There is not much joy in Mudville for Martin Luther King Day, at least not if you are updating your portfolios. Note that while Asia and the Middle East were in the red yesterday, there was some upbeat movement in European market without the heavyweight US presence pulling stocks down. This may be a fluke.

The main reason GSK remains a buy despite the erosion of its price is that its insiders, led by CEO Sir Andrew Witty, are loading up on the stock. Insiders sell for many reasons but they buy for only one: they know something that will make them money.

Enthusiasm for lithium is expressed by this week’s Economist. Our current play on the metal used for making batteries is Orocobre, the Australian small cap investing in a deposit in Argentina, which was part funded by Toyota (TM). It is performing well Down Under but unfortunately its ADR is dormant so it is pretty hard to tell.

I think the house-cleaning at Sociedade Quimica y Minera de Chile or SQM has now gone far enough to satisfy institutional investors worried about how its former management under Patricio Contesse engaged in what ammounted to improper payments. This was the finding of a report published last Dec. 15 by the law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP on behalf of the SQM board. While the fired Mr Contesse did not cooperate with the investigation and while relatives of the former Chilean dictator Pinochet still own chunks of the company, the mood of the market is now that the bribery, insider trading, and tax evasion which characterized the former management is no longer continuing.

Like all resource stocks, SQM has fallen YTD. It pays a dividend worth about 3.8% and trades at a p/e ratio of 19. Soquimich, as it is called familiarly, is now a stock I am prepared to buy again. We sold it when the scandalous behavior of its former board chairman and CEO led to institutions dumping the stock. It mines potash and lithium in the Altacama Desert in Chile, and is a market leader in both. Frida Ghitis initially recommended the stock and then recommended the exit. Unlike me, our intrepid Latina reporter visited the Altacama Desert.