Today I had to deal with further hassles over my credit card blockage. The bank finally got a new corporate card to me this week and then it canceled all payments that had not yet cleared. So this morning I got a notification from the web host for this site which is being restored by the Mass. Endurance Group which owns it that they payment for help with restoring the site was blocked by the idiot bank. So I spend hours verifying that I am me and that I want to stay with bluehost, and all sorts of silly verification demand. I am terrified the blockage may delay the site restoration on which my future business depends. Unfortunately, my local bank branches are both shut which is why the error occurred. The bank also reversed my payments to googleWorkspace. I have not yet succeeded in getting google to take my company's money.

Today's blog is shorter than usual because of the hours spent with the host and the bank to get payment made. Ironically enough I am pretty sure that the bank and the host will both try to charge my company for the kerfuffle.

The odds against another bailout have increased after Treasury Secy. Mnuchin said the Fed would not get treasury funding. This is another act of sabotage by the lame-duck Trump team for the interim. Foreign small caps are a big winner of Republican maneuvers. But the real losers are Republicans who work across the aisle for the good of the country.

Finance

*At some point in the last 2 years my holding of Allianz Versicherung ADRs was removed from my account, but the broker never bothered telling me. The new ticker symbol is ALIZY which is for a full share of the German stock, whereas our stake was in a 1/10 version, AZSEY. I will get the notification and owe capital gains taxes. Our reporter Harry Geisel yesterday forwarded a notification that many US state and union pension funds are suing the insurance company for buying the dip in March despite the fund's Mohammed El-Erian warning his readers in the Financial Times not to. The plans want $4 bn. The latest news is that its US fund management arm, Pimco, underpaid and discriminated against women, about which another lawsuit was filed.

*After Nasdaq announced buying Verafin to crack down on trading fraud, the banking specialist brokerage Keefe, Bruyette & Woods up-graded NDAQ stock from neutral to outperform. We own much NDAQ via our Scandinavian fund proxy Investor a/b, the Swedish Wallenberg family's listed fund manager, IVSBF, which fell 0.11% today. However another holding of our fund manager, ABB has been downrated to sell by Deutsche Bank today.

*Eduardo Garcia warns that the planned merger of Spain's BBVA and Sabadell may create a monopoly in Mexico which means it may be blocked. Eduardo edits sentidocomun.co.mx with which we trade ideas. Any grief for the newbies is good news from Banco Santander, SAN.

*Hang Seng Bank HSNGY (operator of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Index) fell 8.65 today to the equivalent of $17.

*Standard Life Aberdeen, SLFPY, the Scottish fund manager, is on the high road today, up 3.92% on no news.

Electric Vehicles

*Our best performing speculative stock is Nio, the Chinese firm, which tops the charts even though I sold half my shares in Feb. Today it won a buy rating from Deutsche Bank and the stock rose 3.35%. This despite a highly negative report from a new website, Simply Wall St. Journal. Its first issue included a negative note on NIO which its writer, Kshitija Bhandaru, accused of being in hock to the Beijing government. The payment NIO received was not from the central government but from the designated auto industry center in Hefei, Anjui Province, which also gave grants to Volkswagen. Nio supplies the raw materials for Anjui's to use to make vehicle parts which Nio then buys back per car ordered in China. This is not Xi Jinping, but local brass. In return for creating a factory and HQ in Anjui, NIO collected about $1 bn, nice change if you can get it. One of the terms of the deal is that NIO has to make an IPO of the Hefei operation on China's stock market in the next 5 years. This is not a hindrance to its growth, but a help. If Nio fails to do this the local government can redeem the shares they got for the funded vehicle parts sub at an 8.5% premium, which gives NIO an incentive to make the offer. Mr. Bhandaru says NIO would have to sell its own stake in the factory if the IPO is halted, which presumably means it will do the IPO.

The removal of limits on new licenses for low-carbon vehicles is a generalized Chinese program, not just for NIO, despite what Mr. Bhandaru writes. China is still hugely dependent on filthy coal for its energy needs and wants to clean up its air, not for political reasons as much as for population health.

The writer then says electric vehicle sales in China halved between June 2019 and 2020 and subsidies were increased. NIO sales rose substantially without new money from Beijing and only Hebei help. Meanwhile, Tesla fell.

Drugs

*UK Glaxo is up thanks to a new drug to block malaria in children aged 6 mos to 12 by GSK & MMV.

*Teva TEVA is up nearly 1% despite it being Friday, a mark of conviction by the US.

*BiolineRX, which I added to this week, is up 5.6% today but still 26.4% down from its YTD high. BLRX is also Israeli.

*Chinese drug company Beigene BGNE, which also has received help from the local government where it operates in China (in this case Beijing) was given an outperform rating today by SVBLeerink and a target price of up to $327, 18% up. SVB, formerly Silicon Valley Bank, may not know that 18 is a Jewish luck number.

*Gilead's (GILD) Remdesivir (Veklury) which the US thinks helps corona-virus patients avoid having to go on a respirator and lets them leave the hospital a day sooner, was given FDA emergency approval today in combo with baricitinib, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis, for seriously ill patierns. However, the WHO says remdesivir is not helpful.

*Astra-Zeneca rose because its non-small cell lung and bladder cancer and drug won FDA approval to treat stage III patients with a monthly dose after chemo-radiation at higher doses for those weighing more than 30 kilograms, about 66 pounds. A higher dose less often is more convenient for patients and keeps them away from corona-virus-filled hospitals. AZN is up 1.8%.

*Number one by a hair is Zymeworks, ZYME from Martin Ferera in Canada, up 12.81%, subject to change as the day goes on. Read on.

Canada and Mexico

*Computer Modelling is up 6.11% today but I cannot find the reason. CMDXF is No 4 champion at US$ 4.13.

*Bakery MNC Grupo Bimbo is our 3^rd best performer, up 7.5%. GRBMF trades only occasionally.

*Mexican REIT Fibra Uno is up 12.35% mainly because it trades rarely in the USA. FBASF at 86.74 cents is our alternate champion. It gains from the strong peso and from the compulsion to shop as it mainly owns malls and retail sites.

Small-cap stocks are more profitable in fluid markets than the big guys.