The assault against my website continues, now led by a person calling him- or herself Jollyroger.com, the flag of pirates. I think that this is to intimidate my independence rather than to lure me into clicking into its site and may also be what the porn outfits are after. I have alerted my web hosts to the issue but they are not exactly speedy in reacting. I am being besieged by spam phone calls offering me everything from cheap credit to triple tax-free bonds, delaying my blogs.

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Harvey Katz writes in today's Value Line:

“The most likely scenario is that the recent market gains can be sustained, but that future progress from these elevated levels might be a struggle—at least until some of the economy's promise is realized.

“It's hard to fight the tape. So with the market still strong for the most part and vaccines on the way, investors should remain committed to stocks, but also to be careful.” That sounds about right.

Unusually for Dec., there are several toppy new stock issues coming, like Tesla, rated underweight by JP Morgan a day after hitting a new high. TSLA now plans to sell a further 7.8 mn shares at $642 each, raising $5 bn, once added to the DowJones at the money (at the trading price), a 3rd offer this calendar year as it rose 6-fold. Meanwhile, Tesla's plan to build a huge car plant in Gruenheide (Eng: Green Heath) in Brandenburg, East Germany, was hit by environmental restrictions, Green Heath being a snake conservancy. Snakes are more important than green cars. Things are easier in Texas to which Elon Musk is moving from Silicon Valley where you don't need to know German.

Moderna MRNA, the partner of Pfizer PFE in corona-virus jabs, was downgraded by Needham analysts from buy to hold, down 2 levels, at $163.72 today.

Kepler chopped Ferrari (RACE, sold) as a hold from buy. We sold ages ago but for less.

Doordash DASH, today's IPO, was featured on a BBC website ad this morning. It is illegal to advertise new stock issues in the USA. The Beeb writes in English and is widely read on our side of the pond. I wonder if anyone at the SEC will notice? It came out at $102/share, a bubble level. It is now trading at $182, beyond the bubble.

Zoom ZM was downgraded to hold from outperform by Citibank today.

Tomorrow's new issue will be similarly buoyant, as Airbnb will price its offering at above the $56-60/sh forecast, writes the Wall Street Journal. It was rated buy today by Gordon Haskett, a little known brokerage, with a $77 target price.

Merrill-Lynch was fined $60 mn for failing to spot that a broker in New Hampshire was “churning” an individual client's account to boost his return. Blue Crest Capital (Mike Platt's firm) was fined $170 mn by the SEC for favoring its top managers for its internal fund over its public one.

The People's Republic of China, while failing to back state-sector car and coal firms on their bond defaults in local markets, gave a reprieve to private sector Tianqi Lithium (listed in Shenzhen) which grossly overpaid for a quarter stake in SoQuiMich two years ago. We owned shares in Chilean SQM but sold once it went Chinese. Now Tianqi is being bailed out by state banks because China needs lithium more than money. This has led UK chartists investorsintelligence.com to put a short on all China stocks.

Now for our portfolio news:

Drugs

*Zacks of Chicago rated both bonus stock Qualcomm (QCOM) and Danish ADR Novo Nordisk as buys today. NVO is up 2.54% in reaction during a lousy stock day. We own QCOM for its Israeli startup holdings, It fell 1.25% today.

*Swiss Roche RHHBY rose 0.37% because trials for the Moderna vaccine will add its antibody tests to look for hidden reactions. I am a believer in antibodies Moderna fell 12.68% on the news. The partner of Pfizer in corona-virus jabs was downgraded by Needham analysts from buy to hold, down 2 levels, at $163.72 before the opening, and is now $148.31. Our Spanish Grifols, GRFS, which specializes in antibodies, fell 0.32%, not a panic sell-off.

*Compugen of Israel CGEN, too big for QCOM, rose 1.16% to $13.23, today's best performer and a rare riser.

*Thermo Electron, TMO, my largest holding, was zapped 2.21% in the sell-off.

*Beigene BGNE, despite important deals as the partner of choice in China for western trials, is down 2.1%.

*Even Pfizer fell 2.2% today despite inoculations begun in Britain, perhaps because of a warning that some people with severe allergies reacted badly to being given the covid-19 vaccine, William Shakespeare not among them. It was approved for vaccination by Canada.

*British Glaxo rose a couple of pennies in the hope that the British and the EU craft a deal while Boris Johnson is in Brussels. GSK earns foreign currency not sterling.

*Teva, which topped $11 yesterday dropped 3.65% to $10.64/. My theory is that TEVA bulls are right.

Miners

*Kirkland Lake Gold KL stock price has fallen because it is raising $45 mn by selling warrants on its own stock and that of sub Novo Resources, to raise money. Today gold also fell by after 3 days of risers as the world is allegedly using bitcoin in place of traditional gold. KL dropped 1.94%.

*Chilean Antofagasta managed a tiny gain today in a downtrending market. ANFGF mines copper.

*British Johnson-Matthey, JMPLY, which operates in the platinum group, is up 0.7%.

Financials

*AAIGF, AIG Group Asia (Hong Kong) shares rose 3.21% today. The insurer operates all over the Pacific Rim and is, therefore, a quick way out of Hong Kong.

*Standard Life Aberdeen, insurer and fund manager, SLFPY, is up 4.06% mainly because it earns $s.

*Mitsubishi is up, and Sumitomo is down. I think the Japanese are switching from SMFG to MSBHF to try to trap Warren Buffett into switching too.

Energy

*Atlantica Yield, the big dividend payer which partly owns Canada Ute Algonquin, fell 5.1% after AQN fell 0.49%. AY of Britain was written up by Harry Geisel because of a return of capital tax break, which may not survive the new administration here for US shareholders.

*With Indian farmers rioting, the supplier of solar panels to the country from Mauritius crashed. Azure Power, AZRE, fell 4.5%.

*NIO, the Chinese electric car-maker, fell 3.1% today in reaction to Tesla's selling stock.TSLA fell 6.8% so we are ahead. I sold another third of my Nio position late last month. JP Morgan wrote that Tesla's valuation is “difficult to conceive in any imagined scenario.” It got chopped to underweight by analyst Ryan Brinkman who is sticking with its rating but raising the price target to $90. Tesla closed at $649.88 Tuesday. It is $597 today.

*The Usual Suspects, BP plc and Schlumberger Ltd SLB rose today. But Royal Dutch Shell B RDS-B shares, confronting a riot by its green staffers for moving too slowly now hitting all the newspapers (which I reported on yesterday) fell back 0.8%. Oil prices are up again and the majors are also.

*Israeli-American Ormat is down 4.65%, a bad show for thermal energy. ORA.

*Energy Fuels UUUU of Canada fell the most of anything I own, down 12.58%. It found a way to mine rare earths in Utah uranium mines and I think this has strategic importance, but Mr. Market disagrees. So do analysts at Wainwright and Roth Capital.

Tech & Tel

*Prosus, the Dutch spinoff from Naspers, was rated buy today by ING Group, at $22.34. PROSY.

*Of all oldies I own, AT&T jumped over 2% today because it is selling its DirecTV by auction. It yields 6.75%. It presented at Barclays Global Media today. My CFA son keeps telling me to sell T.

*GE, rising because of its aviation arm, is another golden oldie.

*Trip.com fell ~0.9%. China banned US travel booker Tripadvisor. TCOM is linked to Tripadvisor which spun it out. We bought on the hope that the Chinese will start traveling abroad again and because of brokerage upgrades. Beijing is cutting off its nose to spite its face.