The advantage of having two separate series of Chinese purchasing managers' indexes, one official featuring big state-owned enterprises and the other, from HSBC, for smaller and more private companies, is that you can have two China-generated selloffs in a single month. The January data from the official series showed a modest 50.5 level of order increases. Anything over 50 means that growth is expanding, if modestly. The December official level was 51 so the level of increase is falling.

But what really hit the markets in Europe earlier this week was that Japan sank into a formal correction. Copying the Friday US selloff, China, and fear of the yen rising too hard, Japanese stocks fell enough to push the Nikkei index down 10% from the period right before Xmas, which counts as a correction.

Three big events took place on Sunday, two of them in Paris, and the 3^rd the NFL finals. The first major event on Sunday was the first round of the International Rugby tournament, where England was soundly beaten by France. The second was a demonstration by what Le Monde headlined as “reactionaries” against abortion and gay rights in France. There is no pretense to objective news in France; Le Monde is identified as leftish and Catholic.

In reply to a San Francisco-based gay reader, I wrote why I did not join the anti-reactionaries demonstrating here. First I am a foreigner; second it was cold; and third I had touristy things to do. But for whatever it is worth, in central Paris, even around Notre Dame Cathedral, I saw more rugby fans than demonstrators on either side of the sex debate.

There will be no blog demain as we are tunneling back to London. News today from Canada, Israel, Britain, France, India, and Thailand. And a new more or less French stock pick.

*To start with the new share, it is a tip from Max Deml, who has done well for us with Canadian Solar, CSIQ, and earlier with Tomra Systems, TMRAF, the recycling machine maker. Max runs Oeko-Invest and its stock index out of Vienna, Austria. We exchange “green” ideas, but he also has a good nose for profits, another form of green. We communicate in German.

Max's latest idea is L'Occitane en Provence, France's supposedly “green” maker of up-market cosmetics, soaps, perfume, makeup, and hair- and skin-care products sold by its shops around the globe. It is increasing focus on Russia, Asian,  and Latin America emerging markets, home of aspiring consumers. It sells a lot via duty-free sites at airports and even on the airplanes. It does some direct selling and it also has a network of spas in upmarket hotels and, here in Paris, solo sites. The word "L'Occitane" means "the woman from Occitania," which is a region in southern Europe (the Southern half of France, Monaco, parts of Italy and Spain) where Occitan was historically the main language spoken

L'Occitane is HQ'd in Manosque, a small French town in the Alpes Maritimes north of the Riviera. Its CEO and chairman is Reinold Geiger, with whom Max and I can sprechen deutsch. It is in trouble in the USA. And it is listed in (of all places) Hong Kong. There it is called Loccitane or HK:0973. It listed there just over 2 years ago.

Unlike Max I take a suitably jaundiced view of corporate claims to be improving the world by cutting down on needless packaging. But we both think corporate claims in ads that their plant-based products will make you younger and slimmer are tosh. Last month in a crackdown on diet nostrums, whose targets were a bunch of fly-by-night US operators selling food additives, L'Occitane was hit with $450,000 in fines by our Federal Trade Commission for false claims, penalized for packaging claims that the US FDA (Food & Drug Administration) had approved Almond Beautiful creams L'Occitane sells to slim its customers' flab. The stuff of course was not FDA approved because it is not a medication, and moreover is unlikely to work. Of course no trials were held to check out this almond extract fat burner. Paris officially-regulated (Green Cross) pharmacies sell L'Occitane products replete with these false claims.

The marketing key is that it uses natural ingredients like almond oil, but also the flowers of Provence which have a long history of appealing to consumers through perfume. You may not become thinner or more beautiful but you will smell nice.

Its “greenness” also comes via the L'Occitane Foundation include supporting research to treat blindness and women's empowerment (via literacy and entrepreneurship) in China and developing countries. It also runs hotel-based spas which also operate globally, as franchises. L'Occitane does a certain amount of Herbalife-style chain selling, but this seems to be respectably run without excess channel stuffing. It is another form of empowering women.

The FTC fine scared off Hong Kong investors and the share is now HK$15.5, below the IPO price of $16.5 and below the $16.8 it commanded before the FTC fine. L'Occitane pays a dividend of 6.9 Hong Kong cents/sh. Its marketing pitches right into the affordable luxury for the masses in emerging markets where growth is greatest.

I expect anyone who believed the fat claims deserved to be misled. The stock is at a 20x p/e ratio and yields 2% in dividends. For the cosmetics industry which grows despite recessions and political turmoil, and given its focus on Asia, this is a cheap stock as well as maybe a green one. While growth has failed to match some of the projections at the IPO, it has the right image for future growth. (NB: There is no apostrophe in the HK share name. It has a lower-case L in French but my spell-checker refuses to let me write it that way; like L'Oreal.)

*Cameco (CCJ) is selling its Bruce Power (nuclear power plants) for $450 mn. This will help CCJ finance its mining ventures until the price of uranium rises again, as I expect it will.

*The latest Internet hacker exploit was to steal the passwords of BCE clients and post them. We own BCE. My son the portfolio manager was busily buying Target (TGT) after its stock was hit by the pre-Xmas hack of its credit card data. By analogy, it is now a good time to stock up on BCE, one of the 3 Canadian telecom and media giants, a safer stock by far than any retailer.

*While I am not walking near Canary Wharf today, I am still thinking about feet. Again Reckitt Benckiser is up and cheering me up. The British maker of household products and nostrums is rumored to be a contender to buy out the Merck consumer health business which the drug maker is selling for under $10 bn because it is too small to run efficiently. RBGLY is a prime potential buyer because of Dr. Scholl's foot care US business being part of the assets for sale; it already runs Dr. Scholl's international. Other Merck lines would also fit well, like Claritin (OTC allergy pills).

*Teva is in the news big time because Bloomberg quoted Aegis Capital as citing the troubled Israeli generics firm as a target for takeover. Canada's Valeant (VRX) is the supposed buyer after it nabbed Bausch & Lomb last year as part of the VRX strategy of becoming a Big 5 drug firm. Aegis is not a reliable source in my view but Bloomberg may have had its own reason for posting this item.

Separately, the launch on Q of Mediwound, an Israeli startup making wound-healing patches using pineapple enzymes, aiming at $400 mn, will return cash via to Teva, owner of 16% of the 64% owner of Mediwound, Clal Biotech.

*Drug firm GlaxoSmithKline will report Weds. I will be on the spot for GSK.

*Israel's Delek Group is in focus again, despite there being no new leaks regarding its planned UK spinoff of Euroland refineries and gas stations. The latest estimate is that Woodside Pete of Australia will pay $3 bn (US) for its 1/3 share of Leviathan offshore gasfield, vs the late-Dec. Estimate of $2.5 bn. The new price values the whole at $9 bn. For Delek, the higher sum will matter if it succeeds in getting the Israeli tax authority to agree to defer the capital gains tax it otherwise would owe on its share of Leviathan (alongside another Israeli driller and Noble Energy of TX). If the taxman agrees to a deferral it will let the Israeli controlling shareholders maintain their stake alongside the English-speakers without having to raise more capital.

Separately, the Tamar field (already in production) was revalued by Netherlands Sewell, the oil and gas valuation experts. The new estimate is that the field holds 970 bn cubic feet of gas vs an earlier one of 540 bn cu ft. The range is now 605-1320 bn cu ft at the extremes, vs an earlier range of only 408-695 bn by the same estimator in 2010. That also boosts Netherlands' estimated discounted cashflow-based valuation of Tamar's future net profits to $140 mn to 270 mn (mean $200 mn) over the next 2-3 decades. Delek is the sole Israeli partner here. The estimates were boosted because it makes sense to store gas from the declining Yam Tethis field as Tamar produces. I chose DGRLY as my favorite 2014 share for Dick Davis Digest and The Money Show. If Israel makes peace with its neighbors the share is likely to soar.

*Britain's Liberty Global plc, whose LBTYA and LBTYK shares we own, has sold its Chellomedia network to AMC (AMCX-Q) for euros 750 mn, or $1bn. AMC runs movie networks in 138 countries based on its films and those of others like CBS and A&E. Liberty which is building out a new European cable empire, will keep its premium sports and film channels outside the AMC deal. Separately, Liberty filed with our SEC to merge itself with Ziggo, the Dutch cable channel it agreed to buy. Veteran cable billionaire John Malone is the principal behind LBTYA/K which we got into via his takeover of Virgin Media last year.

*The death (probably by suicide) of John Slym in Bangkok barely registered given the electoral riots, but the head of Tata Motors' Jaguar-Landrover operations makes me glad we exited the Indian automaker last year. Now it is also accused of failing to include airbags in its cheapest Nano line of mini-cars for the Indian market. I am not sure this is fair; the Nano replaces a motorbike on which a family of 4 or 5 ride around India without helmets.

Update: Max Deml from Austria has corrected my piece from this morning about L'Occitane en Provence. While its French HQ is indeed in Manosque, the company is incorporated in Luxembourg, a tiny country northeast of France. This becomes another reason to buy the share. Luxembourg, formerly a steel center, is culturally far more into international trading than the French Riviera, and its people are bilingual in French and German. Moreover that means there is no likelihood of a Tobin financial transaction tax ever applying when the shares are traded outside La Belle France.

The problem is related to the French version of yahoo finance which comes onto your computer when you are doing stock research from a French site.