The Hallowe'en murderer killed 8 people along the western bike path along the Hudson River. Five were Argentinians celebrating the 20^th anniversary of their graduation as engineers from a Rosario high school. Another victim was a Belgian national. The killer was an Uber driver from Uzbekistan with a thick rough black beard.

The site was near Stuyvesant High School, on of my city's schools which only admits top students. Now the High Line bike path becomes another place where people were randomly killed by a mass murderer, be it the Federal Building in Oklahoma City or a hotel in Las Vegas. Just as with the Boston Marathon murderers, his being a Muslim is not why he killed. It was because he is crazy. That he was not a native-born American is irrelevant. So were 75% of those he killed.

*Pimco's marquee manager and Chief Investment Office, Dan Ivascyn, explained to Citywire how he managed the group's Pimco income funds this year. He played on the inability of the US Administration to push through major tax, health, or infrastructure reforms to boost absolute and relative returns and generate income despite low-interest rates. Washington gridlock gave the fund group a chance to “play offense” around US interest rates and volatility using derivatives and careful risk management. This matters to us because the largest shareholder in Pimco out in California is Germany's Allianz SE whose shares we bought when Mr. Ivascyn's predecessor as “bond king”, Bill Gross, walked out.

More Fund News

*Brookfield Renewable Partners LP reported that it boosted its hydroelectric generation in North America in Q3 by 6% over the long-term average because of lots of rain. In Brazil, its original home, low rainfull boosted power prices which the Bermuda fund successful gained from and also hedged. Its thinks interest rates are stable as growth resumes. In Colombia, it also beat its average in Q3, by 2% and expects it will also raise prices with the economic recovery during the next quarters and also signed medium-term contracts with distribution firms and industrial consumers at ~$65/megaWatt hour.

Its Q3 revenues were $608 mn (vs prior year $580 mn) and direct operating costs fell from $275 mn last Q3 to $243 mn this Q3, while its interest costs were essentially flat. Its loss per LP share hit 14 cents vs prior year loss of 12 cents. Offsetting this was a boost from adjusted EBITDA at $378 mn this Q3 vs $332 mn last, and funds from operations at $91 mn vs $73 mn. So LP holders were given a bit of the FFO alongside Brookfield the parent.

The result is that the distribution to shareholders for this year came to 47 cents vs last Q3's 45 cents.

Moreover, the capital backlog it is deploying is $435 mn which will lead to a further 265mW of new commissions on top of the 56 mW constructed in 2017 for $435 mn. By 2020 BIP will gain $45-50 annually from these projects to add to its funds from operations. It has $1.7 bn in liquid assets to invest, from LP partners, from private clients, and from Brookfield itself.

While this is clearly not a mutual fund investment, I think it is more like a fund than like a company so I am not moving BIP from the funds portfolio. Its shares rose over 1.29% after it reported on Wednesday.

*Mexican Equity & Income Fund's Maria Eugenia Pichardo, a fund manager, will not run for another term on MXE's board and Phil Goldstein is the group candidate to replace one of the few women running money in Macho Mexico. Phil is not considered an interest party but his Bulldog Investors firm does own a significant stake in MXE. Phil started out forcing funds to buy back shares, to make money for his Special Opportunities Fund of funds but now is tamer.

*Morgan Stanley India Investment Fund has not updated its investment list since June 30 but I hope it has exited some of the private sector banks, IndusInd, HDFC, and ICICI, which now face much greater competition from state-funded banks. The 3 banks accounted for 16% of IIF holdings at midsummer. It is near a year's high.

*Aberdeen Chile Fund, CH wants to consolidate our fund with Asian Tiger Fund, GRR, which is a long way from Chile across the Pacific Ocean. Not really sure this makes sense, but the stock rose a bit,

*Korea Fund plans to switch its benchmark from the MSCI Korea Total Return Index to the MSCI Korea 20/50 index which only covers large and mide-size company stocks. It also will limit itself to 25% of its assets being in a single group and keep the top 5% of its assets at less than 50% of its positions to move to smaller caps. It has been hurt by having to hold so much scandal-ridden Samsung.It gains mainly because South Korea has convinced China that its missile deployment is not directed against China but is for defense against North Korea. KF is up 1.9%.

*Goldman Sachs Activebeta Japan and Japan Smaller Cap were up on Wednesday, .92% and .85% on optimism about economic and political developments: GSJY and JOF are gaining because China may also calm down about remilitarization of Japan, a major plank in PM Abe's recent election platform.

Russia

*Central European & Russia Fund again failed to update its holdings, heavily in Russia as of July 31 when it began removal of Turkish holdings after the fund changed its mandate, However at some point they will have to deal with US and Euroland sanctions on the Putin gang, Note that MMC Norilsk which we own directly, NILSY, is the ex acqueo 9^th or 10^th largest holding at CEE and is not on the bad list like its then 3^rd largest holding, Gazprom. It rose over 4% earlier this week, presumably because its top boss, sanction-free Oleg Deripaska, is finishing his asset sale for EN+ which will also list in London. It owns a hydroelectric ute and aluminum maker, Rusal, which is listed in Hong Kong.

*Schlumberger Ltd was turned down by Russia on its plans to buy Eurasia Drilling. It is now being bought by the China Investment Fund and the Russian Development Investment Fund along with unspecified Middle Eastern investors. SLB is up regardless because oil prices and exploration demand are up, although it was downgraded to sell from hold by Zacks on Wednesday. SLB is incorporated in the Dutch Antilles, run by a Norwegian, and owned by a French family but it still is treated as a US company by the Kremlin seeking to avenge sanctions over Ukraine.

Flying High & Low

*CAE of Canada earlier this week sold a full-flight simulator to Lufthansa for the Boeing 777X, the first ever sale to an airline of the plane to take wing in 2020. It also delivered on a Polish Air Force contract to train Krakow pilots to fly C295 Airbus defense planes, coming after an earlier deal to train Polish soldiers for the SW-4 helicopter. It is also working on an M-346 simulator on order from Poland.

BMO Capital expects that after CAE missed its estimates by 1% in Q2 it is on track to report Q3 sales up 14% US$580.7 mn before the opening Nov. 10 on track for full-year $2.30+ bn.. It set a target price of $23 vs a current price $17.73.

*Our other aviation share not flying upward. BAE Systems is down 2.6%, more than the FTSE 100 index because of renewed worries about the terms of trade after Britain leaves the EU. BAESY makes weapons and security systems.

*One reason for the concern is that Bombardier shot down attempts by the US (and Boeing) to block sales of its single-aisle feeder planes to the US by selling this half of its business to Airbus, a Boeing rival, which Bombardier is not as Boeing doesn't make single aisle planes. Now combination sales to airlines by the European plane-maker become more likely. Lufthansa, for example, is currently running Boeing 747 jumbo jets planes between Berlin and Frankfurt because it doesn't own feeder planes to fill the gap after taking over bankrupt Air Berlin slots—but not its aircraft. (Source: FAZ.)

Drugs

*Novo Nordisk CFO Jesper Brandgaard told an interviewer from fiercephama.com that there are risks from the rise of transparency regulations in the US, where Maryland, Nevada, and California are requiring that drug firms reveal the prices and rebates being offered by pharmaceutical companies to keep up their sales of drugs people have to take all their lives, for example, diabetics. “It is an environment where transparency will clearly go up, and we are trying to deal with that,” he said. He added “we are concerned that the concept “may not be very simple to implement” and may “lead to significant additional burdens.” NVO fell in Denmark on Wednesday probably because of these remarks.

*Roche gave a discount to Britain's National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (or NICE) which won it approval for its Tecentrique to be added to the list for bladder cancer in patients ineligible for or who did not respond to cisplatin chemo. It did so even though there is as yet no data showing that it extends lives, supposedly what NICE is there to check, according to fiercepharma.com/

Separately, the Swiss drug firm's US sub, Genetech, will present data on lots of blood diseases at the American Society of Hematology next month: hemophila A being treated with emicizumab; blood cancers like with a new drug, emicizumab and an older one, Rituxin or bendamustine; new trials with polatuzumab vedotin, an anti-CD79b antibody to treat diffuse large b-cell lymphoma; and an investigational trial of Gazyva in advanced follicular lymphoma.

*Teva has been hovering between a rise and a fall, about 20 cents between them, on news that Allergan will be selling its entire 10% stake in the Israeli firm by the end of the year 2018.

Finance

*Validus Holdings won a buy rating from BofA-Merrill with a target price of $55. VR is a Bermuda reinsurance firm which had a poor Q3 as you would expect with hurricanes and earthquakes. It had been rated hold except by our Harry Geisel, MBA, who understands insurance stocks.

*Eduardo Garcia writes that the Mexican arm of Bank of Nova Scotia redeemed $113.5 mn of its outstanding peso bonds due Feb.27. 2019. Its share fell.

*However Banco Santander Spanish stock rose after its Mexcian arm, Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico announced it would takeover SAN's 99.99%-owned Banco Santander Mexico SA.

*Banco Latinoameriano de Comercio of Panama also is losing a lady boss, Maria de Graça França who is retiring from its board and will be replaced by an hombre.

Tech

*Autoliv of Sweden was raised to buy from hold on Wednesday by Zacks (it reverses itself so often I think it is just helping boost transactions by brokerage customers) and the share rose 0.4%.

*Once again Hong Kong's Tencent Holdings is up further than South African Naspers which owns a third of it. TCTZF and NPSNY play catch-up but NPSNY is the better buy now that Tencent took another 2.65% on Wednesday, because tech is due for a bust in the US which will spread.

*Vodafone continues to ring bells and gained more because of fear of EU messes from Brexit. It is British but reports in euros on its global telco empire, boosted most recently by Indian developments like the sale of its stake in cellphone tower transmission and the Modi Govt reconsidering its excessive taxation zeal over a Hutchison purchase a decade ago by VOD.

*Nokia insiders have been buying in Finland according to a filing with the US SEC, which is unusual as they normally sell their options.