It turns out that Paris has suffered an all-time high influx of American tourists this month, according to official statistics, because what better place to visit? Our family contribution was a total of 7 visitors in August, which my husband and I are part of. I think that is a historic high for our clan. In 2017, for which the World Tourist Organization has just published data, France was no. 1 in luring in foreign tourists, who numbered $86.9 million.

Canada is desperately trying to get a rewrite of the don't-call-it-NAFTA deal with Mexico and the enthusiasm over this partial renewal is eroding fast because Congressional skepticism is rising while international auto-makers are trying to work out a solution for their own supply chains. Trump is proving to be a loose cannon in trade talks, but at least he has been distracted by more suicidal moves against China. So in pre-opening trading, the US$ is down again. And Canadian stocks are still in the doghouse, however, well they are doing in fact. Foreign Minister Chrysta Freeland has been given until Friday to strike a deal.

And the President's latest attacks on Google search provider Alphabet has taken down its shares. He also added Facebook and Twitter to those allegedly “blocking conservative media”. T Alphabet stock lost 4.27% after it was named in the initial attack by Pres. Trump. I wonder if he or his advisors sold short.

Trump followed up with a warning that Evangelicals should rally to his side in the midterm elections lest “violent people” (meaning Democrats) win and attack Freedom of Speech and of Religion. He calls this “a very serious situation”. I think it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Banksters

*A revelation by the London Times is that a Royal Bank of Scotland executive in charge of restructuring loans to small and mid-sized businesses after the government takeover in 2008 featured better terms for these borrowers, in fact, did something else. He took bribes from squeezed smaller firms in return for easing their funding terms. Then he left the bank with a payoff, according to the newspaper. Separately, RBS named its former deputy CFO, Katie Murray, as its new CFO.

*Because Canada is under a cloud, my upbeat write-up of the Q3 Bank of Nova Scotia results was wrong. The market chopped BNS shares by 1.7% despite its beating the consensus forecast of eps by a loony penny with C$1.76 in eps, focusing on declining revenues which really resulted from M&A activity in Q3.

*Britain's Standard Chartered Bank faces another fine for breaching Iran sanctions. It already was penalized once. There is no link between it and Standard Life Aberdeen, SLFPY, the asset management firm whose shares we own. More fund news below.

Healthy Shares

*The Financial Times ran a feature on the Salford Lung Study which tracked patient health in real time to improve outcomes of chronic obstructive lung disease in the area around Manchester, where it is very high because of pollution and genetics. The study funded by GlaxoSmithKline in a £80 mn “gamble” proved that outcomes for people with multiple health problems were better and sales also improved for the drug-maker, by taking a holistic view of COPD health. The initial reaction of the Manchester National Health Service was suspicion of the drug industry, but the trial proved that electronic tracking works. In fact, the NHS was doing the tracking, not the drug company which only got access to consolidated data.

*Yesterday, Novartis has begun delivery of Tafinlar-Mekinist combination drugs for treating unresectable or metastatic melanoma with the BRAF, V600E, or V600K mutations. The European Union approved this drug.

*Mazor Robotics makes assist systems for neurological and brain surgery. Analysts don't agree on its outlook. ValuEngine downed MZOR to a hold from a buy this week. Zachs raised it to hold from sell. And Thomson Reuters cut it to sell from hold.

Industry

*CRH plc has initiated the second phase of its euros 1 bn share buyback program approved by shareholders in the Irish cement firm in April. This time the operation will be handled by the London branch of UBS for euros 350 mn, after the direct buyback ended. CRH is HQ'd in Ireland but until Brexit hits its main trading is done on the London Stock Exchange. The shares will be bought in either London or Dublin, but apparently, there will be no UBS buying of ADRs. They will nonetheless rise in price from the beaten-down level CRH wants to end because of arbitrage. It makes cement and aggregates mostly in the USA.

*Johnson Matthey was upgraded to bull by UK investorrsintelligence.com chartists and it promptly rose another 75 pence. JMPLY is the ADR of the UK refiner and deals in precious metals, rose yesterday.

*FMC Corp is preparing an NY listing of Livent, its lithium mine at Hombre Muerto in Argentina, hoping to raise $100 mn in an IPO by BofA-Merrill, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse. Only 20% of Livent is being sold with the rest retained. It faces competition from Ganfeng and Tianqi, both planning to do offerings in Hong Kong. FMC is stressing that its lithium is used to make lithium hydroxide rather than lithium chloride, for which there is greater demand. But the two lines are not exclusive and our beaten-down Sociedad Quimica y Minera, off 27% year to date, makes both.

*Israeli Tower Semiconductor was upgraded to buy from hold by Standpoint Research. TSEM closed at $21.78. It is able to supply China from its Japanese and Israeli fabs.

Funds

*Swedish Investor whose shares we as a Scandinavian proxy, will help fund the purchase by Atlas Copco of Brooks Automation's US cryogenics arm for $675 mn to boost its vacuum technology edge.

*Our Korea Fund should gain from the new liberal Seoul government decision to replace the export push which is losing steam with domestic stimulus measures. It also is gaining from the bullish tone of the Seoul stock exchange which has gone up more this month than before 2008. The government wants to hire more people for jobs with the post office and the police and increase social welfare and education spending. It only Germany, another surplus earner, would follow suit.

Also boosting South Korea is the fact that the US will continue running war games there because North Korea has not met promises of nuclear cutbacks. Yet the KF share lost 0.35% yesterday.

*The merger of the trio of Advent Claymore funds was completed Aug. 27. As a result of the plan to do this, we exited the global version of its convertible bond and stocks closed-end fund, ACG despite good performance because it had exited our market niche.