The big news is that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, AKA the Bank of England, the central bank, has not raised sterling interest rates as expected. That chopped the dollar value of a pound by 1.4% which means every UK stock we own has been reduced in value. Cheap money cheapens stocks. Meanwhile, US markets are up on better jobs growth reported for October today, 531,000 more making this a double whammy as our Fed begins to cut stimulus. That pushed dollar- and euro-denominated shares traded in London

There is always gold as a fallback, and happily, for me, Qualcomm, which is not a global pick of course although it was plugged by The European View, whoever he or she may be, again today. One of our Finnish company picks produced a beautiful result in PDF format that was unreadable so I had to got to the London Stock Exchange site which was full of news of stock sales by its brass.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

More below:

*The stock was Sampo Oyj which had a 30% rise y/y in pretax profits to euros 632 mn boosted by the sale of its shares in Nordea Bank. Net came in at euros 550 mn, up 33% y/y and not including underwriting which rose 42%. EPS was 93 euro cents up from 70 a year ago but was down including the proceeds for sale of Dutch fertilizer firm OCI to 1.01 euro cents from 1.1 last year. SAXPY.

*Latin Amazon clone Mercado Libre of Uruguay reports net sales of $1.9 bn up 72.9%. Payment volume for its Mercado Pago rose 59% to $2.09 bn (including shipping and financing fees) while merchandise volume was up 29.7% to $7.3 bn.b Mexico was the big gainer while9595 Argentina suffered a drop. Brazil while big was not as fast a grower. The quarterly service sales were $1.63 bn and product sales $227 mn. Gross profits fell to $807 mn and operating expenses hit $160 mn but helped by interest it charges and much lower taxes it produced net income of $95.225 mn, or $1.92/sh up a lot from last year's Q3 of 28 cents. The number of shares out is modestly lower to boot. MELI is up 4.11% boosted by a buy rating from Credit Suisse today.

*Novo Nordisk NVO fell 2.94% despite reporting beats late Weds. It earned 84 cents/ADR beating the Zacks consensus forecast of 80 cents and also last Q3 level of 69 cents. Sales also beat up 15% to $5.7 bn. It has risen 57.4% YTD. Earnings surprises in DKK were even better with the estimate 5.02 DKK but the number 5.27 DKK.

*The reaction to Roche's buyback 0f its shares owned by Novartis was negative as NVS fell 0.6% while RHHBY lost 2.1%.

*The triumph for Merck MRK when the UK bought its antivirus pill Molnupiravor was undermined when Pfizer PFE revealed that it has a pill too, called Paxlovid. I own both stocks which are USA firms.

*Bavarian Nordic will report a week from today BVNRY. It is also Danish but no NVO.

*Our newest share, Manulife Financial of Canada, MFC, today announced a supplementary dividend of 5 cents bringing the yearly total up18% higher than prior at and also a buyback of 39 mn of its shares or 2% to the total after Canada rolled back its prohibition of divvie hikes and buyback bids which was issued in March. It reported up earning Weds. Its share gained another 2.33% today and are up nearly 4% from our basis.

Funds

*Global REIT, Global Net Lease GNL reported Q3 revenue rose 15.8% to $95.8 mn and net income reverse from its half mn buck loss last year to a gain of $2.4 mn. Its purchases last year were for $380 mn including Walmart stores which are mostly in the USA. It net operating income was up 18.4% to $89 mn and its core funds from operations grew 27.4% to $44.1 mn, while adjusted funds per share hit 44 cents. It paid dividends of 40 cents to shareholders, or $403 mn. I continue to own and cover this stock because we tipped it before it became more US and Canada-oriented. They account for 60% of its rentals. It is also funded with preferreds. The managers were heavily invested in retail in France and the low countries at the start but panicked over recession and then Brexit. I still own my stake. It did manage to collect rent increases in 94% of its leases last year.

However, I am reconsidering after it bought Trafalgar Square, a mall and office block in Guernsey, a British tax haven. It is about 40% in European rentals, mostly in industrial and distribution, and 43% in offices. Retail is 5%,

*Qualcomm Inc which is my largest US holding is up even more than MFC this week, having gained 22%. QCOM.

*A big winner in London today was Schlumberger Ltd which is Dutch Antillean. SLB is up 1.65% here.