Image Source: Pixabay

First off apologies. The Ericsson bribes were paid to ISIS for access to Iraq, not Iran as I wrote in error yesterday. ERIC stock lost another 5.27% today in US markets.

Chow

*Nutrien earnings $2.47 in the last quarter and its stock gained nearly 3%. NTR.is buoyant.

Drugs

*Alkermes ALK of Ireland today presented data on its nemvaleukin alpha interleukin-2 intravenous immunotherapy at the American Society of Clinical Oncology genitourinary cancers symposium and suggested that it would work well with checkpoint inhibitors used later as well as in pre-treatment (in the trial). Its outlook was lowered by Exelixis to 0.122 from 0.162 but Irish punters bought all the same. Maybe they know better than distant analysts.  Craig Hopkinson, M.D. its chief medical officer, said:"Together with the objective responses previously reported in the melanoma cohort of this study, these data in renal cell carcinoma show nemvaleukin's monotherapy activity in two tumor types where high-dose IL-2 is approved, thus validating its novel molecular design."

*Enlivex fell another 4.65% today. ENLV.

*TEVA fell 0.009% today in US markets and tomorrow it will not trade in Israel.

*VIR was upgraded to buy with a target price of $3.04, up from $2.61, and hold. 

Tech

*IBM was given a lower eps forecast for the current quarter, of $1.39 vs $1.40. Every penny counts. Last year it spun off Kyndryl Holdings and earned $7.2 bnor $7.73/sh on revenues up 4%. It will not do so well this year but its Q4 data was very strong and beat consensus handily. 

*Vodafone finally fell back over its refusal to sell its Italian arm to the Iliad of France. VOD.

Finance

*SPDR Gold Trust GLD was tipped as a discounted play for the yellow metal on seeking alpha by Jason Capul and rose 1.2%. We have owned for years.

*Japanese Mitsubishi MUFG gained 5.91% today whereas its archrival Sumitomo SMFG fell 1.32%. 

*Jefferies tipped KeyCorp KEY, a smallish US bank we own.

*Barclays and Amazon created a new combo to allow delayed payments in Britain on products costing more that GBX 100 bought on-line.

*Agnico Eagle of Oz gained 4.18% after Tudor Fund managers said they dropped the AEM stock from their buy list. 

*Organon's target price was upped to $1.24 from 1.23. It specializes in women's health drugs. OGN.

*Germany's Commerzbank fell 1.8% after reporting neat earnings of euros 421 mn but also that its Comdirect brokerage business faces delays in integration. CRZBY.

Duel over fuel

*Albemarle ALB last quarter gained 2% and lost only $3.8 mn or 3 cents/sh. Its adjusted EBITDA rose 3% to $229 mn. It has high estimates for its lithium and bromine sales this year, tipped at rising 35-55%. It expects sales of 4.2 to 4.5 billing this year and eps of $5.65 to 6.55.  

*NIO rose 2.26% on hopes of more sales of electric vehicles. It sometimes tracks Tesla and sometimes doesn't.

*Brazilian Cosan is limping but pays out 2.5% per year. CSAN.

Canada

*Our Canada holdings are heavily financial because it is easier to comparison shop there. We like Manulife Financial and Scotiabank, which are very conservative picks. 

*We also tip BCE, a ute, with cross-border business in the USA.