Stock Market Surprise Day

My end of the year 2020 report on our performance can best be viewed at TalkMarkets here and here.

Mexican president AMLO approved a 50-year bond to be issued in Taiwan by his country at interest of 3.75% and also offered refuge to Julian Assange.

Today was a day of surprises in the stock market after the decision by the NYSE not to delist three Chinese telcos after all. They were due to cease trading on the Big Board on Jan.11 under a presidential order, and this led to a sell-off yesterday with each of the trio down about 5%. Later on Monday the NYSE announced that it reversing its decision to drop the 3 telcos for being controlled by China's military and they soared. China Telecom (CHA) and China Mobile (CHL) each gained 9% before the open today and China Unicom (CHU) Hong Kong rose 12%. They did even better in the OTC market to which investors had switched after the initial delisting. We own none of these outfits having sold CMO 2 years ago. China duly rose a new high from levels last hit in 2008.

Business newspaper article

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Drugs

However, we had a happy surprise also on Monday, which occurred right after the close of US trading.

*AbCellera was widely upgraded by analysts 4 weeks after its IPO on Dec. 11 which when we bought the stock at a very high price because it develops antibody therapy, a way of fighting diseases I happen to favor. believe in. I did not buy because Peter Thiel is on the board. Yesterday after the close, when the quiet period for underwriters of the IPO expired, ABCL was rated outperform by BMO with a US $48 target price; by Crédit Suisse with a $52 TP; by Berenberg with a TP of $53; and by SVB Leerink with a TP of $45. Stifel Nicolaus went further, raing ABCL a buy with a target price of $59. ABCL rose in the aftermarket to $40, which still produced a loss for me, but a lesser one than before when it was at half its ipo price. Today it is at $39.36 ask and $39.02 bid. I'm hanging in there.

*Israeli Enlivex Therapeutics was another recent pick by your editor, and ENLV also was heavily oversold. It rose 1.65% at the close of Monday to $9.88 and is down only about 1% today. Never predict, particularly not about the future, to quote Yogi Berra.

*French Sanofi picked Natural Killer from Innate Pharma SA, IPHA, as its first anti-tumor durg under their collabration which will trigger a euros 7 mn milestone. It is bispecific like our Zymeworks cancer drugs. ZYME is Canadian and gained 0.3% on the news.

*Danish Novo Nordisk NVO also got to pick a product to work on under its late 2019 Decena development deal and it picked a liver disease hope GalXcRNAi (for investigative) triggering a $2.5mn milestone.

*Israeli TEVA is upwardly mobile again, up ~2%. Compugen gained 1.72% hitting $12.54. CGEN then fell 1.72%. Teva held its gain.

*NovaCure rose 1.6% after I bought more yesterday and briefly topped $165 after NVCR was given an “unattractive” rating on price to book by New Constructs Robo-Analyst Research yesterday. It also got a buy rating from TheStreet and MarketEdge yesterday. Take your pick. Robots don't own shares. It is up 1.25% now because of those pesky humans.

*Beigene gained 4.04% on better prospects for China-linked companies. BGNE.

Extraction and Energy

Saudi Arabia and Russia reached a compromise on the output which boosted oil's price to over $50 again after nearly a year down.

*The recovery king is Canadian Energy Fuels, up 14.28% on the Amex where it trades as UUUU. It mines uranium and is expanding its extraction of associated rare earths both from its own ore and that of other gold miners, who will get back their ore but not their rare earths.

*Royal Dutch Shell B RDS-B shares gained 7.2% today and BP plc 7.5%. They are among the few global companies Britons can still buy in London after everything moved to the EU yesterday.

*Schlumberger Ltd SLB is up 6.8% aujourd'hui. Dutch Antilles SLB is controlled by a French family.

*Cameco up 7.5%. The only news I can find is that CCJ's former engineer-CFA Chris Haubrich is becoming vp of Pure Gold Mining, another Canadian firm.

*Azure Power Global AZRE of Mauritius is up 8.6% on hopes that it will succeed in getting Indian state industry solar firms to commit to projects. One reason is that an iPhone factory and telecom masts owned by Modi mogul pal Reliance are being attacked by striking farmers and their supporters.

*In a 3rd deal with the independent power firm BluEarth RenwableCanadian Solar sold its Hayes and Jenner solar energy sites which are part-owned by Concklin Métis Canadian indigenous tribes. They are licensing CSIQ bifacial modules and single Axis trackers. CSIQ was downgraded to hold from buy and given a TP of $48 by Goldman Sachs. It is down 3.75%, our worst performer at midday.

Then in the afternoon, it recuperated some of its loss. It tracked First Solar which Goldman rated sell.

*Seekingalpha writer Alex Schiller tipped EON SE, EONGY and it duly rose. Then it fell 2.5%.

Tech & Tel

*Tower Semiconductor, a maker of chips owned by Israelis but listed here, is up 2.63% today on confusion over what China will be allowed to input into its telephone systersm TSEM.

*Building on its new access to EC and US content via discovery+, British Vodafone, VOD, is up 1.6% more.

*Nokia NOK gained 3.21% in today's trading. Ericsson ERIC gained 1.16%.

*Mercado Libre MELI is lower after the market cheered its inaugural debt issue yesterday but then learned that no details were being released on its size or terms. That may work in Argentina but not in other countries. It won a negative writeup on seekingalpha from Alexander S Poulos. It opened up 1.8%.

*Qualcomm which makes chips is up 2.07% to $151.59. QCOM was rated buy by an analyst after it named a new CEO. It is unclear if it supplies chips to the newly accepted Chinese carriers.

Flying

*Part maker GE is up on news that Lockheed will be selling the US Dept of Defense $4.9 bn worth of geosynchronous satellites for Space Force. They will warn against ballistic or tactical missile launches all over the globe.

*BAE Systems BAESY may have been left out being British but it rose 2.29% as it landed a rapid respnse contract from the US Navy for countermeasure systems. The Pentagon has no favorites.

*Canada's CAE Inc is up 1.9% today. The share, tipped by Patti the Biotech Maven, is a pilot training operation diversifying into training flight crews and civil aviation digital control training, for which it bought Merlot Aero Ltd for $25 mn us plus earnouts.

Cement and concrete

*Cemex of Mexico is up 2.22% on price rigging admissions by US rival Argos, maker of Ready-Mix Concrete. CXCRH of Ireland is up ~2% as well.

Money and Funds

*Banco Santander SAN is up another 2.65% today on chair Ana Botin's challenge to regulators.

*Banco Latino-Americano de Comercio Exteieur gianed 0.4%. BLX is a multilateral Panama bank operating in US$s, the currency of Panama.

*Taiwan Fund is up another 3.53% today. TWN is my anti-China pick.

*Japanese bank holding companies Mitsubishi, MSBHF, and Sumitomo, SMFG, are up 0.43% and 0.9% respectively.

*New Ireland IRL gained 0.28%.

*Hong Kong's AIA Group, AAIGF, is up 0.5% on the NYSE reversal. But Hang Seng Bank, the keeper of the HK index and a sub of HSBC plc of Britain, lost 2%.

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William K. 3 years ago Member's comment

Thanks for an interesting and educational article.