Thanks to its postal voters, Austria has narrowly avoided the ignominy of electing the first neo-Fascist chief of state in post-War Europe. Of course the postal voters, many of whom live outside the country, are less anti-foreigner than those inside Oesterreich proper.

Adrian Ash of bullionvault notes that the UK clients' for gold buying YTD is up 80% from 2015 levels at the same time of year, which he attributes to fear of British voters opting to leave the European Union in their vote a month from now.

In contrast, US gold buying client numbers is up on 45% from last year and that of Eurozone up 35%. British customers also are buying more yellow metal, about a third more, and doing it right after creating their accounts, rather than waiting for a price drop. This has boosted the sterling price of gold by about 20% since 2016 began. However the price of gold in sterling is till below the level of the summer of 2011 when there were riots in England, when gold hit £1195/oz. It is only £903/oz now.

Adrian also remarks that UK residents are opting to keep their gold in foreign storage. Bullionvault has storage and trading facilities in Britain, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Canada, and the USA. If Britain has to impose exchange controls after a Brexit vote, settlement offshore will allow UK nationals to sell outside the country.

Congratulations to my daughter-in-law Kathy who gets capped as a PhD today. She is the fifth in her family including both her parents and her paternal grandparents to get to call herself doctor although you don't want to call on her for medical help. For that you use either of her parents or her sister-in-law Rebecca.

*With a new more right-wing coalition in place and a Supreme Court ruling imminent, Israel has opted to ratify the outline natural gas plan which provides for the rapid development of the offshore Leviathan field by Delek Group (DGRLY) and its US partner. The Netanyahu govt opted to back a “stable regulatory environment” for the gasfield so that facility and the one for Tamar can be developed rapidly. Leviathan is located 29 miles of the earlier Tamar field which DGRLY must divest. The operator is Noble Energy of Texas, a 39.66% owner while Delek via 2 subs owns 45.33%. The field extends into Cypriot waters and the Andromeda field but since the Israelis started dithering, an even larger offshore gasfield was discovered in Egyptian waters. Delek is down on the new maybe because the field will only go live in 2019 under the latest plan.

Heavy Industry

*Vale (VALE) is back over $4 again today, up 2.51% at the opening. Vale.pr is up near 1%. Presumably the Chinese construction boom is again in focus.

*Schlumberger Ltd (SLB) was rated conviction buy today by Goldman Sachs (GS) which argues that it has a 29% upside in the next 12 months and is the best-positioned in the current oil market. SLB is Dutch Antillean. It is down on the news.

*The consensus earnings estimate for Veresen (FCGYF) has been tripled to 6 loony cents in the June quarter. It trades as VSN or FCGYF. The stock trades at under $7.50. Its pe is high because of the Jordan Cove project.

*Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) turns out to have also used illegal software to fiddle its emissions tests, according to a report in Bild, the German newspaper, not always reliable and of course a defender of national champ Volkswagen. We sold FCAU early this year despite my mentor on this stock, Guy Spier, saying it was a wonderful chance to make money. Spier runs Aquamarine Capital from Zurich and claims to be a value investor on the line of Warren Buffett, with whom he had lunch a couple of years ago after paying $650,000. The sale was not because of the editor mistrusting FCAU.

Pharma

*Bavarian Nordic (BVNRY) of Denmark reported positive results from its phase I trials of a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus in healthy adults and oldsters. It is a recombinant MVA-BN jab and the trial was to determine dosage based on immune response. It works against RSV A and B as the antibodies turned up in blood and mucosal surfaces at 3x-5x the level in those not vaccinated, with the older patients showing the highest level. BAVA recently flubbed its attempt to list on Q. It will next present on June 4 in Chicago. Its Copenhagen stock is up 5.4% today but the pink sheet ADR is down 0.04%. BVNRY.

*Among the new drug cheats is Novartis (NVS), which the current issue of Bloomberg Business Weekaccuses of using compassionate co-pay charity donations to force Medicare to pay higher prices for its expensive drugs. NVS is the only drug major the magazine accuses of using contributions (which are tax-deductible) to loot Medicare when drug prices are hiked. NVS is up 2.6% on these revelations. I am selling NVS because my hopes for a reform of its aggressive selling tactics have been dashed (again).

*While a short seller called Graham Osborn took the floor today against the price Teva will pay for Allergan. Meanwhile the consensus estimate for Teva Q2 earnings was boosted to $1.176 by the consensus of the 21 analysts covering it and the price rose 2%.

Tech

*Tencent (TCEHY) is rumored to be in talks with Japanese Softbank to buy up the 73% majority SFTBY owns in Finnish mobile game developer Supercell Oij, according to The Wall St Journal, for something like $5-10 bn. Its Clash Royale game was No 1 in March, bringing in sales of $80 mn, higher even than Clash of Clans.Gamers fear that TCEHY (new ticker!!) is only interested in monetizing the Clashes, which will best-sellers are growing more slowly this year than last in signups. SFTB is the largest shareholder in Alibaba which was unwilling to pay up for Supercell or to grant the Finns the autonomy they seek. The dragon in the game is called Baby.

Msayoshi Son's Softbank is doing a reorganization of its assets led by Nikesh Arora and will transfer assets to a new global company which will not be called Alphabet and leave shareholders with the Japanese ones. Tencent signed e-sports and entertainment deals recently with Disney and for Kardashian coverage with Glu Mobile.

*Credit Suisse forecasts that the Mexican stock market will gain 50 basis points this year because of growing domestic demand, more consumer credit, more jobs producing a 2.5% rise in GNP (net of inflation). It also commends the fiscal and monetary policies being supported by the government. We are present through Mexican Equity & Income Fund, the Fibra Uno REIT, and Mexican multinational Mexichem: MXE; FBASF; MXCHF.

*Pershing Square Holdings is back in favor perhaps because other drug companies besidesValeant are now accused of misbehavior.

*Oops. Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting is not an Australian but a Briton, from Liverpool.