London equities soared sharply higher again Monday morning, with the FTSE-100 up nearly 2%, right at the opening. Sterling is up 1.7% at $1.4624 from Friday's close along with Eurozone stock markets.

The reason is the latest Brexit polls, the first reflecting a Yorkshire extremist's murder of MP Jo Cox, which now show a 3% lead for the innies vs the outies. The Sunday Mail “Survation” poll published yesterday was the first one taken after murder of MP Cox seeking voting intentions. It showed 45% of respondents wanting to remain in the EU and 42% of the wanting to leave. Note:13% are undecided. Muslim politician Baroness Sayeedi Wardi, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, switched to remain having discovered that Brexit involves “hate and xenophobia” today.

British polls are reminiscent of the infamous 1948 US election forecasts which showed Dewey beating Truman, because they miscalled the 2015 national election which gave the Tories an unexpected majority, and also the vote on Scottish independence.

Until the polls close at 8 pm Greenwich Mean Time Thursday, Britishers can still change or make up their minds (or mislead the pollsters). We will travel back to London Friday knowing the first results.

More from Britain, Germany, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Japan, India, Switzerland, Spain, and Morocco:

Brits

*BAE Systems plc, a defense stock, is gaining from mounting tensions in Norway, Poland, and the Baltic region over Putin's adventurous and high-risk military incursions. While German pols even of the right-wing parties are making nice to Russia, the UK for all its confusion about the EU, remains a stalwart in NATO, good for the plane maker. It has just been rated #1 (strong buy) by Zacks which says the p/e ratio is under 12 and the yield over 8.5%. It rose 2.9% in UK trading on the Chicago group upgrade and of course the latest Brexit polls.

*On the other hand, BP plc will explore onshore in the West Siberian and Yenisey-Khatanga basins in the Russian Federation under a deal signed at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (AKA “the Putin Davos”) with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin by BP Russia President David Campbell. The jv covers a combined area of about 260,000 sq. kilometers. BP committed to providing up to $300 mn in two phases as its contribution to the costs of the exploration stage. Rosneft will chip in with licenses and operational experience in the region and do the initial drilling. Russia is seeking to monetize its oil business with global deals including with China because of lower prices.

*GlaxoSmithKline took another lead with its respiratory franchise along with Inoviva INVA-Q, announcing this morning positive top-line results from the pivotal phase III Fulfil study of the investigational daily ‘closed’ triple combination therapy, fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/UMEC/VI) combo of an inhaled corticosteroid, long-acting muscarinic antagonist, and long-acting beta agonist, in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It met its 2 primary endpoints, demonstrating statistically significant improvements vs twice-daily powdered Symbicort Turbohaler (budesonide/formoterol) in measured lung function and health-related quality of life at the end of the 24-week period. The proportion of patients who responded with the minimum clinical difference in SGRQ was 50% on FF/UMEC/VI and 41% on budesonide/formoterol. The safety profile of the closed triple combination at both 24 weeks and the 52-week extension was consistent with the known profile of the individual medicines and their combinations. The most common adverse events across both treatment arms were nasopharyngitis, headache, and COPD ​itself​ worsening.

GSK plans to file with both the EU and the US FDA by the end of this year to market the triple drug combo. It was up 2% in London Monday.

German News

*German SAP SE is becoming sweeter. The German IT firm today announced that Barry Callebaut, the world's leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa, is using its systems for sustainable cocoa farming. With solutions from SAP, Barry Callebaut has already integrated 65,000 small-scale cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire and will add others around world. This will create a more sustainable supply chain and at the same time improve the livelihood of African farming families and communities. SAP is currently holding its SAPinsider gathering in Vienna until June 22. Its Rural Sourcing Management is an integrated tracking system running SAP's HANA(R) Cloud Platform. It combines mobile and desktop access to track produce from farm to factory. The introduction of mobile business applications provides farming bodies with access to important current data to simplify and digitize business processes. The solution currently covers farmer registration, surveys, and e-procurement. The plan is to extend it in the future with geo information. SAP and Barry Callebaut jointly developed the project which SAP will make generally available soon.

*Australian-listed Orocobre expects that it will be one of the gainers from the new Volkswagen push into electric vehicles. VW's chief, Matthias Mueller, plans to overcome the ignominy of “dieselgate” by going green with as many as 30 all-electric car models which, by 2025, will account for a quarter of its output. In that timeframe, the lithium-ion battery is the only option. OROCF mines lithium in Argentina; its chief listing is as ORL in Canada.

Banking

*Allianz SE, Europe's highest valued insurer, is buying Moroccan insurer Zurich Assurances Maroc from Swiss Zurich Insurance, ZURVY. AZSEY will pay 244 mn euros ($275 mn) for the property and casualty insurer which generated eruos114 mn in gross premiums in 2015. It also has a Moroccan license for offering life and health insurance policies which are not now available. The transaction is expected to close late this year subject to regulatory approvals.

*Japan has lost its safe haven status which undermined the Abenomics plan to boost exports by getting the yen to fall. After the latest British referendum poll, the yen is finally falling. This is good news for Japanese stocks, notably the ones to sell because they are untrackable. However the Japanese insouciance about negative interest rates really doesn't make economic sense, so I expect the yen to fall further.

*The global taste for gold, a recent beneficiary of uncertainty, may reverse if the British vote to stay in the EU.

*In India banks are facing $120 bn in duff loans. The the impact of the ousting of CB governor Rag​huram Rajan, which I wrote about yesterday, was to boost global shares traded in Bombay. Infosys is up 2.07% today and Tata Motors up 1.32%. The former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund ran into opposition from the BJP govt for his refusal to let well-connected companies slog off their bank debt and for his alleged anti-inflation “fixation”. While there are plenty of Indian companies close to disaster (or already insolvent) the BSE picked INFY and TTM as likely survivors.

*Spanish companies like Santander, the bank group, whose largest foreign market presence is in Britain, should do well if the UK currency rises more against the euro, as it did today. SAN owns the former Abbey National Bank acquired by the present chairman's father.

Fund Fun

*The Swedish holding company Investor B remains underpriced despite rising 3% today in Stockholm in kroner. IVSBF yields 3.6% and is a way to buy Scandinavian companies at what amounts to a closed-end-fund-type discount from net asset value. I think it is being held back by comparisons with its rival Industrivärden C which was tarnished by an expenses scandal last winder. Nothing like this hit IVSBF belonging to SEB, the Wallenberg family bank. But investors like to juggle between the pair.

Neiges d'antan

*Greek-owned Dryships has sunk. George Economou's bulk carrier company has defaulted on three debt lines, he revealed. We owned it when the world was moving lots of stuff around, before the global financial crisis, and sold in time. DRYS.