To begin I apologize for calling Thursday a rising stock market day. I wrote my blog early because of a lunch date with my son. The indexes fell by the end of the day for a third drop this week. It is also down today. The drug sector has both good news and bad.

*Weyerhaeuser today beat on earnings by 1 cent to 49 cents and on revenues by $40 mn at $2.21 bh. Moreover, WY declared a $1.45 special dividend payable on Feb. 18 to shareholders of record on Feb. 12. Wood wins.

*Another winner was good old Microsoft, MSFT.

*Shell RDS-B fell 1.8% in European trading but recouped some of that after being tipped by Zacks which says its forward price-earnings ratio is 7.46% and its price to book similarly appealing. Today was the day for getting back into oil.

*This boosted Schlumberger SLB again after is brilliant quarter. It had Q4 sales up 13% and eps up 86% from prior Q4 and earned 41 cents/sh when the consensus had been 34 cents. However, it also announced capital spending will rise this year by $1.9- 2 bn in U.S. and global markets which took some of the shine off the rose. 

*Crude oil inventories were up but all that snow means demand will be high post blizzard.

*Financials were downgraded today. The exception which rose was Algonquin AQN in Canada which we own.

*It turns out that labor costs were up around 4% last year despite theories that people were leaving the workforce because too-low salaries given the covid risks.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Drugs

*Israeli Teva is under an International Trade Commission investigation for its biosimilar drug for AbbVie's Humira (adalimumab) for allegedly misappropriation of trade secrets and interfering in contractual relations. This comes under the 1930 Tariff Act. Teva's misdeeds do not only involve opioids. The stock lost .23% before trading was halted. An anonymous writer said TEVA has competent management and should be bought. I wonder what would count as incompetent management. 

*The EU approved Pfizer's anti-viral Paxlovid which is already approved in the USA. PFE also got EC approval for its tyrosine kinase inhibitor Lorviqua (lorlatinib) for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer in adults who had not received an ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitor) already. This was a response to new phase III trials which showed that the drug cut risks of disease progression or death by 72% versus the existing TKI crizotinib. PFI is up today. It is now expected to report lower earnings this quarter at .854 rather than 8.58.

*Zymeworks of Canada was rated buy rather than strong buy today with a TP loss of $1.186, vs earlier level of minus 1.179. ZYME.

*Roche gained 0.6% in Swiss trading today. RHHBY.

*Compugen CGEN of Israel was all over the map today as bulls and bears fought on its outlook. Right now it's $3.89/ sh. Friday Tel Aviv is shut and these moves happen.

*Enlivex fell 6.02%. ENLV.

Oldies

*General Electric GE reports next Tuesday, Feb. 1. The analysts now expect its to earn $.846, up from an earlier forecast of .843 and it is now rated buy rather than hold.