largest US holding. The bad news is that corona-virus variants which are coming from South Africa are rising despite the Oxford-Astra-Zeneca jab, which is no longer being used there. The UK variant is now taking over the USA. AZN is up 0.5% despite this because of its Oxford connections. It reports Thursday also.

*Swiss Roche went with the disgraced EU health commissars for its emergency rapid antigen test for COVID-19, despite being from outside the European Union. The RHHBY share fell all the same.

*Hopes for a new assault on Alzheimer's boosted Eisai of Japan which is the partner of Biogen Idec (BIIB) for developing aducanumab. Barron's this week mistakenly said ESALY has a competing drug for the disease. Aiming at the aging Japanese population, Eisai paid a third of BIIB's trial costs. The highest dose of the drug in trials produced a 22% drop in dementia vs placebo and may mean it works.

*The other Japanese drug play, Takeda, TAK, is up 1.1%.

*GlaxoSmithKline sub Viiv got FDA approval for its Rukobia (fostemsevir) to treat multi-drug resistant HIV in adults. Its share rose a fraction. HIV is so old news. GSK.

*Dr. Reddy's, tipped by Abhimanyu Sisodia, rose briefly to over $66.5 but RDY then lost traction.

Oilpatch

*Another huge gainer was my stock of the year for 2021, Cosan, CZZ of Brazil, a firm in sugar refining, ethanol, and logistics which is restructuring to bring its offshore holdings into the parent company. They are not in Channel Islands but in Bermuda. CZZ today announced that it was buying the no. 2 Brazil sugar cane company, Biosev, from the Groupe Louis Dreyfus of France which owns 90%. The venerable (and Jewish) French investment company is selling down its portfolio having sold its main holding company to Abu Dhabi. After announcing the deal, CZZ hit $19.57 but it may fall a bit given that some of the terms of the purchase have not been revealed. CZZ is paying $670.3 mn up front and perhaps leaving the hefty Biosev debt for Dreyfus to pay. But the terms are not clear as CZZ itself is taking a long-maturity loan to pay down debt for Biosev. It is also delivering preferred shares to Dreyfus and will pay more to the French group in 5 years. All this is confusing.

*An anonymous writer on SeekingAlpha calling him or herself “Fun Trading” wrote up BP plc and Shell. BP gained 4.25% and RDS-B 2.2%. Royal Dutch Shell will supply renewable energy to Amazon to meet 100% of AMZN's power needs by 2025. AMZN fell 1.2%. Crude oil topped $60 for the first time this year.

*Electric vehicle stock NIO of China gained 3.65% today on news that Tesla founder Elon Musk is investing heavily in bitcoins, dogecoins, and ether. Nio sells its vehicles for cash or credit.

*Schlumberger Ltd rose in London and some more here, up 3.8% because oil and gas will still be needed for decades despite clean energy moves. Throwing away old cars would be dreadful for the environment. It is a favorite of institutional investors including the heirs of the founders and others which own over 75% of the SLB shares out and many fund managers.

Golden years

*SPDR Gold, GLD, my other 2021 pick, up 1.4% today on renewed fear of inflation. Actually, it looks like the Biden Administration will not put a new $15/hour minimum wage rule into the current stimulus package, which lessens the inflationary risk. But it fell back a bit later to $171.71, up 1.12%.

*Alternatively you can join Elon Musk in purchases of bitcoins, dogecoins, and ether, which you can also use to buy

Tesla cars.

*Energy Fuels, UUUU, made up for earlier losses, up 10.16% to $5.35. It offers to remove rare earths in uranium for other miners of nuclear fuel.

Tech

*Tower Semiconductor, Israeli, hit a new high of $32.23 today at the open but fell back to $31.82, up 1.6% later. TSEM reports Weds. I will not be here as I have my 2^nd COVID-19 jab scheduled. It was raised to buy from hold by Craig Hallum with a $35 target price.

*BAE Systems via its Vermont sub signed up AmazonWebServices for its security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence offerings for the US government, on AWSGovCloud. BAESY is also offering data labeling as a service (DlaaS) to customers working with the govt database to make decisions fast.

*Mercado Libre fell 1.73% today as it will announce its results tonight. The drop led Parallel Advisors, Wespac Advisors, and Venturi Wealth Mgm to buy MELI shares. However Acorn Fiancial Advisory sold its stake down by 2.2.%. Zacks, rating it hold, estimates MELI will report sales of $1.23 bn, up 82% from last Q3. For the full year the forecast is sales of $3.83-3.96 bn. However, it probably will remain in the red on profits. SAN rates it a buy and JP Morgan rates it overweight with a TP of $1640. MELI rose 136.62% last week to $1918.13. How about a stock split?

*Tomra Systems of Norway maker of reverse vending and sorting machines, rose 3.6% to $48.08 today. TMRAY.

Other sectors

*Veolia was barred by a French court from making a tender offer to all owners of Suez stock after Suez complained. However, VEOEY's CEO Antoine Frerot says the $18/sh (euros21.69) offer is still valid and legal. It is the same as the price paid last year to Engie for 29.9% of Suez. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire triggered the ban, saying “Veolia's offer isn't friendly and runs contrary to commitments it made.”

*Weyerhaeuser, a fund invested in forests, made a new high, up 1.34% to $34.87. WY.

Financials

*Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group SMFG gained 3.83%. Mitsubishi rose 3.3% MSBHF.

*Banco Santander rose 2.7%. SAN.

*After fund manager Lazard was tipped in Barron's, the parent company rose, and its closed-end fund Lazard Global Return Income Fund LGI, up 52% in the last 12 months, fell back. I like being able to buy venerable stock-picking prowess at a discount, and prefer the fund to the French Lazard Frères, which actually was founded in New Orleans when Louisiana was French. It does financial advice and asset management and I want to get that on the cheap.

*The Bank of Nova Scotia's dividend is 5.11% in loonies which may rise against the buck. BNS.