Wednesday the stock market tried to pull off a rally but Wall Street remained mixed by mid-morning. However, foreign stocks were generally higher after Bottomline said they were better buys than US shares. Tech mostly recovered. Value Line talks about mixed messages. I agree. 

Our portfolio gained 1.07% or 1.41% including cash in the account. That the good news. The bad is that the 3^rd leading cause of American deaths last year was covid-19, behind heart disease and cancer.

Image Source: Pixabay

Drug-makers

*Our heavy focus on drug-makers working with antibodies paid off today with big gains for several. AbCellera rose another 12.31% and was back over $30 after the antibody discovery firm reported a huge jump in sales last year and boosted income. This was due to bamlamiximab, now being sold under license by Eli Lilly which ABCL developed, and hopes for a SARS-Covid-19 antibody candidate.

*Japanese Takeda cut its debt by selling over-the-counter and non-core assets to Orifam for $670 mn. It also sold consumer healthcare products like dietary supplements to Blackstone Group for $70 mn. The drugs will continue being made by TAK in Denmark and Poland. TAK aims to cut its net debt to twice its adjusted EBITDA (cash flow) by 2023. TAK stock fell 0.46% despite it forecasting that it will have a pre-tax gain of $1.27 bn for the current fiscal year ending this month.

*Fellow Japanese Eisai, ESALY, fell 0.71%.

*Busted IPO today tipped Genfit, the French specialist in liver disease, despite its failure with elafibrinor against NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis), citing other liver disease uses. GNFT lost 0.44% today.

*TEVA of Israel rose 2.15% on optimism over Covid-19 generics for inoculating children 16 to 25 years old, now in trial, and eventually even younger ones.

*Compugen rose 6% today. It is also Israeli. CGEN.

*Bioline RX was today's volatility leader with prices ranging from up 0.1% to 2.22% on tiny trades. BLRX is also Israeli.

*Glaxo stock fell probably because it is not in the adolescent market where Pfizer and BioNTech work.

*Novo Nordisk of Denmark lost 0.5%. Its business is mostly over insulin but like French Servier, indicted yesterday over deaths from its diet pill, NVO also aims at cutting calories for non-diabetics. This is guilt by association. The Servier death toll was known about before NVO started working on weight loss, and I assume they were very careful.

*Canadian Bausch Healthcare sold its Egyptian stake in for $740 mn to Abu Dhabi's ADQ. BHC.

*US Cerus CERS which works on blood safety to block pathogens in donations rose 4.45% perhaps as a result of Illumina ILMN facing a US FTC challenge over its plan to buy back Grail, GRAL, a maker of blood tests for cancer it sold some years ago. The theory is that it will prevent others from offering such tests.

*Spanish Grifols gained 2%. GRFS also works on blood antibodies.

*Exelixis rose 3.23% today. EXEL.

*Enlivex rose 1.7% but ranged from -2% to +2.5% because Israel is hard to call. ENLV.

*Zymeworks bounced up 1.1%. ZYME.

*Thermo Electron is up 1.25%. TMO is a big developer of high-throughput Covid-19 antibody tests.

*Theranova lost its fight to receive royalties for its Trelogy covid-19 vaccine.

*Bristol Myers rose 0.5%. BMY.

*Dr. Reddy's, RDY, of India, is up 0.25% on high new infection rates thereof covid-19.

*Astra Zeneca was hit by a German ban on the use of its Covid-19 vaccine in people under 60 and a Canadian one against people under 55. It may gain from the Indian licensee extending the shelf life for the jab to 9 months. It also got a $205 mn US Army Barda contract for AZN7442, a combination of a long-acting antibody and an engineered life extension system for treating coronavirus and SARS. AZN.

Energy and commodities

*Energy Fuels, UUUU (AMEX) of Canada, was our big winner today, up 6.9%.

*Cameco rose 1% despite being downgraded by a Canada analyst yesterday because Azarga Uranium discovered a new load in Gas Hills, Wyoming where CCJ also has a project. Both are Canadian.

*BP fell 1.77% today.

*Royal Dutch Shell B, RDS-B, lost 1.8%.

*Swiss ABB which Joe Shaefer and I both bought recently gained 1% on heavy volume today.

*Chinese electric vehicle firm NIO jumped at the open and kept its gain. I registered a trademark for its high-end supercar, EF9 which competes with Toyota. It reports tomorrow, maybe. It also cut production at its major plant in China because of chip shortages. I sold 2/3 my stake in Dec. after 3-digit profits.

*Algonquin of Canada gained 0.7% on infrastructure and green spending plans by Biden. AQN.

*Schlumberger Ltd, SLB, fell 0.5%.

*Computer Modelling of Canada gained 1.21%.

*Canadian Solar, CSIQ, rose 0.51%. Its factories are in China.

*Nintendo NTDOY fell 2.35% today after a bitcoin miner, Stacksmashing, used a 1989 GameBoy console with two AA batteries linked to his computer to find the cryptocurrency. Apparently, PlayStation also works.

*The news helped gold rise about 1%.

*Palladium prices rose 7.2% and our London Johnson Matthey, JMPLY, fell on the news by 0.65%.

*Gold rose ~0.9% but Kirkland Lake soared 6.68% after it filed a technical life-of-mine report on its Detour Lake mine, now expected to yield 680,000 to 720,000 ounces until 2024 and 800,000 oz in 2025. The gold price is assumed to be $1500/oz and the US$ 1.31 Canadian ones. KL says it will be one of the most profitable goldmines in the world.

*Silver fell.

*Earthstone Energy gained a bit. ESTE.

*Cement stocks, Mexican Cemex, and Irish CRH moved, CX down 3.69% and CRH up 1.5%.

*Israeli-American Ormat, the maker of geothermal extraction and storage systems, rose 1.7% after a scandal over bribes by its chief compliance officer and another board member were disclosed. ORA.

Tech and toys

*South African Naspers gained 0.8%. Its spinoff MultiChoice MCHOY fell 6.5%. NPSNY's clone, Prosus of Europe, PROSY, gained 0.49%. This is a very weird range.

*Mercado Libre, MELI, of Argentina, gained 3.7% at the open and now is up 3.2%.

*South Korean Coupang fell at the opening but now is up 0.41%. Both are Amazon-like specialists in oddball markets like Korea and Latin America, where they offer finance and sales.

*British global telco firm Vodafone however fell 0.75% despite VOD selling its towers.

*Swedish Ericsson lost 0.72%. Finnish Nokia fell 0.13%. ERIC and NOK are competitors.

*Chipmaker Tower Semiconductor is up 1.8% today but highly volatile. It makes chips for cars and mobile phones. It is a US firm but owned by Israelis. Its ratings range from 10 to reduce according to research at TD Ameritrade. TSEM.

*Deliveroo crashed 30% at its UK IPO.

*Microfocus, a UK tech stock we used to own because it enabled the use of old windows systems, now is fully listed on Q. But MCRO fell 6% in UK trading today so I think we will skip this one.

*Blackrock again owns over 5% of the voting rights at Sampo Oyj, the Finnish financial group. SAXPY.