Gold is flat on its back again, with no rise since the start of the year at $1115/oz. Oil meanwhile has gushed in price to $48.18/bbl, up nearly 4.5% just in time for a colder weather.
And Pres. Xi Jinping of China now expects that it can meet its 5-yr plan goals by growing only 6.5% which will still achieve Gross National Production in 2020 double that of 2010.
Having spent the morning learning about a major R&D plans at one of my long-term drug stock favorites, I summarized only the big macro news before setting to work writing up the drug stock later. It is British GlaxoSmithKline.
Meanwhile we have news from Britain, India, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Jordan, Brazil, and South Korea, mostly about drug companies.
Cars, Aggregates, Fuel
*Our Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) boosted US Oct. light vehicle sales by 15% y/y to 196,000. Best-seller was Jeep, a light vehicle. FCAU beat the overall rise for US light vehicles which was only 13.6%. However in pickup trucks, FCAU sales were up only 3% vs 10% at GM and 3.3% at market leader Ford. FCAU is controlled by an Italian family, the descendents of the Agnellis, but incorporated in Luxembourg,
*UK Investors Intelligence on Tuesday rated CRH of Ireland as its best bull pick after it found support, but the share fell modestly on Tuesday in US markets. We trade with II.
*We may have sold Tata Motors (TTM) too soon. Its share was rated outperformed on Tuesday by Sanford Bernstein with a $34.50 target price. TTM was a victim of China’s crackdown on corruption which hit its sales of Jaguars.
*Brazilian Cosan (CZZ) juggled its subs’ heads which mysteriously boosted its stock price. All the newbies were promoted internally at Raizen and Comgas. CZZ is up 3.3% on this news.
*With oil prices rising, Schlumberger (SLB) is in a bull phase, as the healthiest stock in the oil patch.
Drugs
*GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) refused a takeover bid from Pfizer after a smaller UK drug firm Astra-Zeneca did so too. So Allergan is only a 3rd choice for PFE. However, unlike a UK takeover, an Irish one provide a tax inversion advantage—and political risk. Source: The Financial Times. Nobody at the GSK R&D confab starting with CEO Sir Andrew Witty on Tuesday confirmed that an offer has been made and rejected. PFE tried to buy both AZN and GSK for shares rather than cash, the UK pink newspaper said, one reason it got nowhere. Witty probably wanted to show what he could do before accepting a bid for GSK which has a market value of about £68 bn (roughly $105 bn now, but possibly some other amount when the bid was discussed, if it was).
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