Politics is a risky business and Theresa May's poll gamble has failed. I got some flack yesterday for reporting the odds offered on a May victory by Ladbrokes bookies because early polls—before the two terrorist attacks and her blunders over debates and taxation of senior citizens—had put May 20% ahead of lefty Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. But of course the moves by the betting public in Britain are a good way to predict how people will vote.

I expect the Tories will bring out their long knives. The ousted former PM David Cameron was made the scapegoat for an unnecessary poll over Brexit; how much more venom will be generated by the party which had a solid majority before May opted to go to the country well before it was necessary under the rules.
May may have to walk the plank, in which case a coalition government including some with Bremain elements like the Northern Irish Democratic Union Party, which wants to keep links with Ireland, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and the solo independent, and the solo Independent will hold the key to power. They can swing either way, to Labour or the Conservatives. But whichever way they move, May may not survive as the exemplar of a “hard” Brexit.

As I write she is meeting with the Queen to discuss creating a minority government with support from the DUP, which is potentially a blow to the whole Brexit project. A border running between Ireland and Northern Ireland is a blow to both economies and peace between them.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung tried to figure out what the UK polls mean for Brexit. It quoted Michael Hewson of CMC Markets in London: “The Scottish Nationalists and Liberal Democrats want to stay in the European Union. So there is a possibility that Brexit may never happen at all!”

As for sterling, Stephen Gallo at Bank of Montreal told the Financial Times that Brexit is "factor number one" for determining the pound's near-term direction. A minority Conservative government implies a "softer Brexit", he adds, a scenario that points to a firmer pound. Today in Asia trading, however, the pound was pounded, because markets hate uncertainty.

There is news today from India, Britain, Israeli, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Hong Kong, Mexico and a few other places like Nevada. Monday's blog will be from Portugal.

Deals

If Britain's Standard Life cannot get its planned merger of its sub HDFC Life of India with Max Life and its controlled sub Max Financial Service past the regulators, SLFPY may just float off its 35% stake in HDFC Life in Bombay. It began the process 13 mos ago and had planned to wind up with 25% of the future combos. Permits have been denied by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority in New Delhi which block it because both sides of the deal are not pure insurance companies but also manage money.

Stada Artzneimittel's takeover bid was extended for 2 weeks and the target takeup cut from 75% to 62.5% because the small shareholders who own the stock are hard to reach--to say nothing of STADF ADR owners. I have tendered with myFidelity which promised to do better than the last time I got a cash offer for a European drug company a decade ago, and was forced to sell in the wrong currency.

JP Morgan upgraded Ormat to outperform from neutral with a $71 target price. ORA is a bonus stock, US incorporated but now Israeli controlled; it will become part Japanese under a planned deal. The report I got earlier this week was garbled.

Drug Stocks

GlaxoSmithKline, a dollar earner, rose 2.7% in London today as sterling collapsed over the prospect of a hung parliament, aka May-hem.

Teva is up sharply over the past two days despite worries about how detail men in the US over-promoted painkillers which risk raising addiction levels. This is because it named 4 new board members to beef up its pharma expertise. According to Dow Jones, they are: Murray Goldberg, former chief financial officer at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; Roberto Mignone, managing partner of health-care hedge fund Bridger Management LLC; and Perry Nissen, a former GSK R&D official who now leads the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, Calif. The fourth nominee is Chemi Peres, managing partner of Israel's Pitango Venture Capital, an investor in health care and information technology.

Benitec Biopharma received A$636,056 cash refund for the year 2016 under the Australian Federal Government’s R&D Tax Incentive Scheme. BNTCY was boosted thereby.

North & South

Input Capital, INPCF, our most recent buy, declared another 1 loony cent dividend, its third, which was not earned. Its annual payout is C$0.04. But it is not a yield stock if it doesn't earn its divvies.

Eduardo Garcia reports that Cemex will deliver 60,000 cubic meters of special concrete to Alabama for the expansion of the local Mercedes Benz luxury car plant. Eduardo edits sentidocomun.co.mex with which we exchange news. CX is gaining from the buy-America wave in los Estados Unidos.

Technology

Plans by its founders to sell 12.75% of the shares they own in Infosys have taken the INFY stock down 2% in Friday's US premarket trading.

Autoliv of Sweden said that it expects to beat its end-2016 sales target of $12 bn.

Some of the excitement over high predicted gains for Alibaba spilled over to the market for Tencent which rose sharply Friday. However TCTZF did not hit a new high like BABA. Both firms are headed by men named Ma, who are not related.

Bankers

Banco Santander gained 4.14% Thursday after its takeover for 1 euro of Banco Popular, in part because euroland looks like a potential haven as the US and the UK face political upheaval.

Moody’s downgraded all 6 big Canadian banks. Back in 2008 during the global financial crisis, the credit watchdogs were accused of neglecting their job of warning about risks. Now one of them has said that the real estate market and excessive consumer debt up north can cause problems for banks. To quote The Moneyletter, “Moody’s is not a sleeping watchdog this time around.” However I think Bank of Nova Scotia is cutting its property and credit card risk, and has gains to book from its special sauce: operating banks and investment banking in emerging markets.