*The Robinhood brokerage was fined for failing to check on the suitability of its users for high-risk trades. We always had a feeling the Sherwood Forest broker was not as benevolent as Robin and Maid Marion.

*“From a wind farm in Uruguay to a solar electric generation facility in California, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure invests in the sustainable energy industry. The U.K.-based company owns or has a stake in solar, wind, hydroelectric, and other sustainable energy facilities and assets in North and South America and specific markets in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Asia) region. Atlantica operates long-running assets – the weighted-average contracted life left is 16 years – with regulated revenues underpinned by contracts, which result in stable cash flows. All of the assets  also have project financing in place , the company said.” Because of that last sentence, AY stock fell 1.36% at the open.

The above message is from “The Late Investor”, which despite its name is very much alive, writing up a stock picked by our Harry for global-investing.com, based on another stock in our portfolio which owns nearly half of AY, picked by Vivian. But we don't quote AY itself on whether or not there is project financing in place. We check the data and do research on the stocks we tip. “The Late Investor” skips this step which chops the value of its investment advice.

*Another website ad wrote up Cayman Islands' Noble Energy, which we owned ages ago. It no longer exists, having been bought by Chevron. That is a pure swindle.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

*Canadian Nutrien's estimated Q2 21-22 earnings estimate was raised to $2.01 (US) from $1.99. NTR makes and sell fertilizer and runs plant shops worldwide. It is replacing Belarus in phosphates.

*Alimentation Couche-Tard today reported on its Q4 and 2021-2 results. Earnings were flat on a per-share basis for the operator of highway convenience stores at 52¢ (US) but net income was down a bit to $563.9 mn from prior Q4 level of $576.3 mn. Q4 results were hurt by pretax expenses of $29.1 mn over sale of its 49 “duplicate” Oklahoma stores sites and its failure to nab Carrefour, a French chain because Paris vetoed it (despite the Quebec company being francophone.)

CEO Claude Tessier was very bullish all the same. He said ANCUF expects to double its cash flow (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) from 2018 levels by 2023 once the pandemic is over. It is expanding its offerings of fresh food sales, now available in about 2000 stores to 3000 by year-end. He also said that 300 other stores no in Oklahoma are being examined for possible sale. Meanwhile, Alimentation is also looking at acquisitions in Asia, notably in Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Moreover, Mr. Tessier thinks that the group should also expand into other parts of retailing like dollar sales stores; travel retail companies; non-highway groceries (already begun), and quick service retail.

The stock rose 2.92% on the US pink sheets and also in Canada.

Tech & Tel

*Nokia today announced the availability of its new, industry-first MFA (MulteFire Alliance) certified 4.9G/LTE private wireless networking system. Designed to open up private wireless for mass adoption by an entirely new range of customers, applications, and markets worldwide. Finnish NOK's Industrial MulteFire router 700 user equipment can be deployed with Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC). The new Nokia MulteFire-standard UE and Nokia MulteFire access point are for use with the Nokia DAC platform, enabling the simple, fast set-up of private wireless connections. The private wireless solution is suitable for both permanent networking and temporary deployments for use during sporting or cultural events, media broadcasting, construction sites, field hospitals, and public emergencies. MulteFire is LTE-based technology operating in unlicensed spectrum, including the global 5GHz band. With its easy, pre-integrated system, solution, NOK makes 4.9G/LTE private wireless more available.

*NIO is up another 5.4% over Tesla problems in China. It turns out that 3 users of TSLA's cruise control turning itself on were killed. NIO briefly hit over $53. Bill Gates is alleged to be buying Nio.

*GE is up again.

*Vodafone of Britain rose today after it signed a deal with Dell for open-radio access networks (ORAN) in the UK for business and government initially at 2500 sites. It will later be used in other European places by VOD, the most European of UK telcos. However, there are now no plans to also offer ORAN in Africa where VOD runs M-Pesa, the payment system for which we bought VOD in the first place. I am selling half my VOD shares.

*Taiwan Semiconductors was rated by Susquehanna brokerage but seekingalpha headlined not the Taiwan Big Board firm but Tower Semiconductor, a US-Israeli one. We own both TSEM and NYSE-TSM.

*Korean Coupang rose and opened up above our basis at $43.23, before falling back a bit. CPNG.

Energy

*Higher oil prices push up the shares of BP by 0.66%; Royal Dutch Shell B (RDS-B) by 0.38%; Cameco (CCJ) by 0.5%; Computer Modelling (CMDXF) by 2.24%; Cabot Oil (COG, post-merger) by 2.2%.

*However Cosan, my stock for the year which sold its gas stations in South America fell 1.4%. CSAN.

*Canadian Solar fell 4.6% on fears of CSIQ plans for a China IPO where its panels are made.

Pharmaceuticals

*Takeda of Japan was hit with an anti-trust lawsuit in Massachusetts over its alleged “pay for delay” deal over Amitza which treats constipation. It allegedly arranged for Endo (then called Par) to halt its plan to make a generic of the drug which TAK bought from Sucampo Pharma, a US sub of Mallinckrodt. This arrangement kept out all other generics of Amitza which otherwise might have hit the market and reportedly cost Americans $3.5 bn per year. Yet actual sales of Amitiza were only about $200-250 mn per year. Unlike Eisai, which hovers on the pink sheets, TAK is fully listed and therefore more vulnerable to US panics.

*Eisai of Japan fell over 5% today because of competition in treatments for Alzheimer's disease and of course the above news. ESALY.

*Exelixis fell to a 52-week low after which EXEL rose 1.4%. Go figure. It makes an Amitza copy.

-19 people by nearly half (47%) after 8 days of dosing. Atea is a US company operating from Boston.

*Swiss Roche and Atea revealed that the latter's oral drug 527W cut the viral load in hospitalized Covid patients by nearly half within 8 days of starting the treatment. RHHBY.

*Cerus works on blood safety systems for transfusions to stop viruses, bacteria, and parasites from blood plasma and red cells. It just signed a deal to supply its safety work to pediatric treatment in Florida by LifeSouth Community Blood Centers which will manufacture its Intercept Fibrinogen Complex in the US southeast. CERS gained 1.06%.

*Grifols of Spain jumped 1.03% because it is also into the blood plasma. GRFS.

*Israeli Compugen signed up its first patient for the phase 1B trial of Com701 PVRIG drug to be used with and without Opdivo from Bristol Myers to treat solid tumors: ovarian, breast, endometrial, and colorectal. PVRIG is a checkpoint which blocks links to activate T-cells. It will use monotherapy with increasing doses as the trial and both PVRIG and Opdivo as the alternative. CGEN is the developer of this and another checkpoint TIGIT, both found by examining computer data on other trials. If it works it will give CGEN another cancer drug.

*Danish insulin maker Novo Nordisk rose some more as the supplier to US 75% discounter Walmart. NVO.

*TEVA opened up over 10% but then fell back and is now down.

*Novacure published full data on its haepanova treatment for liver cancer. NVCR is up.

Financials

*Lazard Freres was raised to buy by the consensus of analysts from buy/hold but its target price was cut from 90¢/sh to 89.9¢. LAZ.

*Swedish Investor started the day up in its homeland by $2.61 on hopes for Nasdaq gains. Later in the day when the S&P 500 and the NYSE rose further, IVSBF fell 0.73%.