If you want to lobby your elected representatives to increase gun control after the horror in Las Vegas visit facebook.com/townhall to find them. And thank you to Shelly Palmer Strategic Advisors for finding this site. As a New Yorker I do not need to contact my Senators and Representatives to vote against the gun lobby, since they already do.

Our president, a rare New Yorker with “a license to carry”, needs to think about what the modern era proliferation of guns and gun deaths means to America. His remarks on the slaughter were, for him, surprisingly presidential, but they omitted the one thing every American needs to address: the absurd interpretation of the second amendment language to allow the proliferation on our streets and colleges, schools and now a hotel, of highly dangerous weapons. This isn't the 18^th century any more and the weaponry is no longer just a hunting rifle.

This had nothing to do with “a well-regulated Militia” since regulation is exactly what the gun lobby increasing opposes. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms” does not mean that NY-style regulations and checks have no place in our free system. You cannot drive a car without a license or practice medicine as you wish. You also cannot become part of a militia by getting a gun without signing up.

BlackRock (BLK) has acquired over 10% of the shares out of City of London Investment Group plc which runs a fund of closed-end funds to gain from their discounts from net asset value under savvy Barry Olliff. CoL sells its fund of funds, which is listed in London to institutional investors in the US but for regulatory reasons do not sell their funds to US retail investors. It also sells portfolio management to US institutions. I watch their public placements because they often trigger buy-backs to cut the discount. Olliff started on focusing on emerging markets closed-end funds (CEFs) but now has the know-how to also invest in developed market, notably the US and Canada.

BlackRock Inc. was recently added to its “Americas Conviction” list by Goldman Sachs and insiders have been buying. Goldman is also creating lower fee variants on exchange traded funds competing with existing ones.

Worldwide, BLK has $5.7 trillion under management, from individuals and institutions and has staff in over 30 countries. If offers mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other pooled investment vehicles as well as separate accounts for rich people and trusts.

Its presence in the US CEFs area is very lop-sided. It offers a few specialized equity CEFs for sectors (like energy or health science) or high yield via stock or bonds. These are much less profitable for the manager than exchange-traded funds for the same sectors. It also has a bunch of loan participation funds, most of them launched recently.

But its main heritage CEF business is running bond funds including many covering the municipal bond market, with single-state munis (many for New Yorkers) and national ones. So the move on Olliff's outfit may signify that BLK wants to also work on global closed end stock funds and country funds, where it is absent. BLK HQ is in my zip code, as is Trump Tower from which a nut could kill many fund managers, but it plans to move to the more fashionable Hudson Yards by 2022.

One incentive for BLK which is of course a legal fund manager is the rush of so many people to bitcoin and other pseudo-currencies. While it is not interested in money laundering it is seeking to get more foreign equity exposure.

City of London Group stock rose 1700% yesterday, which is of course lovely for Barry Olliff, a long-time friend who founded the firm 40-odd years ago and with whom I chat when in London. I'm afraid I never thought of buying into his fund management group which is a penny stock, in part because I could not buy its open-end UK fund.

Tech

*Mercado Libre bought last week is sinking again by 2.4%. I am waiting for a bottoming pattern before buying more MELI which is a pricey stock at $257 and change. The Latin American “Amazon” was boosted by a Credit Suisse report when we bought. Amazon is now in trouble with the European Community over its failure to pay back taxes to Luxembourg, a tax haven, not something Mercado could copy.

*If you want to know which firm is building out North Korea's internet now that China is shutting links with the regime which had been run by China Unicom (CHU), it turns out to be a Russian outfit called TransTeleCom, writes the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, quoting US Foreign Affairs magazine. China Unicom is cleaning up its act because of investments by among others Hong Kong-based Tencent and other China internet firms, who were corralled into this by Beijing. North Korea uses its internet not to inform its population who are not allowed to use it, but to engage in cyber attacks to regime enemies. Pjongyang base behind a hack of Sony and the WannaCry attack. After China opted for sanctions cutting the ISP Star joint venture with China Unicom, the new connection went live on Sunday according to the source. CHU is owned by the PRC apart from the recent newcomers and follows Beijing orders. The US faves that invested in CHU include Baidu, JD.com, and Alibaba.

Note: I have not been able to confirm this information with any of the comapniesd but both Foreign Affairs and the FAZ are serious sources.

*The revival of golden oldie Blackberry has taken down another one, Nokia, NOK, of Finland, because it never fell as far nor recovered as much.

*Naspers (NPSNY), half sold, the back door way to buy Tencent, is up 1.8% despite the South Africa chaos over corruption by Pres. Jacob Zuma. NPSNY is listed on Q whereas TCTZF is on the pink sheets.

*While it is up because of mounting US and Canadian car sales, our Autoliv from Sweden is really a tech company. ALV makes non-explosive airbags and is spinning out its electronic lines. The loser in the auto business turns out to be Fiat Chrysler whose sales plummeted with recalls. We sold FCAU for other reasons.

Energy

*BP plc (BP) was rated hold rather than reduce by Kepler Capital and promptly rose. The oil price fell more than $1/barrel yesterday, down 2% because OPEC decided to expand its output after oil prices jumped in the wake of disasters in Houston during the 3^rd quarter.

*Cosan Ltd of Brazil rose 3% yesterday on what may be the impact of lower oil prices on its business. It plans to spin out its Rumo logistics and raise as much as Reais 2.63 bn to cut its debt load ($830 mn). Its affiliate Cosan Logistica also approved a capital increase of Rs750 mn that CZZ itself will fund.. The Rumo deal will be priced tomorrow and there will be no prospectus as it will only be open to qualified investors. Rumo has lagged the recent rise of the Bovespa.

*Uranium miner Cameco (CCJ) was downgraded by Bank of Nova Scotia on the outlook for uranium demand, in part because of the Japanese election where the Hope Party wants to stop the recommissioning of nuclear power stations. CCJ was slashed to sector underperform from neutral with a C$10 price target, down from the earlier $14.50 one because of an expected glut in uranium supplies which BNS analysts think will cut the price by 27% in 2018-22. There was abnormal put trading levels.

For whatever it is worth I think Abe will win.

*Ecopetrol of Colombia was rated buy by Valuengine, one of my favorite indie analysis shops, up from hold.

Banking and Insurance

*Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio lead managed a $70 mn 5-yr syndicated loan for La Favorita Fruit Co, the Ecuadorian agribiz conglomerate which grows bananas, runs dairy operations, and makes fertilizer, to clean up its debt maturity and finance expansion. This is the second BLX loan to Favorita but we failed to spot the earlier one. The loan was heavily oversubscribed in the region and was raised from the original target of $62.2 mn.

*Banco Santander (SAN) declared a dividend on the non-cumulative C perpetual floating rate preferred shares which we recently added to our portfolio, of $0.45625 payable Nov. 15 to shareholders of record Nov. 1. SAN also donated $2 mn for relief to Puerto Rico.

Zacks analysts raised SAN to buy from hold.

*Zacks also upped it rating on Validus Holdings (VR), the Bermuda re-insurer, from strong sell to hold. VR will report its Q3 results on Oct. 26..

*Pimco is beating the competition from Janus in the diversified income fund category both for performance (total return 19.4% over the past 3 years) and market share (now over 27%). Data from Citywire for Pimco Diversified Income Fund and Pimco Income Fund which ultimately are owned by Allianz SE of Germany. The funds at Janus to which Bill Gross defected from Pimco had a total return for the past 3 years of 14.68% and a market share of 0.14%. AZSEY is German

Defence

*Berenberg Bank downgraded BAE Systems (BAESY) from a buy to hold with a target price of GBX 600, down 7%. BAESY fell 2% yesterday.

*Magal Security Systems (MAGS), Israeli maker of perimeter and border electronic fences, fell 0.42%. MAGS wants to build Trump's wall but he is aiming to find a US firm if he goes through with it at all.

*Even Canada's CAE which develops pilot training systems for civil and military use is down fracionally.

Pharmaceuticals

*Roche (RHHBY) was beautifully written up by Zack Hartman PhD with the only sour note a warning that RHHBY is a penny stock whose trading is narrow. It has a sponsored but unlisted ADR which trades in the thousands as RHHBY.

It announced another big win for its cobas molecular diagnosis system, from the US FDA itself for its tests for Babesia parasite at US blood centers. The parasite is spread by ticks and in healthy people infection may be asymptomatic or taken for a flu. But they can destroy red blood cells and can cause death in immuno-compromised people, the old, and unborn babies whose mothers unknowingly have been infected. The test is being given to blood donors but it should also be given to women seeking to become pregnant, and people who have signs of tick bites.

*GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) won a US RICO trail in Philadelphia brought by two investigators working for the company in China, Briton Peter Humphrey and his American wife Yu Yingzeng. They were sleuthing into a former GSK employee who was revealing GSK bribery to Chinese hospitals and doctors for prescribing its products. The RICO law only applies to US operations and GSK is British and the misdeeds were performed in China, the Federal Court ruled. GSK separately launched a smartphone app with Thinfilm Electronics ASA of Norway for its Flonase allergy med which will give consumers information from the package.

*Teva (TEVA) stock was up near $19 yesterday.

Eats Shoots and Leaves

*Greencore plc (GNCGY), the Irish ready meals firm which reported a contamination in its US sandwich factory before anyone became ill, has started recovering and its ADR rose 20 cents yesterday to $10.21. GNCGY is mainly a maker of salads and full meals, not sandwiches, and of course benefits from the short memory of US diners (particularly since its lines are not normally branded by the maker, but by the vendor.)

*A long-ago holding in Italy, sold a decade ago, Guala Closures, is in play with among others Goldman Sachs planning to bid. It makes plastic wine corks and othe packing material and may command as much as euros 1 bn as there are six contenders for the business. We exited when it dropped its ADR under new Sarbanes-Oxley rules.

Funds

*Investor A/B will report on its 9-mo results on Oct. 17 at 8:15 CET and then hold a conference call at 10 am CET when I will be sleeping. It is aimed at Britons by the time but there is a US tollfree number, 1 855 753 2230. It is likely I will read the transcript at www.investorab.com later in the day if nobody in Scandinavia or London comes forward, as my brother-in-law will be travelling.

*The Thai Fund, TTF, is being liquidated if shareholders approve. That will give our sometime contributor Paul Renaud who runs www.Thaistocks.com out of Phuket more business. Paul is a Swiss national married to a Thai who worked as a stockbroker in the US during his youth, and specializes in obscure Thai stock picks that often doing incredibly well. That is, unless BlackRock decides to create a Thai fund.

We also own a rare Thai ADR, Minor International, in the hospitality business, run by an American-born Thai entrepreneur. Each ADR equals 25 Bangkok shares.

*With Mother Merrill tipping Chile it is no surprise that Aberdeen Chile Fund bounced up another 1.2% yesterday.