The Dow Jones was up nicely but Nasdaq was barely ahead. 

Mohammed El Erian, the Harvard economist, warns that the real risk is not inflation but a recession in 2022. Russia is surrounding Ukraine with 70,000 soldiers so there is a real war risk with the USA and the West. 

Despite this, the Dow is up sharply.

China has cut its reserve requirement for lending by 50% giving a $188 bn boost to its market. The reason appears to be Evergrande being unable to raise more money.

Image Source: Unsplash

Drugs

*Swiss Roche says it has a PCR test for the Omnicron variant from TB Milbiol, which it recently acquired. Roche also bought $53.3 mn share of Novartis, a fellow Swiss pharma firm. Novartis is up 1.14%. About a third of US states now have cases of the new variant. RHHBY.

*Bavarian Nordic is issuing 6.374 mn new shares in Denmark for acquisitions to come and they will begin trading as ADRs on Dec. 10. It is also showing good results from a phase 2 vaccine for covid-19. BVNRY.

*Bioline RX fell 4.6% today. It is suffering from a possible failure of its anti-virus drug. BLRX.

*Merck is up on its partner NGM Bio getting good results against solid tumors in phase II trials of Keytruda. Merck is up a half percent. MRK.

*Enlivex is up nearly 7%. ENLV.

*Algonquin gained 2.06%. AQN.

*Abvie rose on good results from its product against Crohn's disease. ABBV.

*Astra Zeneca finally rose today by 3% after announcing it would aim to make a profit on its covid drug for emerging markets. AZN.

*Novacure is up 2.9%. NVCR.

*Enlivex is up 6.25% after its allocellera got US patent examination for sepsis. 

*Chembio submitted a Sars Covid-2 antigen test using an optic reader. The share fell 3.13% on the news. CEMI.

*TEVA jumped 2.73%. 

*Galapagos is raising capital via subscription rights at $3.76. GLPG.

 Energy, mostly LNG

*Shell is dropping its attempt to develop LNG on an offshore vessel after another round of trouble with its Prelude ship in Australia, a fire this time. It already spent nearly a year out of service in 2020. Shell stock is up on the news. RDS-B.

*Tata Motors is raising the prices of its commercial vehicles. TTM.

*Plug Power is developing a way to fly planes with hydrogen fuel and this boosted its share by 1.43% to $33.94. This is a very long term play. PLUG.

*Hoegh parent company is offering to buy its Hoegh LNG shares at $4.25/each. We sold too soon. HMLP.

*CRH the cement firm is up 3% as it will use carbon to bind its main product.

*CSIQ sold 500 shares in its kitty for $36.49 last week. 

*Computer Modelling is up 2.4% up north. CMDXF.

*NIO is up fractionally today, a Chinese vehicle maker which is less subject to Beijing than most.

Finance

*State Street is up 3.4% on hopes for new funding business. STT.

*Bank of Nova Scotia gained after beating estimates for earnings but missed on revenues. BNS.

*KD, the IBM spinoff, is now rising. The weak hands sold last week.

*American Express is up nearly 3%. AXP.

Telecoms

*Telefonica rose 2.5% today in British trading. TEF.

*Thermo Electron is down 2%. TMO.