Europe has overtaken the US for the number of newly listed former unicorns over the past two years, according to Stephen Paice, who manages 2 UK funds from Baillie Gifford invested in Europe. He says this is having “profound implications” on the public market. His fund invests up to 10% of its assets in private companies, startups, and venture capital markets in Europe. “Over the past two years when we look at the IPO market, there have been 15 IPOs of former unicorns, private companies valued at over $1 bn".Moreover, he claims "Europe accounted for about 60% of those and the US only 40%. So Europe is starting to catch up and this is going to have quite profound implications for public investing when these companies do come to the market.”

He argued that the opportunities for public investors are now very different from what they were several years ago.

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After markets jumped yesterday, we saw a lot of bounce today although gold fell back a bit. NIO of China was a top gainer after it said it will double its prduction capacity in Helei next year. It is up 5.1% now, as there is a lot of interest in finding good stocks in the PRC which can escape the crackdown in Beijing.

Data

US retail sales rose 0.7% last week when expectations were for a slight drop. This caused bullishness.

Alcoa jumped on a good Q3 result and its resumption of dividends, the first from the US aluminum firm since 2016! AA.

Japanese Fanuc rose 4.75% on the hope that industrial robots will make a comeback in the auto industry. FANUY.

Deere was upgraded to buy from hold.

Telefonica of Spain was downgraded by Barclays to hold from buy. TEF is very active in Latin America whose outlook is souring.

In Brazil, while foreign buyers are pouring in, the natives are selling stock. In Chile, the bank rate was upped 12.5 basis points to 2.75%. Metal prices are rising as stockpiles are falling.

Drugs

The pharma sector also recovered with Canadian Zymeworks (ZYME) at one point up 7.8%. Merck spinoff Organon OGN was tipped by BofA-Merrill after its Jada device to control bleeding after giving birth won FDA approval and gained 3.1%. Merck with partner Eisai got EU approval for Keytruda and Lenvina for kidney and endometrial cancers. ESALY is Japanese. MRK also got approval for a pneumonia vaccine.

Bristol-Myers got ok for zeposia in ulcerative colitis. Pfizer got licensed to sell abrocitinib and xeljanz. BMY.

Astra-Zeneca AZN gained over 1% after it got CHMP approval for its foixiga diabetic treatment. It also got ok for cancer treatments Infiniz and renelimumab. This hurt Novo Nordisk NVO of Denmark whose franchise is diabetes.

Genfit recovered rising 3%+ in France. GNFT.

Roche's target price was raised, RHHBY.

However, Biogen Idec was cut to neutral by Cantor Fitzgerald for its risks with Adeuhelm for Alzheimer's. It will also cut Japanese partner Takeda next week. TAK.

And Thermo Electron faces UK examination over its plan to buy PPD.

Finance

US Truist had good results thanks to wealth management and consumer banking and this boosted the sector. Schwab did too with a 3 cent beat.

Santander rose 2.53% in European trading and gained 2.1% here. SAN.

Lazard was upgraded to buy from hold and expected to earn 0.94 cents. LAZ.

Sumitomo, SMFG, gained 1.36% in US trading.

However, Atlantica Yield AY was downgraded to hold from buy today. We own it as part of our Algonquin AQN play on the Canada ute.

Energy

If inflation is rising the energy sector is a good haven. So Royal Dutch Shell is up 2.2%. RDS-B.