There was a great storm that cut me off from the Web on Thursday so the blog is delayed. This is the second time this happened in 10 days, probably because of global warming. I will not chat on but just give you the facts today.

The latest jobless figures are much lower than forecast, under a million for the first time since March.

Gold

*I am moving back to TD Ameritrade because Merrill Edge is not letting me buy pink sheet or foreign stocks nor even track them, which I never expected. But I do owe the Thurdering herd a thank you for recommending dual-listed Canadian gold miner Kirkland Lake KL, both on the NYSE and on Toronto. It has not only gained with the gold price and its own much better recent quarter, but also for structural moves: selling C$145.2 mn worth of shares of Osisko Mining, which it held in treasury, and another C$2.59 mn of shares of Vancouver listed Novo Mining some of which were sold earlier before we came on board. The proceeds were then used to buy 863,500 of its own shares for cancellation and a further US$388.4 mn for buybacks of its own shares.

*The other gold stock I bought in Britain is a share I have to move to a US account for tracking and to pay taxes on dividends and eventual capital gains, but I cannot do this with Merrill as the stock trades only in London and has no ADRs, so I will get things right later when I am back at a global broker. I also got my new passport pictures and sent them off despite the floods so I can even walk the shares back by hand if we get to London,

Drugs

*Danish Novo Nordisk, NVO, a different Novo, resumed its phase III trials of Conzisumab for treating hemophilia after suspension of the trials in March after 3 recipients developed thrombotic events, probably blood clots. NVO reformulated the path taken by the drug to stop the thrombotic events. This shows how it is very important to run phase III trials.

*Two Chinese insiders at Beigene sold about $12.5 mn worth of its shares. Shares are sold for many reasons and this may not have anything to do with the outlook for BGNE, which runs trials for many foreign drug-makers.

Alternative and Other Energy

*The silicon wafer shortage because of a Chinese outage has already resulted in one alternative energy move, by an insider at Ormat ORA, a bonus stock, Israeli owned by Nevada incorporated, in the business of tapping thermal power. Its CFO, Assi Ginzburg, just bought $1.220,600 shares presumably because if you want green energy, thermal can replace solar.

*Another reaction was the venerable Berenberg Bank recommendation of Vestas Wind Systems, VWDRY which makes windmills sold n Europe. I will look into it and it may become a first buy with TD Ameritrade. Vestas reported record sales but a loss in Q2 earlier this week, and has soared YTD,

*Schlumberger Ltd of the Dutch Antilles, SLB, was tipped by Wells Fargo despite the likely loss of sales because of a lot of free cash flow the analyst expects and its target price was raised by $3 today. Alas, SLB fell 2,3%. I have owned it since it first listed and I am not able to sell my shares which were bought for pennies.

Tech and Tel

*Bonus stock Microsoft MSFT is launching a dual-screen Android phone called Duo for $1399 each. Will it sell?

*Canadian simulator maker CAE got support from Bay Street including Scotiabank after its missed even its low forecasts, and they Canada analysts rate it overweight with target prices of C$27 and 28, However south or the border Raymond James rates it equal weight with no TP.

*Multichoice, MCHOY, the spinoff from Naspers and Prosus, which sells cellphone systems and ads in many African countries, rose 5.2%+ today on good results, hitting $6.25+ per share, That goes to show that NPSNY and PROSY have assets that do not depend on Tencent, TCEHY, despite market theories,

*Ericsson landed its 100^th 5G sales contract today with the Slovenian telecom firm. ERIC is Swedish,

Eats

*Canadian Nutrien NTR got new higher target prices today of $41 (US) or $48 (Can.) after it made clear that it doesn't treat explosives the way Lebanon does.

*Orbia Advance Corp SAB de CV is said by Merrill to have fallen 39.88% today. Now that I am moving brokers I am going to say I don't believe this. MXCHF (still using its old ticker symbol) has been inching up as demand for its drip feed watering systems grows and while it is below the $2.55 it traded at before the coronavirus, it is now well up from its lows, up to $1.66 last week. This is what I mean by not letting me track my holdings.