The man who snatched my wallet has been identified by the cops as a serial grand larceny criminal from photographs of his attempts to buy solid gold sneakers with my credit cards. He was out on bail from a prior conviction, That case was delayed for fear of coronavirus. It seems that our courts are very worried about infecting criminals. I am still collecting replacement cards and ID, now the main mess I have to deal with. If required I will testify against the perp because while I don't know what he looks like I got two misleading telephone calls from him saying that my wallet had been found at my local supermarket when nothing had happened. So I know his voice. The very pregnant manager there is thoroughly fed up with me because I twice went to there hoping he had simply left the wallet in a shopping cart, but he didn't. The main reason he called my office rather than my home is that when he picked my pocket, I was with a man, my husband, and didn't want to deal with him.

Sometimes bad news is good. The horrible unemployment data today increases the odds that a renewed stimulus bill will be crafted before Biden takes the helm. The European Union is also expected to buy more bonds to fund economic recovery. And because the dollar is lower, with one important exception, China, most ADRs gained.

This is the end of the free blog that is coming next week.

image source: unsplash

China drop

There is no doubt that Communist China controls Tencent messages. Yesterday its WeChat blocked a statement from Australian P. M. Scott Morrison aimed at reassuring the local Oz Chinese community after the site published fake photos of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. This is par for the course. WeChat blocked the World Health Organisation during the early days of the covid-19 outbreak to force the UN agency to reduce its blaming China as the source of the virus. Censorship of a post aimed at 1.2 million Chinese-speaking Australians is the latest move in the Beijing power grab. Another is the jailing of Hong Kong press baron Jimmy Lai for supporting the freedom demonstrators. Another is the way the Ant initial public offering was blocked. China is not open for business under Xi Jingping and the Communists running the country.

*We sold our TCEHY in good time. The ructions led to a drop today in the shares of AIA Group Hong Kong, AAIGF, down 2.25%.

*NIO, the Chinese electric vehicle maker, is down another 6.9% before recovering to being off 6%. *Owners of TCEHY, despite lots of other positions, dropped, Naspers (NPSNY) and Prosus, (PROSY) fell 1%.

*Africa focused Multichoice, a Naspers spin-off, rose 5.1% today. MCHOY.

*Even Trip.com TCOM, my most recent China play, is down 0.7% although I doubt if even Xi will dare to stop Chinese tourism. But the theory now is that China will not turn capitalist soon and the incentives to buy its stocks now are losing their appeal.

Oil and Materials

*Canada Solar, Chinese owned CSIQ, bounced up and down mostly down.

*The other big move today was a compromise on how much oil will be produced which pushed the oilpatch into the highest bullishness since March. Boeing plane orders helped the takeoff. BP gained 4.44% (3x death in Chinese); Royal Dutch Shell B RDS-B shares 4%; Schlumberger 4.3% SLB.

*Grupo Bimbo GRBMF garnered 3 bn pesos from Mexico's CEDIX for cutting carbon emissions there. It earlier tested the process in Argentina. It is a bakery giant. The peso is under 20¢

*UK platinum group firm Johnson Matthey JMPLY is up 1%.

*Antofagasta ANFGF, the copper miner, gained 2.34%.

*CX, Cemex of Mexico, helped by a rally in the peso, gained 6.4%.

*CRH of Ireland, also in that business, gained 1%.

Drugs

*India bought 1.5 bn doses of corona-virus vaccines including 500 mn from Astra Zeneca, despite problems with it trial. This boosted AZN shares 2.5%.

*Dr. Reddy's which did not get an order, is up 0.6%. RDY

*Danish Novo Nordisk submitted an ANDA to our FDA for semaglutide as a weight loss drug for non-diabetics. The approval may take 6 months for the glucagon-like peptide-1 drug. NVO is up 1%.

*Swiss Roche RHHBY is up 1.6% on hopes for a triple-negative breast cancer drug it developed for use post-surgery. Most of the new studies are for use before surgery on the most frequently fatal breast cancer.

*Novartis NVS rose 1% in sympathy.

*Japan's Eisai (ESALY) rose modestly.

*Glaxo GSK gained 0.85% despite having been downgraded to neutral by UBS yesterday..

*The usual suspects for Friday surprises delivered. Israeli Compugen, CGEN, gained 2.9%. TEVA rose 3.36% and is back in double digits, at $10+. Bioline RX, BLRX gained 0.9%.

*My Exelixis EXEL stock after it validated Zymeworks's double tumor attack rose 0.6% because it will have to pay a lot if it works. ZYME gained 1.1% today because as Martin wrote, its conjugate is now being tested a second time.

Money

*Gold lost traction because more cheap money is coming and probably will not trigger inflation.

*Banco Santander SAN gained 5.9% on no news.

*Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterieur rose 1%. BLX.

*Bank of Nova Scotia BNS gained 1.5%. It does more US business than SAN and BLX but less than most Canadian banks.

*Qualcomm rose because it is now buying integrated SIM chipsets not from China but from Kigen, which is more secure, for its 9205 LTE Modem. I have no idea what this means but QCOM is at a new yearly high. I got lucky.