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Today the market failed to brush off inflation fears as it had done later on Thursday as inflation is at a 4-decade high.

We have a few tidbits:

Drugs

*The US House of Representatives named Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer for abusing patent protection rules to maintain their monopolies and high prices for longer. NVO is Danish; SNY is French, and LLY and PFE are US firms.

*Israeli Bioline RX surged 17.62% today in US trading. The Tel Aviv market is closed on Fridays. This may be just a faint, or it may reflect some unknown edge for the company, but I cannot find any news. I sold half my BLRX holdings at the market price. This generates a loss for my portfolio this year. I need some losses.

*Merck's earnings per share for the current quarter was lowered by 1 cent to $1.6 and the share rose. MRK.

*Pfizer stated that the 3rd dose of its covid-19 jab will protect people from the Omicron variant better than a mere two doses. No details on this. PFE.

*Some drug companies which were not named and shamed by the House of Reps rose today, Novocure NVCR by 2.32%; TEVA by 1.15%; Zymeworks ZYME by 2.11%. There is no news on any of them other than their omission from the bad list.

Media

*The British high court ruled that Julian Assange, the Australian who ran Wikileaks, can be extradited to the USA. He was allowed to marry a new wife while in a British jail oddly enough. She came to his cell for their honeymoon. Despite this, as a journalist, I accept that the Center for Media and Democracy is right to protest extradicting him. 

*The CBOE options system, whose stock I own, was given a new buy rating, up from hold, and an estimated eps of $1.45, up 1 cent.

*Naspers NPSNY of South Africa gained 1.94% today. It owns media but also now has other interests. It is an indirect play on Tencent.

Finance

*Sampo Oyj SAXPY, a Norwegian fund manager, is buying the GBP 685 mn Rand Merchant Investment Holdings, a fund, from British Hastings.

*Banco Santander is using a Robo advisor bought to manage money. SAN.

*Fibra Uno, a fund, gained 2.87% today, to $20.80, but I cannot find the reason. It is a Mexican REIT. FBASF.

*Microsoft is won European Union okay for its buy of Nuance and rose 1.72% today. MSFT.

Miscellaneous

*Canadian Nutrien gained 1.93% today. It sells seeds and fertilizer to farmers at its stores. NTR.