To quote Burns, “The best-made plans of mice and men gang oft agly”. He left out chickens.

Yesterday we had daylight savings time (invented by Ben Franklin) and the marathon (invented by the Ancient Greeks). Tomorrow we have the mid-term election invented by the Founding Fathers who thought more turnover to keep the House of Representatives close to the electorate.

The Greeks and Ben created useful traditions; the 2-year House term has failed to generate enough interest among voters to stop partisan excess. The 2-year term clearly has gang agly.

After Goldman Sachs caused a stir last week by telling everyone to short oil, we now have Citigroup saying to short gold. It has broken under its “support levels” is the argument used by macro strategist Jeremy Hale.

The gold price drop is more a temporary result of the stratospheric rise of the dollar against other currencies rather than a lack of appeal from the yellow metal. But as I warned last week, I have no idea when this will reverse. Gold stopped falling like a stone today, down only 0.1% so far after it broke through the key $1200/oz. 

Which brings me to today's blog which shows some potential Greco-Franklin successes and also some reversals. Chickens are coming home to roost and other chickens are running across the road. Our diverse portfolio offers a balance between hot and cold running chickens. More for you from Brazil, Colombia, Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, China, Norway, Britain, Canada, Israel, Switzerland, and Britain.

Uppers

*Franco-Dutch Gemalto is recovering from the Apple-Pay threat and the downrating by Credit Suisse last week to underperform. I am up on my last purchase but not on my original one when Harry Geisel first tipped the maker of contact-less digital security systems and services for smart cards and tokens, plus currencies and official documents. GTOMY last week launched with Swiss security firm Limmex a pilot program of mobile watches to be used in emergencies to contact Swisscom, their telco. It will eventually be offered worldwide to keep track of children, VIPs, and the old or sick who may need rapid help.

There are many other payment alternatives to Apple-Pay including good old GoogleWallet. The battle against Apple-Pay is being led by multi-chain MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange) which runs touchless CurrentC, the preferred system for all drugstores in NYC which is why I got the courage to buy more GTOMY.

*Nokia is back in up-mode on realization that Euro-land telecoms will have to invest in cellphone exchanges as the regulators move away from an excessive focus on competition and toward improving service. We are well ahead here.

*Another telecom gamble, Portugal Telecom SGPS, is bouncy after the long-rumored offer to its controlling shareholder, Oi of Brazil, came in from Luxembourg's Altice. Its Patrick Drahi offered euros 7.025 bn ($8.8 bn) excluding any claims on Rioforte (which owes PT euros 897 mn, itself of Luxembourg, but now a part of the bankruptcy of Portugal's Espirito Santo), Oi shares, or PT's African holdings. I expect another bidder. We are down a lot still because so far Oi is up 2x as fast as PT on the bid with PT only rising in tandem with its stake in Oi.

Altice owns Cabovisão and Oni in Portugal and is building out his network with a series of buys around Europe, similar to what recently sold Liberty Media (John Malone) is up to. I's rather own the target than the taker but at least M. Drahi has the debt and share funding already in place.

*Teva is up on being rated outperform (from neutral) by RBC Capital Mgm in Canada, with a target price of $68, ~20% over where it is now.

*Up too: Israeli Compugen, as was predictable after its selloff Friday, reversed by Israeli markets Sun.

*Ecopetrol rose on the renewed focus on hanky-panky by Petrobras, the prospects for Mexican liberalization of oil production, and the desperate Argentinian efforts to get oil companies to explore its Vaca Muerta shale fields. You want to have a Latin American company with a free markets approach, and EC is the only one left standing. PBR's auditors refused to sign off on its accounts unless the politically connected CFO is removed.

Downers

*The PBR scandal coming after the reelection of Dilma Rousseff hurts the Brazilian real and therefore also pushes down the ADRs of Brazilian stocks like Vale. It reported $1.44 bn in Q3 last week because of forex losses on its bond debt (result of being Brazilian), plus delays on its big new cheap Carajas iron ore mine. The latter may be temporary, but being Brazilian (and owing dollar debt) is organic to VALE. It probably will sell assets, like its politically-motivated Brazilian fertilizer and phosphate assets and its nickel and aluminum ones in Canada, my opinion after the conference call. Vale wants to keep its Mozambique coal mines out of solidarity with emerging markets speaking Portuguese, for now.

*Cosan is also down. CZZ. More on exiting Brazil below.

*Online and mobile phone betting should boost Paddy Power plc, writes brokerage Daniel Stewart from London in a monthly examination of “leisure stocks”, mostly bookies. Like me it expects the Irish firm to penetrate the US following its successful launch in Australia. Despite its relativelyhigh p/e ratio (19x forward) “it has the scale, firepower, and regulatory profit to keep growing in regulated markets”. It also should gain from British bookies trying to roll back excessive UK regulation of betting shops. It is favored over Ladbrokes. PDYPF is down 3.4% in trading today at euros 56.20. Today rivals Bwin Party and Betfair both rose sharply in London.

*CRH is down again on fears of a Republican sweep boosting US budget-balances to stop needed US investment in infrastructure, along with poor results from a rival cement works stock. The Irish firm is a major player in US aggregates used in construction. Frankly I don't think Republicans will stick with austerity for long.

Do They Just Yodel?

*The Belgian launch of a new Sandoz erectile dysfunction drug by Apricus Bioscience wound up hurting its parent, Novartis. Isn't this how Swiss amuse themselves in their Alpine chalets in winter? Or do they only yodel? Belgium follows Germany and Sweden where Vytaros was launched earlier. It will also be sold in France, Italy, and Spain. In Britain Apricus's partner is Takeda of Japan.

NVS also had Genmab's ofatumumab transferred to it from GlaxoSmithKline as the two majors shift assets between them, with NVS taking cancer. Genmab is Danish.

*Other biotech startups are both up and down on this and news that Bristol-Myers Squibb is buying Denmark's Galecto Biotech A/B rather than one of ours; but the impact of all these Danish events was positive for fellow Dane Bavarian Nordic which is also up because it works on an Ebola vaccine.

*Lots of Brazilians were tendering shares in Santander Brasil leading bidder Santander to snatch over 88% of the shares out. To pay for them SAN will issue 3% more of its own shares, so great is the disparity in valuation.

Tomorrow Chairperson Ana Patricia Botin will present the quarterly results of SAN for the first time after the death of her father. SAN is off today on fear she will goof and fear of Brazil.

*Credit Suisse upped Zurich Insurance which reports Thursday to outperform. They may know something. The consensus is that ZURVY will report lower earnings and a lower combined ratio.

Back to Pimco; Beating Yale

*Pimco hired back Marc Seidner who quit along with Mohammed El-Erian earlier this year. However, parent Allianz Versicherung still falls. AZSEY was recently tipped by Gen. Joe Shaefer (USAF-ret) with whom I trade ideas. Seidner, who also worked with El-Erian at Harvard Endowment, will focus on non-traditional strategies and portfolio management from New York City. He is a third returnee after the departure of Bill Gross who will add to Pimco's eventual recovery. Mr. Seidner's legacy at the Harvard Endowment is the only part that beat Yale in the last FY.

Neiges d'antan

*However, Joe opted to buy back into Petroleum Geo-Services of Norway today, PGSVY, an ADR we owned decades ago, rather than Anton Oilservices, probably on geopolitical grounds (Joe loves Norway, a NATO member where he served). Both seismic data firms are at historic lows. ATONY.

*British brokerage Daniel Stewart reiterated its tallies on China ChainTek which it says trades at 1.5x earnings this year and next, and yields 5.2% with its cash divvie and 10.3% if you take shares (scrip) instead. It trades as CTEK on the London AIM but cannot be tracked with a US discount brokerage account any longer, why we dropped coverage. DS is the nominated advisor to CTEK. (I own it and so do some readers.)

*It also reported on Naibu, maker of sportswear and shoes, for which it is also Noma. NBU had to omit its dividend this year because of problems with getting permits for its new plant which required it to outsource shoe production. But NBU-AIM still trades at a tempting p/e level, of 0.5x earnings. It aims at 18-35-yr-old Chinese, selling via independent distributors, which reduces return risk.

Fund Notes

*We bought more SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) last week.

*As dollar-based investors who go global, we continue to own three ETFs playing on the dollar's strength: Powershares DBUS$ Bull (UUP); ProShares Ultrashort Yen (YCS); and Canadian listed Horizon US$, DLR-Toronto. These are intended to protect against the downward move of currencies in foreign lands. But in fact most of our buys are in foreign multinational corporations whose earnings are dollare-denominated to a greater or lesser extend in any case. More on other funds below.

*Ironsides Partners LLC confirms that there will shortly be an updated quarterly estimate of Net Asset Value by Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF here and AOF in London. The privately-owned investment manager from Boston (Mass.) is headed by Robert Knapp, a key AOF shareholder.