The Dow-Jones rose 200 points on Monday after the White House demands on China were eased, ending the threat of a trade war soon.

The US State Dept also put out a series of conditions Iran must meet for extending its nuclear deal, like withdrawing from Syria and Yemen, releasing US and other hostages, and totally halting the missile program which could be used to deliver nuclear bombs. I think the motive is not only to bring the US back into the deal to win the support of other signatory countries (Russia, China, Germany, France, and Britain) but also to create a format for denuclearization of North Korea. My own view is that it will not work in either case because the ill-briefed White House has already made both measures impossible. No Nobel Prize for the Donald.

On Monday, Motley Fool writer Scott Phillips made a call for rethinking CEO pay linked to total shareholder return, not only because it is excessive in terms of social equity, but also because it can be manipulated or result from accidental factors that company chiefs had no control over. He cited risks like cutting spending on worker safety or a PR offensive to temporarily boost the share price.

Mr. Phillips wants bonuses to only be paid over 5 years, not in one fell swoop. He also wants cyclical factors to be removed from the bonus, so only controllable metrics result in a pay boost. And he also wants the company to be able to claw back businesses if the company gets into legal difficulties.

Energy and Materials

*Not listening to Motley Fool, BP plc shareholders voted for the 13% hike in CEO Bob Dudley's pay for 2017, by $13.4 mn. The vote was nearly unanimous after profits more than doubled. In 2016 shareholders rebelled on pay and Mr. Dudley's pay packet was cut by 40%.

The UK oil group made a deal for export of 2 mn metric tonnes of liquid natural gas annually for 20 years with Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG export arm of Louisiana. The facility will only go live after 2022.

*Ormat Technologies, a Nevada company controlled by Israelis, is in breach of its NYSE listing conditions because its H2 2017 results are still pending, to say nothing of Q1 2018. This is a bonus stock as it is US incorporated. The NYSE traditionally gives late filers a full year to catch up, so it still has time. It also has good cause.

The main problem appears to be an extension of its 8-yr old deal with Toronto's Northleaf Capital, a private investment fund, to share ownership of its money-losing but potentially large Puna Hawaiian Electric geothermal power plant before Northleaf was spun out by TD Bank Financial Group. Puna generates thermal power in Kilauea, Hawaii, about 15 miles from the site of the volcanic eruptions, so it is a hot potato. The ORA expansion license was canceled back in 1991 but the existing geothermal facility was not shut in and ORA thought it might win permits again.

In Hawaii as in Iceland (which I just visited), geothermal power from geysers have been used for centuries to provide heat and energy. However, unlike in Iceland, native Hawaiians oppose expanded tapping of the geothermal substratum of an island and the expansion to 36 mW was blocked on environmental grounds. This is a first exclusive article about this imbroglio.

*Cosan Ltd rose 2.6% to a fraction below $10/sh. The Brazilian firm turns sugar cane into sugar and ethylene.

*Canadian Nutrien and Chilean Soquimich are both up on the Chinese deal to buy 2/3 of NTR's stake in SQM to gain access to the world's cheapest supply of lithium.

But the biggest winner is Orocobre of Australia which mines in Argentina, whose shares rose nearly 6% thanks to Oz enthusiasm. OROCF is partly owned by Toyota.

*The US Supremes will have to rule on whether Indian villagers from Gujarat can sue the private investment arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corp., for funding a coal-fired electricity plant which greatly increased pollution in their area. This is unlikely to be heard in the US because the IFC is an international organization, even if it engages in capitalism. However, the ruckus should help Azure which is working to convert Gujarat to solar power stations. AZRE should gain from this local initiative.

*Toray of Japan was downgraded from buy to hold by Ford Equity Research. TRYIY.

Drugs

*Good news from the World Federation of Hemophilia Congress in Glasgow, Novo Nordisk of Denmark said trials of Relixia in hemophilia B showed that it improves and lengthens the time that factor IX works by 4.39x against the same dose of rFIXfc, the recombinant fusion protein which is the current standard of care, from SOBI (Swedish Biovtitsoma A/B) and Bioverative. Its share price is tending up.

*Meanwhile Roche's Hemlibra cut bleeding episodes by as much as 97% in a phase III trial. This is not news as the drug already has garnered US and European approvals.

*GlaxoSmithKline got EU approval of its ViiV sub's Juluca treatment for HIV, which combines dolutegravir with rilpivirine. ViiV has shareholdings from Shionogi and Pfizer but is controlled by GSK. Rilpivirine was developed by a sub of Johnson & Johnson. In stable patients, it works with a single pill per day. Juluca already won approvals in Canada. It is a small single viral suppressant pill for maintenance in long-term survivors, a growing population.

GSK also presented at the American Thoracic Society long-term safety and efficacy data on its Nucala (mepolizumab) to treat severe eosinophilic asthma, in patients on the drug between 3.5 and 4.5 years.

*That Congress also saw the presentation of phase II “proof of concept” by Galapagos of its LPG1690 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. We sold the Belgian company stock.

*Teva gained 1.3% in the pre-market on Monday but then fell back after normal trading began. The pre-market was the result of Israeli trading playing catch-up with its rise here last week. TEVA also revealed some of the side-effects of its wave of sacking employees. Its May 15 release on the phase III trial of Fremanezumab to prevent a migraine (based on an article in the Journal of the American Association of Medicine) substantially understated the results with the monoclonal antibody in the Halo study and also gave the wrong name for the prestigious medical journal. The drug is not yet ready for market because a precursor product is being delayed and Teva is trying to keep its quarterly injection in view as other migraine drugs hit the market earlier. These mistakes would not have occurred before Teva chopped its US IR staff numbers.

*Zymeworks of British Columbia, Canada, filed an SEC shelf registration to issue more common and preferred shares, debt securities, warrants, subscription receipts, or units. It revealed that there are risks in start-up pharmaceutical companies from regulation and competition, in case you hadn't noticed. ZYME shares rose 4.3% on the filing, taking our gainers to a tad over 61%. Time to sell half. It's lovely watching this stock soar but there are risks in finance, jv's, and development.

Tech

*From Mexico, Eduardo Garcia writes up another Ikea on-line deal, for selling houseware and furniture in Mexico, with Swiss Ikano Group. This is bad news for Argentina based Mercado Libre, MELI.

*Tencent is back in the up column in Hong Kong on news that the China-US trade war has been delayed if not canceled. The share gained 2.6% to HK$425.

*Swedish Autoliv filed a revised SEC statement on its electronics spinoff, Veoneer. This cut the cost to ALV for funding the new entity from $1.2 bn as projected earlier, to only ~$1 bn from external sources and cash on hand. The improvement boosted ALV stock by 1.5%.

*Magal Security Systems filed a proxy statement for its June 19 vote on its new CEO, Dror Sharon, and 4 directors. In the filing, MAGS revealed that two Israeli limited partnerships, FIMI Opportunity Five and FIMI Israel Opportunity Five, Tel Aviv private capital companies, together own 42.8% of the shares outstanding, and Grace & White Inc, a fatcat/institutional NY investment manager with $800 mn under management, owns another 6.1%, its 18^th largest holding. The filing led to a 2.3% drop in MAGS' price because they showed that our proxies are irrelevant.

*Finnish Nokia rose 0.5% in pre-market on Monday.

Bank-Insurance

*From Mexico Eduardo Garcia writes that Banco Santander, which operates as a bank and brokerage there, suffered a breach of its interbank electronics payments system (Sistema de Pagos Electrronicos Interbankcarios, or SPEI) reported earlier by the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) as having hit 5 banks. However, there was no impact on customers or users, only on the banks themselves.

*AIA Asia shares rose 3.6% in Hong Kong on Monday. The pan-Asia insurance group gains from defused trade showdowns. AAIGF.

*Banco Latino was downgraded by Columbine Capital from buy to hold.