Today is a terrible Tuesday, with oodles of news to cover and reporting companies from our holdings. I am not discussing Fed head Jerome Powell's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.

But I will explain why our Brazilian top pick for 2021 crashed Monday. Cosan, CZZ, was the innocent by-stander when O Pres. Bolsonaro decided to fire the CEO of Petrobras, which led to a 21% drop in PBR's price and havoc in the bolsa (no relation to O Presidente). Today CZZ, a private company he cannot order around, regained 6.3% so far, hitting $20.01 briefly. It is still up 4.35% at $19.68.

The reason Tesla TSLA is falling in double digits is not that electric vehicles don't sell. Its stock price is now tracking the price of bitcoin. This is an argument for another electric vehicle stock we own which fell hard, NIO, down 8% to $46.64 today although it is paid in cash, not bitcoin. The cause is said to be higher interest rates. We sold 67% of our stake in NIO but I am sniffing around for another move in. It is now upgrading its battery recharging system in China, which keeping prices lower rivals.

Image Source: Unsplash

Please note that there will be no blog Friday and no charts over the weekend as I am going to Boston for the Bar-Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony) for my youngest grandchild, now 13. The charts from last weekend are now nullified by market falls. More now for paid subscribers including results:

*Scotiabank, BNS, today reported earnings and sales in C$s which beat for its Q1 2020-21. Its per share earnings hit $1.88 vs a consensus forecast of $1.56, and was up from the $1.45 from the final quarter of 2019-20 and from the prior Q1 of $1.80. Its adjusted revenues hit $8.07 bn beating the prior quarter level of $7.15 bn but below the prior Q1 (pre-covid) of $8.14 bn. For the quarter it created a $764 mn provision for loan losses, well down sequentially for the $1.13 bn level of Q4. It was also lower than the provisioning for Q1 2020-21 of C926 mn.

Net income was $2.4 bn up from $1.9 bn in the prior quarter, and up also from prior Q1 level of $2.33 bn, It fired on all 4 major segments, according to the conference call. Canadian banking income hit $915 mn up from prior quarter of $782 mn, back at pre-virus levels. International banking income hit $398 mn, up from prior quarter level of $353 mn. Global brokerage market income produced adjusted net of $543 mn vs prior quarter level of $460 mn, also up 20% from prior Q1. Global wealth management net was $425 mn up 34% y/y and well over the $333 bn in the prior quarter.

The net included 22 bp of gains from Canadian regulators allowing lower state 1 and 2 credit loss tier estimates. BNS shares in US dollars rose 3.06% to $59.03, putting its p/e ratio at about 13.5 and its yield at 4.93%, unchanged. More finance below.

*Norwegian Tomra Systems still is not being arbitraged, with its TMRAF at $44.16, down 0.2%, and its TMRAY up 1.68% at $44.27, but the gap is lower. It reported Q4 GAAP earnings of NOK2.12 per share, on revneues up 6.7% sequentially to NOK 2.74 bn. My attempt to get more details from my brokerage account got me the prior quarterly report for the F and Y shares with all sorts of warnings that earnings information is not available, I have no idea why. Bloomberg says it p/e ratio is 70 and its price to book ratio is 10.15x. It has gained 12.65% in NOK in the past year and yields 2.75%. I have no idea if this includes the news or not. Marketwatch, without providing any $ information, says it closed down 0.21% at KR 373.1/sh in Norway. Both sites are trying to get me to pay for subscriptions, but I cannot afford to do this with shares I actually own. My broker, TDAmeritrade, is broker still and supposedly gets Thomson-Reuters and Morningstar data.

Drug stocks

*Israeli BiolineRX (BLRX), a cancer specialist, reported on its 2020 and mostly discussed its stem cell mobilization data coming in the next quarter along with results from its pancreatic cancer trial for motixaforte also coming soon. After 2020 ended it raised $34.5 mn with a secondary offering and also dropped the “Battle” trial for its key drug. The share fell 5.8% at the opening and are now down 6.5% at $3.21. It had a full-year operating loss of $22.2 mn vs prior-year loss of $28.1 mn, but its non-operating loss was $5.7 mn up from $4.2 mn from warrants being exercised, while its financing expenses hit $1.5 mn, up from the 2019 level of $500,000, offset by interest BLRX earns on its cash.

*On no news, Glaxo is up fractionally but Astra-Zeneca is down 1%+. GSK, AZN.

*Swiss Novartis is down 1.4% on news that it is joining a COVID-19 vaccine push by Sanofi, Pfizer, and BioNTech which all have failed on go-it-alone jabs. NVS.

*Canadian Abcellera Biologics, ABCL, is down 7.63% on no news, a new 52-week low of $35.73.

*TEVA fell 2.54% today on now news, to $10.57. It is now the 4^th largest shareholding in Israel, down from its former prime.

*Aurinia Pharma reports on its 2020 tomorrow. AUPH stock fell 5.04% today, a bad omen.

*Israeli Compugen dropped 14.5% today to $10.11 after it said it will test Opdivo with its anti-PVRIG antibody together with Bristol Myers BMY. CGEN will report Thursday.

*Grifols of Spain is up a penny and every gain helps. GRFS.

*NovoCure fell 7.5%. NVCR.

*Takeda of Japan fell 1.8%. TAK.

*Canadian Zymeworks dropped 0.9%. ZYME.

Industrials and Energy

*Writing in seekingalpha, Gleb Krivsheev called Canadian Cameco likely winner of the new commodities cycle and the biggest uranium miner whose stock can be traded in America. CCJ.

*There is always a market for war. UK BAE Systems up 4.8% today and will report Feb. 25 UK time. BAESY.

*Schlumberger Ltd lost 2.51% today despite Jon Markman tipping SLB in a promotional ad.

*Royal Dutch Shell B shares gained 1.2% today after it was tipped by Zacks of Chicago and also rose in London. RDS-B.

*BP plc rose 2.25% to over $24 today. It was not tipped by Zacks.

*Algonquin AQN dropped another 14¢ to $16.32 (US) but has been both higher and lower today. Its holding, AY, Atlantica Sustainable Yield, fell 1.65%. but recovered most of it before I could buy more. I paid $35.8. Remember that you cannot sell these shares after collecting the dividend tax-free.

*Azure Power of Mauritius is up 1.73% today at $31.5, below our basis. AZRE.

*Canadian Solar which makes its material in China fell 4.4% today to $45.9. CSIQ.

*Eon.SA, the German electric ute, is up 1%. EONGY. Veolia, French water-waste ute, is up 1.05%. VEOEY.

*Johnson Matthey was hit by profit-taking and fell 2.25% today to $89.08, still well up. JMPLY refines and sells platinum group metals.

*Ormat, mostly sold, is off another 2.6%. Israeli-US ORA produces and stores geothermal energy.

Tech Wreck

*Cemex will use hydrogen to cut carbon escaping from its cement plants in Europe using a system developed in Spain, with targets for carbon reduction there by 2030 and elsewhere later. CX is Mexican and apparently clean cement is too expensive to sell there. CX won points from being green, up 1.67%.

*Argentine Mercado Libre is down 3.7% on worries about its biggest market, Brazil, discussed above. MELI.

*Prosus and Naspers are both trading below the NAV of their holdings, but this doesn't prevent further falls. PROSY is down 2.48% and NTDOY down 2.31%.

*Qualcomm, my accidental winner, is down 2.53% today. QCOM.

*TSEM, Tower Semiconductor, US-Israeli, is down 2.6% today but opened down even more. Chips are in short supply but they will not substitute totally for motor use from cellphones.

*LNG shipper Hoegh Partners LP 8.75% is up 0.35% despite Texas. HMLP was picked by Joe Shaefer.

Finance

*AIG Hong Kong, AAIGF, is up 5.47% today hitting $13.68 because Chinese insurance will become more profitable in 2021. It is now at 6% below its high.

*Banco Santander is up a nickel to $3.585. SAN.

*Swedish Investor (IVSBF) is up 0.4% today despite its stake in Q which is losing traction. Sampo Oij SAXPY of Finland is up 0.36% today. Both are investors in lots of stuff in their countries.

*Japan's Mitsubishi is off 1.76%, MSBHF, while Sumitomo is off 0.28%, SMFG, after Karreton wrote negatively on a 3^rd financial conglomerate we don't own, Mizuho. Berkshire Hathaway owns it.