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I appear to have suffered a hack attack on my social security account which revealed itself over the weekend. My accountant is looking into it, as it is my tax ID. I got a bunch of messages intended for a lady from the Bronx with my first name, but I am not from the Bronx although I did go to High School there. Oil prices are up, with WTI up 3.7% on more Saudi oil sites targeted by Houthis.

Energy

*Energy Fuels (UUUU), today report on FY 2020 and in which its loss fell to 23¢ from 40¢/sh and from minus $40.6 mn to $ 24.6 mn. It recovered and stockpiled 196,500 lbs of uranium fuel in the year vs the prior year's level of 70,000 lbs, but it did not sell any uranium and has no contracts to do so this year. This year it will recover 30,000 to 60,000 lbs of uranium to be added to inventories and not sold. It plans to sell vanadium oxide this year as prices are rising but will not be producing any. It currently is already refining the first batch of 2,000-3,000 metric tonnes of rare earths found in association with uranium, its new commodity supply chain business, starting with deliveries in the US over the next few weeks. Its working capital more than doubled last year to $40.2 mn and it sold $30.4 mn worth of new shares earlier this year. It has no debt but has collected inventory funding. The share fell 5.83%. While this is a risky play, the prospect of breaking the Chinese rare earths monopoly tempts me.

*Higher oil prices make electric vehicles more sellable. So Chinese NIO is up 1.4%, boosted by a ban on Tesla for government vehicles in the PRC.

*Ormat Tech which crashed last week on the Israeli investigation of its compliance officer and another executive over bribery at a prior employer, recovered after they were ousted, ORA is up 5.9%.

*Schlumberger Ltd is up on a tip by NewEdge analyst Rob Sechan but Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B) and BP are down. SLB will extract battery-grade lithium at Pure Energy's (Tor-PE) plant in Canada.\

*Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure plc is up 3.5% today after getting another overweight rating from Morgan Stanley. The part-owner, Canadian Algonquin Power & Ute (AQN), gained 1.22%.

*Mauritian Azure Power is up 1%. AZRE does solar projects in India.

Finance

Today we run a note from our Japan correspondent Chris Loew about a non-Japanese holding.

“Holding different many asset classes with low correlation is a key to diversification. Gold which often spikes when stocks crash is why I use Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) as a gold holding in my personal portfolio. I prefer it to physical gold exchange-traded funds because ETFs incur storage fees even when they aren't performing well. Miners of gold tend to be underpriced but this reflects the risk they run in developing, maintaining, and operating mines. This is offset by mining companies being able to use leverage as their profits can build up fast once gold prices exceed their costs.

“What I like are gold streamers (or gold royalty companies) which combine leverage with not actually operating mines. They merely forward cash for mine development to different projects in exchange for either the right to buy gold (and other metals) at below-market prices or to receive a royalty when the miner sells gold. The business model copies that of oil royalties. was taken from the oil industry.

“I own Vancouver-based WPM is one of three majors royalty companies. The others are Royal Gold (RGLD) and Franco-Nevada (FNV). Some newer smaller “junior” streamers have more upside potential, as they have more investments in mines not yet in production, but my aim is to play short-term changes in gold prices. The other two majors have more gold than Wheaton but as I began with diversification, I am continuing with WPM which can make profits even when the gold price lags, particularly silver which has industrial uses. I don't want to dilute the hedging effect of gold but I want to cut the risk a bit.”

We also own SPDR Gold (GLD), and Kirkland Lake Gold (KL), which pays a 2.2% dividend of 19¢. It fell today as it is ex-div.

*Eduardo Garcia writes from Mexico City: Walmart de Mexico and Grupo Bimbo both objected to the changes in Mexico's law on industrial electricity promoted by Pres. Andres Manual Lopez Obrador. Both companies want to continue to receive subsidies for wind energy use which allows them to pay lower rates than households are charged by the grid, said a joint submission to the Electricity Minister.

“Bimbo since 2012 has operated in the Pierdro Larga wind farm in Oaxaca and has supplied other companies like Walmart with surpluses. The change in the electric law which eliminated the subsidiary was because a federal judge allowed the grants to be suspended although they are supposed to be indefinite. The new rules require that the Comision Federal de Electricidad get the right to deliver all electricity to the detriment of private alternatives. The Mexican administration says it will take the matter up with the Supreme Court of Mexico even if it requires a modification of the Constitution.” GRBMY is a multination bakery corporation in which we own shares.

Mexico under AMLO risks becoming a high-risk market for global leaders like Bimbo, something which has already hurt other emerging market countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey. Just as the railroad connection between the USA and our neighbors to the north and south has been made, Mexico risks losing business with populism. Another stock under pressure from AMLO is America Movil.

*Despite the Mexico news, the drop in Banco Latino-Americano de Comercio Exterieur (BLX), was excessive and I bought some more shares. It is a multilateral trade finance bank operating in dollars in Panama, mostly owned by outfits like Ex-Im, but also listed on the NYSE. The private sector side was deliberately created to give private enterprises a voice in BLX business. I paid $15.4/sh.

*REIT Fibra Uno (FBASF), already in trouble over cutting trees in a Mexico City construction site, is down $4.53% because now AMLO is joining. Orbia (MXCHF), drip-feed maker, didn't trade here.

*If you can't lick em, join em. Lazard created two $250 mn black check SPAC companies to invest in Fintech and healthcare. Last month its first SPAC raised $500 mn for growth stock buys as part of its IPO on the US market. Lazard is French-controlled but was often busy in the US, first when New Orleans was still French, and then under Andre Mayer during World War II. I also discovered that Washington Post owner Katharine Graham's father, who was related to the Lazard clan, worked for them early in his life but left because they didn't give him a raise. LAZ fell 1% over the new SPACs. I also opted to buy Lazard Global Total Return & Income Fund (LGI), because my writing up to the parent was ambiguous, added this weekend. Note that the City of London, a UK fund of funds, has for decades bought discounted US closed-end funds as a way to make money without having a lot of analysts to pay, but it was not open to US retail investors until recently.

*Hoëgh LNG Partners, which is preparing to go private, gave holders of two bonds it issued a “Polish Veto” meaning that any single nay vote will halt the payback of the bond at 101% of the face value upon maturity. as part of the deal. We owners of pref shares got no such goodies but HMLP-A did pay an 8.17% dividend last month. They met in Bermuda over the weekend. Our stock gained ~5% on the news of the takeover by Morgan Stanley and a Hoegh. Jo Shaefer, USAF-ret and now a fund manager, found the stock for us.

*Sumitomo (SMFG), is up a penny. Mitsubishi (MSBHF), is up 3.6% after it agreed to buy a 30% stake in an Australian bauxite mine from Glencore. The yen is up and Tokyo is down today.

*Banco Santander will report on Thursday. SAN is down 1.3% today.

*French Veolia lost 2.13% on the news that Suez is willing to negotiate with another potential buy from investment funds Ardian and Global Infrastructure Partners for its water and sewage ute arm. VEOEY said it would not tender the 29.9% stake in Suez it owns for the 20 euros offer, 15.8 bn overall. It paid 18 euros and is only willing to buy the rest at that price. French takeovers are confusing.

*EON SE (EONGY) of Germany is up 0.42% today. German utes are less political.

Drugs

*Roche gained 3.33% on news that its lung cancer phase III trial of Tecentriq met the endpoints. RHHBY is Swiss. Fellow Helvetian Novartis (NVS), gained 0.72% on an upgrade from Bernstein, to neutral.

*The Oxford-Astra Zeneca covid 19 jab is 79% effective according to the US CDC, and the price of AZN rose by 3.53% on the news, although some Nordic countries are still not letting people be immunized with it. The US is sending 27 mn doses to Mexico before the jab is rolled out in the USA.

*TEVA is up 3.93% today after rising in Tel Aviv over the weekend. It is not a SPAC but there are lots of them being created in Israel.

*Zymeworks (ZYME) rose 1.5% on no news.

*Compugen also rose in Tel Aviv, and CGEN is up 1.5%.

*Novo Nordisk gained 1.62% on news that it will test a new triple combo with 2 drugs from Gilead to treat non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis, a liver disease with semaglutide, NVO's diabetes drug.

*Japanese Takeda (TAK), gained 0.38% today and 1.9% this month. Eisai is down 0.5% today and more this month.

Industrials

*CRH of Ireland was given a bearish rating by investor's intelligence of Britain, as was Brit Johnson Matthey.

Tech & Tel

*A modest drop in interest rates was enough to boost the tech gang. Mercado Libre (MELI) gained 2% despite Mexican issues.

*Our new holding, Coupeng (CPNG) of South Korea, gained 0.3% along with the others.

*Cellphones need batteries and the makers are mixed, with VOD down but others up.