I admit that I am worried about the New New Deal program coming from Pres. Biden, not because of the plan to increase taxes on the rich and corporations which have developed techniques for evading them, but because of inflation risks if the tax hikes do not get done. The case for spending to cut unemployment was lost with jobless claims last week coming in at 406,000 vs an estimate of 425,00 and a prior week level of 444,000. Unemployment is not the risk so much as lack of candidates for jobs paying too little. But the risk of inflation is scary.

Back in my days as a mother of two pre-schoolers working on Capitol Hill for the Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy, a part of the Joint Economic Committee, I pushed hard for free pre-school in Washington DC such as I had benefited from in Paris, where we had lived before. Instead of the kiddies heading for the basement of a nearby church for daycare, I had to pay for it and also for an au pair to ferry them to and from, as they only had 4 hours per day. Now with my youngest grandchild aged 13, I think I will simply have to pay without anyone in the family benefiting.

I still want to do this, not because I like paying taxes, but because the alternative outcome would be more dangerous a run-away inflation level.

My own tax situation is fraught because my bank had stopped offering me brokerage services and I have spent hours working out my basis for trades done last year, as the data didn't port. Luckily I do have the charts on gains prepared for my newsletter. Now my bank, HSBC, is planning to close its US branches entirely to go Chinese, and I will have to move my personal account.

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Energy

*Höegh LNG Partners HMLP today reported on its Q1 after its parent in Norway took back the right to own vessels long-term, while the partnership now contracts them only for a short term to its parent. Moreover, the parent can compete with the partners in seeking clients for the LNG carriers. It is not itself for sale but it is looking into doing long-term contracts with outside companies and may also sell some of its vessels. I am in over my depth and there was no information on the quarter I could find from my brokerage. So I wait for word from Norway specialist Gen. Joe Shaefer, USAF-ret, who tipped the stock on how to proceed. I think we may exit (profitably). These are preference shares which we no longer get performance data from Barron's nor from Schwab-TD-Ameritrade.

*Royal Dutch Shell B stock is down 1.7% on worries that it will have to cut its emissions even more than planned to meet a new Dutch court ruling requiring that it also cut those of its customers. RDS-B.

*BP plc fell 0.82% in sympathy.

*Energy Fuels, UUUU, rose after Noble Capital yesterday gave it a $9 target price. It is $6.87(US) but still well down YTD.

*Canadian Solar dropped 2.9% today on nasty exchanges with China. I think CSIQ is relatively independent of Beijing politics, which is turning against businesses in the PRC. It is hurting because its earnings for the first quarter at 36¢/sh while the forecasts ranged from 24 to 72¢.

*AY, Atlantica Yield Fund, is down 2.2%. The UK fund is denominated in dollars while the sterling is soaring. Canada ute Algonquin Power owns ~2% of AY. AQN which earns bucks is down a fraction.

Drugmakers

*Japan's Eisai rose 2.39% on an offer by its US sub-continent to Hackensack, NJ, to survey people with early Alzheimer's disease to test variant treatments, including ESALY ones.

*Our other Japan drug firm Takeda rose because it was tipped by Money Show's Prudent Speculator, Jason Clark for TAK's 9 p/e ratio. They are necessities and can overcome the high yen. TAK.

*Vir and Glaxo got FDA ok for their antibody treatment for mild or moderate covid-19, sotrovinab. GSK fell 0.41% today. Elliott Management has backed away from its demand that GSK sell its pharma and vaccine lines, and also dropped its demand that R&D spending is cut. Last week GSK sold its Innovia respiratory business for the equivalent of $302 mn to shut the activist hedge fund up.

*Swiss Novartis NVS fell 0.8% today after it joined with Molecular Partners AG in a global phase II-III trial against covid-19 for ensolvipep running till next year. It is late to the game having paid $69 mn to work with MP.

*Abcellera Bio, trying to compete in bi-specific meds is down 4.9% while its neighbor Zymeworks rose 1.4% today. ABCL and ZYME are both in the Canada hotspot of British Columbia.

*Bioline RX of Israel fell at the opening here despite BLRX's improved balance sheet and cash on hand over worries that it is delaying its applications to the European Medical Authority for its motixfortide. It wants to start by getting US FDA approval and then hop across the ocean. By mid-day, it was up 1.8%.

*Grifols fell by 6+% despite being rated a buy with an average $17 target price. GRFS Covid-19 treatment using blood plasma failed last month. It is Spanish.

Tel and Utes

*A trifecta took down Vodafone VOD by 0.55%; Nokia NOK by 1%; but Ericsson ERIC rose by 0.83%.

*Multichoice which offers cell phones and films in Africa, rose to a new high for the year today at $9.73. It was a celebration of Africa Day which led to the rise. MCHOY launched the Talent Factory today. It was slow to show but when it finally came out the word was buy.

*BCE is up 0.3% today bringing our gains to well over 300%. Canada gains as the USA stumbles.

*AZRE, Azure Power, is at a near loss for the year. India is its market although it is Mauritian and estimates are all over the map.

Tech

*Chipmakers are mostly higher today, with recent purchase Taiwan Semiconductor, TSM, up +0.2%, and Qualcomm, QCOM +0.7%. I bought QCOM for its unlisted holdings, not for chips.

*GE is up 6.23% to a new yearly high.

*NIO is up 1.4% today on another round of Meme buying. It opened up 4.69% so this is sane. But analysts worry that its electric vehicle sales in China this month may not have grown as fast as last month and can take down the stock price. Watch this space. Note that a month is no big deal.

*South Korean Coupang, CPNG, is back in the red, down 1.81% to $52.3. Yesterday it rose because Bill Gates bought the stock which did its IPO at an excessive price. He didn't buy more today.

*Latin Amazon Mercado Libre rose 1.5% today. MELI is a model for CPNG.

*Pilot training firm CAE is back in clover, up 1% again, as airlines are flying, if not to Belarus.

Mining

*Antofagasta finally told the London stock market about its mining copper and the share rose 7.42%. ANFGF is an oddity, a UK ADR for a Chilean miner. It is at $22.4.

*Gold is down a bit but I think this is a buy opportunity. As I wrote above, I worry about inflationary pressures. And the big negative about gold—that it doesn't produce income-- is rather marginal at the moment when plenty of other investments don't produce income either.

*Kirkland Lake Gold, KL, gained 0.36% here today. A Canadian senior producer, it is relatively cheap, trading at 13X last year's earnings and 14.3X this year's estimate. The main reason to own it is that its mining costs are among the lowest in the sector at $807 (US). The gold price jumped to over $1900 yesterday, which gives you an idea of how profitable KL may become.

*Orbia Advance Corp is showing on my screen at $3.19 bid, $22.29 ask. It still trades here as MXCHY and I protested to my brokerage on this. The company makes drip feed systems for growing food plants. It changed its name from Mexichem but the ticker remains and is not priced at all.

* Johnson Matthey shares dropped 1.5% after JMPLY, a catalytic-converter maker said pretax profit fell on higher costs in the year to March, which I didn't expect. JMPLY expects underlying operating performance to improve this year. The results matched forecasts and the outlook for 2021/22 is better than expected, Equita equity research says.  

*Santander gained 2.52% in Spanish trading today hitting euros 3.44. SAN.

*Investor of Sweden rose 2.27% today. IVSBF.

*Both Lazard the fund manager, LAZ, and LGI the Global Income Fund are up today.

*Bank of Nova Scotia is up .82% today. BNS.

*Sumitomo, SMFG, is down 1%. Mitsubishi, MSBHF is down 0.75. The yen is at fault.

*Even Nintendo is down 1% today. Only Nipponese drug firms are up. NTDOY.