Today is the third red ink day of summer and it is the worst yet after truly scary inflation data came out today. Higher prices prevailed not only in oil and gas, which we knew about but in everything from Disney tickets to lumber, from wheat to iron ore, from car rentals The June rise alone was 0.9%.

Stocks fell across the board in foreign countries, except for Britain which was upbeat. With a few exceptions stocks opened down here. The UK's rise was because contrary to expectations I reported yesterday, the Boris Johnson government will stick to its plan to reopen the economy on July 19. We will work on getting ourselves to Blimey again to visit our extended family there. I am not aiming to go until the 1^st weekend.

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In today's Financial Times, Mohamed El-Erian explained that the drop in bond yields last week is not good for stock markets after all. The financial guru, who works for Pimco's parent, Germany Allianz ALIZY, warned that the bond rate cut may lead to worries that growth will stall in a market subject to speculative excess. He also warns that the EU central bank taking a more dovish stance may be because of slower growth. And his final clincher argument is that falling yields make it hard to believe that bond prices will drop further, what he calls “capitulation trades”. The result is that a bunch of current reasons for buying stocks have lost their aura: TINA (there is no alternative); BTD (buy the dip); and FOMO (fear of missing out.) He also thinks our Fed is falling behind on tapering stimulus because of fear of a repeat of the miscue when the Fed last tapered (in 2013).

Because the market overall is so awful looking today, I will start with the rare winners:

*Taiwan's leading tech companies, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) and Apple phone-maker Foxconn, arranged to pay $350 mn to buy from Fosun's Hong Kong arm enough BioNTech vaccines for donation to the island country's health ministry. This boosted the shares of the chip-maker by 1.37% at the opening today and also boosted the Taiwan Fund, TWN, by 0.72%. The Beijing attempt to block sales to Taiwan because it claims the island has backfired. But dependence on Chinese medicines is a clearly dangerous risk for other countries as well.

*Finnish Nokia told the world that it is raising its full-year output of cellphones in part because of fear of dependence on telephone equipment from the PRC, subject to official bans and security risks. In European trading, NOK stock opened up 9.3% and now is up in double digits. The new data will be published on July 29, along with Q2 results. The forecast net sales level was at euros 20.6 bn to 21.8 bn when NOK reported on its Q1 in April. It then talked about operating margins of 7-10%, now likely to be exceeded. Its management had problems with the 5G rollout which led to a boost in sales by archrival Ericsson of Sweden. It is not only China that is being beaten by NOK. Its new management cut costs laid off surplus workers and did deals with Western telcos. Ericsson gained 2.53% (ERIC). Jobless get hefty govt benefits.

*Mexican global bakery Grupo Bimbo gained 11.5% to % to $2.4/sh on the assumption that people will continue to eat under inflation. GRBMF is our best performer today. But Latins overall held up. They are better are inflation than we are. Cosan, my Brazil stock of the year, CSAN, gained 1.6%. Mexican REIT Fibra Uno (FBASF) rose 6%. Mercado Libre (MELI) rose 1.6% to $I550.

*Orbia Advance Corp, which still uses its former ticker symbol of MXCHF, will hold a conference call on July 29. MXCHF did not trade today but shows $3.5 bid, $23.14 ask

*Coupang, is up 4.31% on options moves. CPNG was listed in March at an excessive p/e ratio.

*As you can imagine the price of gold is up on renewed inflation fears. Our SPDR Gold fund, GLD, is up 0.26% and our Canadian gold miner, Kirkland Lake Gold, KL, is up 3.77%.

*Both Lazard the fund manager and LGI, the fund, but LGI is up 1% while the manager gained 0.5%.

*At least for today, Asian stocks are up, AIG Hong Kong, AAIGF by over 3%; India-Mauritius Azure Power, AZRE, by 3.56%; Korea Fund by 1.5%; Mitsubishi (MSBHF) by 2.94%; but not Sumitomo, SMFG which is down 0.7%); Takeda (TAK) up 0.53%; Eisai (ESALY) up 1.68%; Fanuc (FANUY) up 0.45%.

*Pharma firms are very mixed today, not just the Japanese ones. Bristol Myers BMY is up 0.02%; Dane Novo Nordisk NVO is up 0.23%; AstraZeneca AZN down 0.03% because of the plan to modify its Covid-10 (Oxford) jab to cut the blood clot risk; Hikma HKMPF, the Middle East specialist, is up 3.2% on its US expansion; Israeli TEVA is down 1.28% because it already has done its US expansion.

*Yesterday I bought the preferred stock of Algonquin, the Canada-based ute paying $28.12. The high-yielding shares pay out $5.52% annually. The next AQN dividend will not come until July 2022. Today despite my loyal following, the share fell 0.18% to $28.01 on very heavy trading. As the year wait rolls out, I may be tempted to buy more shares.

*With riots and looting over the arrest of Jacob Zuma, South Africa stocks would have fallen more but for the new Dutch Prosus share exchange for Naspers stock which opened today and which will run till (oops) Friday the 13^th of August. PROSY gained 1.75% while NPSNY fell 0.15%.

*While NIO fell 2.3% today along with other electric vehicle makers, its CEO William Li taking on a board position at Uxin, an auto retailer and financier in China boosted UXIN stock by 10%. It issued senior convertible preferred shares to Nio and other vendors. NIO showed unusual options activity, bearish calls.

*Besides not giving full quotes, TD Ameritrade-Schwab now has barred some spreads and short sales on most OTC stocks but this customer is not authorized to view the site after signaling that the duo are allowing trades there without commission. The ban also applies to options trading. The reason is that volumes are too high so market-makers cannot complete trades, particularly sells. Few can sail out although many sail in.