While the focus of world attention is on the collapse of the most crowded trade on global stock markets, tech, other businesses continue with news, deals, financings, and matters to report.

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch on Tuesday, reported that at the close of March 15, fund managers it surveyed were 38% overweight in tech stocks, notably the FAANG and the BATs. The FAANG stocks are Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet, formerly known as Google. The BAT stocks are Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. While the former are still suffering as FB dropped another 2.8% earlier this week (in part because insiders sold the stock heavily, notably COO Sheryl Sandberg), the Chinese shares are all are in recovery mode. The fund managers following the herd had $579 bn in assets under management. By some measures, FB was growing revenue faster than profits and therefore its stock was “cheap”. Unlike Amazon whose p/e ratio was 300, Facebook's was “only” 40x. But last Sept. CEO Mark Zuckerberg began an 18-mo program of selling up to 75 mn FB shares over the following 18 months, to raise as much as $13 bn. His target may be harder to reach now that FB has lost $55 bn in value over the last two days.

The whole sector, however, is priced for perfection. Analyst Richard Suttmeier says in a report he put out on Tuesday that the tech reversal is a major warning that technology leadership is fading. He is particularly worried about the Russell 2000 small cap ETF which had a p/e ratio of 121.56 earlier this month.

The worst hit tech share globally was Britain's MicroFocus which we owned the ADRs of in the late 20^th century. Then MICFY (its then ticker symbol) specialized in bringing legacy computer programs into a more modern mode to be accessed by newer computers, a simple and appealing business. Then NYSE-MFGP as it now trades went heavily into diversification and global acquisitions, and wound up buying US Hewlett Packard Enterprises along with the HPE tarbaby Autonomy, a UK software firm whose management was accused of misrepresenting its sales and profits as HPE wrote down its 2011 purchase. It paid $8l8 bn for HPE + Autonomy and then set out to create a new IT system.

Just because people speak English you cannot assume that they are honest. On Monday, its CEO resigned and its stock fell 45%. Its Executive Chairman, Kevin Loosemore (I did not make this name up) blamed the chaos on cultural differences with HPE and problems motivating sales staff. Mr. Loosemore had the idea that the HPE buy which quintupled the size of MicroFocus could cut costs and boost operating margins.

British brokers plus JP Morgan and Canaccord in America are scrambling to reclassify MicroFocus with the trend to call it hold or neutral while cutting their target price from ~£19-25 to £9-14. Remarkably they did not cut their targets earlier. So we are looking at some rating changes in our portfolio.

Pres. Trump faces another Bimbo Eruption by another recipient of hush money, this time from the owner of The National Enquirer who has had a long Bromance with The Donald, alongside Trump's lawyer. She is called Karen McDougal and got $150,000 which is more than his lawyer paid to silence Stepanie Clifford, AKA Stormy Daniels. These payments made in 2016 may well count as illegal campaign contributions, according to Common Cause, a watchdog group.

Finance and Deals

*Allianz SE, a German insurance and fund management outfit (which controls PIMCO) and Tencent of Hong Kong will lead a financing round for a new online German bank, N26 which has already picked up the equivalent of $160 mn along with 850,00 customers in 17 European countries. It is part of the German Silicium Tal Fintech sector centered on Berlin but which is expanding to the US and the UK. AZSEY will get a board seat for its Allianz X digital investment unit.

*UK online bank Virgin Money (VRGDF) and Standard Life Aberdeen's Aberdeen Standard investments will create a JV to provide asset management to UK retail clients and boost Virgin's growth in assets under management (AUM). Aberdeen will buy 50% of Virgine Money's Unit Trust Managers Ltd arm by the end of 2018 when the deal is to close. The deal is subject to mutual due diligence, regulatory, and other approvals and will cost SLFPY over £40 mn. Virgin now has 200,000 retail investor clients and £3.7 bn in AUM. It will also increase the number of options for investing. ASI has euros 631 bn of assets worldwide in 80 countries and a staff of 1000 professionals. It is the active management arm of SLFPY which was formed last August by Standard Life and Aberdeen, which manages two of our US closed-end yield funds, Aberdeen Global Income Fund (FCO) and Aberdeen Asia Pacific Income Fund (FAX). It also manages Aberdeen Chile Fund (CH) into which a host of smaller CEFs are being restructured.

*Russia right before Putin was re-elected issued a $7 bn euro bond for Gazprom in London which among its term s includes the right to repay capital with rubles rather than dollars or euros if there are sanctions. So finance is still very easy to get even if your Kremlin owner is trying to kill British residents.

*Our newly formed Pembina is being held back by fears of new taxes on master limited partnership in the pipeline industry, but it is barely exposed. They are being imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on inters t ate natural gas and oil pipelines to recover an income tax allowance in the cost of service rates. FERC double counted an income tax allowance and a return on equity determined by the discounted cash flow.

According to a report by Royal Bank of Canada analysts, PBA owns half of Alliance and half of Ruby, not via MLPs, but using normal customer contracts and rates which do not depend on its costs. Ruby moreover is held through a preferred share which insulates us common shareholders further from cash-flow issues except in extreme circumstances. The FERC ruling we have been waiting for since we bought into Veresen, VSN, one of the former components over its plan to gather and liquefy natural gas in Jordan Cove (OR, US) for which we still await a US license. I opted to get only PBA shares rather than cash last Oct. to defer US capital gains taxes but Schwab still says it cannot work out my basis. PBA is Canadian.

*China Eastern Airlines created 260 mn Hong Kong H shares under a new issue of ¥50 trillion 5-year bonds paying 0.33%-0.64% under its credit-enhanced bond issuance program. I think they must be convertible bonds but the CEA statement did not say this.

*Toray will issue 50 mn new ADRs to be sold at $5 under a registration by depositary Citigroup which will be offered to US owners of the ADR for a fee over and above that sum.

*BP plc pays 10 US cents per ordinary share of 60 cents/ADR to those who owned it Feb. 16 on March 29. You can get ordinary shares in lieu of the cash. The sterling cost with the pound at $1.39488 found be 7.1691/sh.

Food & Drink

*Anhaeuser Busch Inbev will build a $100 mn brewery in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, its Africa head Ricardo Tadeu revealed after he met with Pres. John Mangufuli. BUD also announced a new brewery in Nigeria. Africa is one of its fastest-growing areas. In Tanzania, it faces competition from Tuskers brewed in Kenya, now owned by British drink giant Diageo. BUD is Belgian.

*Greencore is up 1.15% in London to GBX 136.05. It opened this year at GBX 224 and collapsed after a profit warning Mar. 13.

Tech

*Fanuc fell 3.3% in Tokyo on Tuesday, because it makes robots. Former Fuji Automatic Numerical Control (FANUC) was spun-out of Fujitsu in 1972. I have been following FANUY since it moved into France with car-painting robots. They still account for about 35% of sales. However, it also makes machine tools in its FA division whose sales are nearly as important. Its 3^rd arm is Robomachine, a new line of robots for specific factory applications like electric injection molding or wire-cut electric discharge. It is not a FAANG.

*Mercado Libre was the worst performer we own in the tech debacle Monday, down nearly 12%. MELI of Argentina is a rival of Amazon,a FAANG.

Banksters?

*The Canadian financial watchdog is looking into how banks up north may be mis-selling services to their retail customers or opening accounts for products and services they never authorized to collect commissions. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is doing the probe which will be shared with the govt. Our Bank of Nova Scotia is among the banks being examined.

*Sampo Oiy's board chairman Björn Wahlroos has transferred 7.9 mn shares in SAXPY to companies he controls and another 2.106 mn to his children and family members. Wahlroos now owns 8.l3 mn shares of Sampo which he ran for many years as CEO, or 1.5% of the outstanding shares. He had owned 1.9% before the changes. Mr. Wahlroos is a member of Finland's Swedish-speaking minority.

Healthcare

*Martin Ferrera shared the Raymond James note on Zymeworks which rated ZYME outperform with a US$18 target price. I reported on it not knowing which dollars it was using. While calling it high risk-speculative, the brokerage said that antibody-related molecules and bispecific ones like it is developing “will continue to dominate modern medicine,” and cited ZYME's “robust platform” and “significant partner interest” on why (hold you hat) “ZYME represents Canada's Mother of All Biotechnology plays amongst early stage” firms. Martin, born in Zimbabwe and formerly a Londoner is now a proud Canadian who recommend this Canadian MOAB plays. The brokerage expects that ZW25 will compete with Herceptin and Perjeta in HER2 cancers, which have combined sales of US$10 bn. It also expects a bispecific HER-2 antibody conjugate will get an FDA IND file during this calendar year, and a non-HER2 oncology therapy will become known. Moreover an autoimmune disease or inflammation target—or both--are also in the works. It says that at a 20% discount to its price at its IPO last April, given the positive developments since then, the pullback is an ideal moment to build or initiation a position in ZYME. The $18 target is based on a probability adjusted, net present value, sum of the parts analysis. $8.45/sh is from its ZW25, $1.17/sh from ZW49, $4.90 from its strategic partnerships with 8 drug major companies, and $3.10 from its cash on hand (its IPO raised $63.6 mn).

*GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) began a phase III trial of its Benlysta (belimumab) combined with rituximab in adults with lupus because the two monoclonal antibodies work in different ways. It will enroll 600 adults with active lupus to receive one or both of the drugs plus standard therapy and immunosuppressants and a corticosteroid taper. The aim is to see how well they do in a year in terms of clinical remission and durable response. Benlysta now is the only medicine for systemic lupus erythematosus and is licensed in various doses for injection or self-injection in both the US and the EU. Lupus is a chronic incurable autoimmune disease which affects 5 mn people worldwide, about 70% of whom have SLE. Benlysta is associated with sometimes fatal infections and has killed more people in trials than placebo because of anaphylaxis reactions.

*Roche sub Genentech reports that a Phase III trial of Tecentrique plus Carboplatin chemotherapy and half with paxitaxal and half without to treat advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer beat chemo alone in achieving progression-free survival for this hard-to-treat cancer. However, it did not show significant overall survival in the 1021 enrollees in the gold-standard trial. It is one of 8 lung cancer trials being held this year to evaluation Tecentrique, 5 of which will report in 2018. RHHBY is Swiss; Genentech is the US and both are challenging Merck's Keytruda.

*Shire presented data on hypoparathyroidism in patients treated with recombinant human parathyroisd (hhPTH 1-84) hormone for 3 years for renal function compared to placebo. The study of the rare disease characterized by low PTH levels and low blood calcium,

Ratings Changes

*Zacks cut its rating on Cosan to hold from buy. CZZ is a Brazilian conglomerate with interests in sugar refining, gas stations, ethylene fuel, logistics and railroads.

*Zacks put a sell on Kubota Corp of Japan, KUBTY.

*Zacks chopped Novo Nordisk two levels from buy to hold. NVO is Danish.

*Trading Central cut Schlumberger Ltd from neutral to sell. SLB is a supplier of tech and funding for oil and gas exploration, incorporated in the Dutch Antilles.

*Needham & Co. cut Mazor Robotics to an underperform from a hold. MZOR makes surgery assisting software. The target price was set at $40 with MZOR at $69.95. It is Israeli.

*Trading Central downgraded Teva to neutral from buy. Jefferies rated the Israeli generics firm a hold with a $21 target price with the stock at $17, hedging its bets.

*Autoliv consensus EPS rose for both this year and next thanks to a bullish analyst, as reported by Charles Schwab without naming the bull. ALV is gaining from more trouble over airbags from a Japanese rival coming under US regulatory scrutiny and a National Highway Traffic Safety Agency look at the pedestrian killed on Monday, by a self-driving car in Tempe AZ. ALV is Swedish giving us a full flush in Nordic countries..

*Columbine Capital upped GlaxoSmithKline from neutral to favorable.

*Zacks upped its Roche rating from hold to buy.

Lawsuits

*Rosen Group is gathering investors for a class action suit against Vodafone alleging misleading reports. VOD is British.

*Corcept Therapeutics filed in Federal Court in NJ a claim that Teva's FDA ANDA for a generic to treat Cushing's disease violated CORT's patent.