Today's blog is late because my cousin the English book dealer who had pancreatic cancer has died and I was busy writing a condolence letter to her husband and children with my husband. The stock I had hoped would help her (which she refused to try) is Novacure of Jersey in the Channel Islands, but ultimately Israeli, which uses electricity to try to manage cancers that cannot be cured with radiation or chemotherapy. NVCR leases its electric devices to patients to get them to join its trials and is up 1.9% today but still 15% below our base at $143.75. It has been given a target price of $175 by Mizuho analysts. RIP Carol.

I have been told that a miswiring was the cause of our loss of telephone service over the weekend, done probably by our cleaning woman when vacuuming Friday, and not something to be blamed on the vendor for Verizon. Apologies all around.

Today retail sales numbers for Feb. came in down 3% while forecasts were of only a drop of 0.5%, which took down the DJIA.

image source

And now for the news:

Finance

*Banco Santander's stock fell another 2% after it revealed a plan to buy the Miami-based wealth management operations from Indosuez, a French bank, for an undisclosed sum this year. The official buyer is BSI Private Bank, a sub of SAN. The assets under management there are $4.13 bn.

*I was wrong that Standard Life Aberdeen did not fall on its results last week. It fell 11.1% to 2.836 UK pence. The problem was that my brokerage no longer covers SLFPY moves.

*A fellow writer on TalkMarkets named Hashtag Investing has recommended Canadian BCE stock for yields. We bought the ute earlier and more cheaply. It fell 0.11% today.

*I couldn't join the investor day for Cosan, now CSAN, but the reaction was wide: up 1.5% at the start of the day and down 1.65% by noon. Don't buy before the formal listing

*Benzinga says Qualcomm rising 1.8% is a bearish indicator. We own QCOM not for its chips, boosting its price now, but for otherwise inaccessible unlisted Israeli shares in its house venture fund.

*CBOE, upwardly mobile over its plans for an ETF for cryptocurrencies, fell 1.5% today.

Asia risk

*Chin Hom Cheung of BofA-Merrill wrote on seekingalpha today that investors should own both Korea Fund (KF) because it has risks of outflows and Taiwan Fund (TWN) because it has US risk. They offset each other.

*Tencent reported on its Q4 in which it had solid advertising gains according to DJ but got caught in the move by Beijing to force disposal of media assets by its rival Alibaba. There is no way for TCEHY to avoid hitting similar demands. BABA hs to ditch its 10% stake in media.

*Noah Wilson writes in Yahoo Finance that Coupang, CPNG, our new Korean stock pick, is overvalued. My order has not yet been executed as it's low. I expect it to behave like our other play in this sector, Mercado Libre, MELI. It will report later today and if it beat forecasts I will raise my bid.

*Canada Solar, CSIQ, opened off 4%, but is now down only 2% after it invested in a new strategic partnership with German modular off-grid Solengo panel-maker SolarWorX.io as part of a pre-IPO run by German govt development financier DMZ and EIT InnoEnergy Technologies, EU funded. Solengo will sell solar to Africa and small-cap companies worldwide starting next quarter. The total invested (not just by CSIQ) was in millions of $s. I think reducing China risk is good for CSIQ. It will report on Thursday and we will see if I am right.

*Chinese automation stock Hollysys, sold, is an example of China risk. Its shareholders sued the majority owners for approving a takeover bid by its CEO and other Chinese which allegedly undervalues HOLI.

Japanese share prices are not being reported by TD Ameritrade and I am transferring them to Schwab. *Mitsubishi UFG Finance gained 24.5 yen to Y719.10; Sumitomo Mitsui Finance gained 142 yen to Y4136.

Drug-makers

*Takeda Pharma, TAK, is being reported, but not the others. TAK is up 0.8% today.

*Grifols of Spain rose 2.5% yesterday says the Financial Times. GRFS.

*Astra-Zeneca continues to win favor from EU regulators despite the bans on its Covid-19 jab in Europe so some of my nasty remarks about Oxford University need to be rolled back. It is up 2.75% today. The US will take up the slack by adding a half-million more doses. AZN.

*Israeli TEVA was flat today at $11.15 after a big 4% jump right at the close Monday. Half its shares are owned by institutional investors.

*Israeli BiolineRX fell 2.22% today. BLRX opened flat.

*Israeli Enlivex opened down 4% and now is up 4%. ENLV makes checkpoint inhibitor therapies.

*Israeli Compugen is down 1.3% after CGEN opened up 2.1%.

*Roche is ex-div today. RHHBY is Swiss.

Mexicans

*Cemex gained 2.4% today on no news. CX is cleaning up its act with more facilities and less clinker. (CRH of Ireland is ex-div.)

*Grupo Bimbo, the global bakery group, lost its 8% gains from yesterday, falling 9% today. It buys energy which Mexico is divided about pricing. The AMLO government wants to keep dirty fuel going but the courts are pushing greener ones. GRBMF.

*Orbia Advance SAB de CV (MXCHF) which makes drip feed systems for growing food, is not trading in the US since the name change despite good results reported last month. It shows on my TD Ameritrade account as $3.55 big, $21.95 ask, not serious a quote.

*REIT Fibra Uno traded today and gained 0.65%. Mexican OTC “penny” stocks are not being quoted by TD Ameritrade and since I am setting up a new account with parent Schwab for my Asians, they will move there too. FBASF.

Reports to come:

*Energy Fuels is due to report tomorrow, and the stock is up 4.25% today in anticipation. It is getting into rare earths extraction but of course, this will not be in the 2020 results for UUUU.

*Mer Telemanagement of Israel, sold too soon, is also reporting tomorrow. MTSL doubled since my exit but analysts say sell. Patti said to stick with it and I didn't listen to her.