The markets are mixed today, something of a revenge for UK brokerage Guardian which at 4 am our time issued a bearish forecast for Wall Street. It then reversed this call as the consensus proved bullish. In fact, now only the Dow Jones is up, but barely, while the broader indexes are in the red. It has nothing to do with our careless president, by the way, but only relates to whether there will be another stimulus package and how big.

Meanwhile the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and most other Pentagon leaders are in quarantine after they were exposed to the Coronavirus. They were not directly exposed to Pres. Trump.

While this keeps US shares on the hop, there is good news from abroad.

Funds and Finance

*Standard Life Aberdeen (SLFPY) of Britain, fund manager and insurer, is up 5.5% on a share buyback plan extension.

*Canadian General Investment Fund, CGRIF in the USA, is up 6.1% after it published unaudited net asset value at the start of the new month at C$41.83, a year-to-date return of 15% and a 12-mo return of 23.7%, both with dividends reinvested. It handily beat its benchmark, the S&P/TSX Index. Moreover it trades at a whopping and persistent discount from NAV at C$26.53/share.

*Pimco Dynamic Income Fund, PDI, did a secondary issue raising $92.59 mn for 3 mn shares. Pimco also decided not to liquidate its Emerging Markets Currency and Short Term Investment funds after initially signaling it will do so. Pimco is majority-owned by German insurer Allianz whose sponsored ADRs (AZSEY) have been delisted. It now trades as ALIZY on the pink sheets and is up 1.12%.

*Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) was upgraded to buy by BofA (Merrill) with a target price of $68. That must be loonies. It is at US $42.41 but the new combo of TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab failed to tell us.

*Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior (BLX) rose another 2.24%.but was up 5% at the opening. It is a Panamanian multilateral trade finance combo of export-import bodies, banks, and stock investors.

*Even Spanish Banco Santander (SAN) is up today, by 5.37% and its SAN-B prefs up also.

*The first tanker to land at Cameron LNG after the last hurricane in Louisiana is the SK Audace whose owners include Mitsubishi and Mitsui, our new Japanese trading house stocks (Mitsui partners with Sumitomo.) But a new hurricane is coming. Read more below.

Security

*BAE Systems (BAESY) of Britain launched an artificial intelligence system for countering bank and insurance company exposure to cyber crime, which surveys it carried out are much wanted by the customers of financial services companies according to Atomia Research which surveyed them in the US, Britain, France, Germany, Australia, and Singapore. The new AI system will look for money laundering and human trafficking, the leading forms of cyber crime account to the survey. But it will also counter fraud, corruption, terrorism, serving criminal organizations, narcotics trade, trade in stolen goods, sexual exploitation, piracy, counterfeit currency, tax evasion, cyber crime, migrant smuggling, and insider trading and price manipulation. BAESY gained 0.23%.

*Nokia (NOK) will work with Finland's Tampere U to develop processors for a “system on a chip” for its 5G reefshark chip set security and quicker time to market. NOK is up 0.89% to $3.96 but hit $4 earlier.

*Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella told the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council today that small businesses like mine are particularly exposed to cyber-attacks. The ANNAPPL Atlanta based techies moving my corporate assets like my list and logo to AWS from Bluehost and demanding more money for giving me access counts as cyber fraud in my book but the problem is that I may have to pay more in legal fees that they are demanding. Without my list I can't even bill for renewals. More on security below.

Pharmaceuticals

*Glaxo (GSK) and VIR Biotech launched phase 3 trials of their Comet Ice 7831 covid-19 monoclonal antibody to Covid-19 and VIR shares rose 5.55% while GSK's fell 1.6%. The phase 2 trials showed that it was safe and well tolerated. Preliminary results may become available this year but a full result not until Jan. 2021. The trials are in North and South America, and Europe.

Both GSK and Astra-Zeneca (AZN) will use the powerful Nvidia computer in Cambridge, England to develop Covid-19 medicines. NVDA is making its SuperPOD system of Artificial Intelligence available after buying ARM, a Cambridge based cip market from Softbank of Japan for $40 bn.

*The EU approved Biogen and Samsung's biosimilar eye med to Lucentis from Novartis. NVS.

*Abhimanyu Sisodia reports from India that Dr Reddy's (RDY) will not be able to distribute the Russian covid-19 vaccine without having to meet demands for a phase III human trial from the regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization. Meanwhile 2 other Indian vaccines are in phase II there.

RDY, which Abhimanyu found for us, is down 1.7% today at $69.28, but still well ahead. It has momentum but is at a 49.33x p/e ratio.

*Compugen is up 451% from our basis buy level. CGEN is a rare riser today.

*Another is Eisai of Japan up 0.51%. It is up 115% from our basis. Its Korea sub will work with Seikagaku to market the latter's SI-613 to treat osteoarthritis in South Korea, Japan, and China. ESALY is focused on drugs for aging people. It will pay upfront and sales milestones (not revealed).

*Another is Zymeworks (ZYME) of Canada up 0.7%, a Martin Ferera pick.

Oil and Alternatives

*BP plc rose despite or because of the failure of Premier Oil to buy its North Sea fields for a reduced price of $210 mn (vs $650 earlier) after it merged with Chrysaor. BP also gains if there is another horrible hurricane in the US Gulf of Mexico leading to supply shortages. WTI is up 6%, best in 5 mos.

*Royal Dutch Shell B rose 1.23%.  RDS-B.

*Schlumberger Ltd rose 2.7% in European trading. SLB is up nearly 1% here.

*Algonquin Power (AQN) is up 0.13%. Writer Harry Geisel is buying it for his children but confining his own green investing to Atlantica Yield plc (AY) which produces really high dividends thanks to return of real capital (higher than earned dividends from depreciation). This is much more advantageous than return of capital in mutual funds. Our AQN now owns 44% of AY and may indirectly benefit. Attempting to find out by asking my accountant and a bond guy failed to produce a firm response.

*Veoneer (VNE) was rated hold in an initial report by Berenberg brokers. It is the electronic driver support spinoff from Swedish Autoliv (sold).

Making Mexico Great Again

*Grupo Bimbo (BMBOY), a global bakery giant, is building a new plant in Monterrey (Mexico) to bake for US buyers and another in Toluca to serve bakeries in Central and South America, reports Eduardo Garcia in Sentindocomun.co.mx with which we trade ideas. GRBMF here.

Gold

*Kirkland Lake Gold (KL) which was tipped by Merrill Lynch, was recommended by two people at The Money Show Online without crediting the analyst, by Gold Mining Bull and Doug Gerlach of Canada. Give credit where credit is due.