Last night the long-awaited Turkish central bank (CB) rate hike took markets by surprise although higher rates to fight inflation were expected for weeks. Turkish interest rates went from 4.5% to 10% in one fell swoop to try to shock lire short-sellers. This led to some reversal of the anti-emerging markets trend reported yesterday sending stocks up not only in Turkey but all over.

The exception is Argentina, where the CB sold over $100 mn worth of peso bills (at the official rate) for 90 days yielding a whopping 25.89%. And if you have dollars the CB will also sell you dollar bills yielding 4%.

I got an article by William Pesak of Bloomberg from an Asia-hand reader. Pesak unsurprisingly wrote that Bangkok stocks and the baht remain under pressure as Thai factions fighting for political power prove murderously ruthless, likely to bring the economy down. Frankly, under hapless Yingluck Shinawatra's leadership, favoring stupid rice subsidies to keep northern anti-Chinese anti-Bangkok redshirts happy, the economy is hardly going up. The street battles and the coming royal hiatus increase the ferocity of red and yellow contenders for power. (NB: Both King Bhumibol and the Shinawatras are of part-Chinese ancestry.)

Regulars like me know that rather than making your way through the underground rabbit warren at Canary Wharf to connect between the Docklands Light Railway and the Underground's Jubilee line, you get off at Heron Quai, the stop before, and cross Bank Street to the escalator that takes you right to the subway. Across Bank Street, no. 25 is an undistinguished but cursed modern building.

It was built for Enron traders, but bankruptcy kept them out of it. So Lehman Brothers took the lease. In late 2008, pictures of tearful or stiff-upper-lips employees carrying their personal belongings out of No. 25 after Lehman went bust made all the newspapers.

The next tenant was JP Morgan-Chase, and No. 25 became home to “the London whale." Despite his best efforts, he didn't cause more than a $7 bn loss to JPM which survived.

As you may have read a JPM employee plunged to his death from No. 25, landing on the roof of a lower Canary Wharf commercial building. Beware the curse of No. 25.

Siemens is de-listing its SI ADR which it says has nothing to do with charges by Snowden that its internal communications were hacked by the NSA.

More follows from Britain, Spain, Israel, Canada, Norway, Ireland, and Singapore.

*The battle between Vodafone and Liberty Media is heating up according to a front-page article in today's Financial Times, with Spain the latest confrontation site. Its privately-owned cable firm Ono is reportedly in talks with both to sell for euros 7 bn or so, while also pondering an IPO. This is the latest round of confrontations between the two cash-rich groups, which sparred over German and Dutch telcos earlier. The FT also believes they may be interested also in Fastweb, of Italy as each seeks to build out media positions in Europe. LBTYA/K is backed by US billionaire John Malone while VOD has money paid by Verizon for ending their cellphone jv. The newspaper thinks Vodafone shareholders will be reluctant to overpay from their VZ windfall to buy in Spain. Your editor owns VOD (I hesitated to recommend it a half year ago); plus Comcast, a US contender for triple and quadruple media plays engaged in carve-ups too.

Separately, Moody's put Liberty's Dutch takeover target Ziggo on watch for a downgrade.

*Also in Spain, Sheila Bair, outspoken former head of our FDIC, joined the board of Santander,  a sound Euroland bank. SAN.

*Another day, another institutional buy of Paddy Power plc, this time 6.96 % by UBS. PDYPF barely trades its US ADR and funds buy blocks from each other.

*If there was ever a chance that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) could be returned to the private sector in time for next year's UK election, it ended with all the latest fines and charges, totalling up to GBP 8 bn. The delay adds to the security of our preferreds.

*Your editor could not persuade E-trade to convert her Norwegian pink sheet shares of Marine Harvest to the newly listed ADRs without having to telephone across the Atlantic to the supposed discount brokerage, which may also charge me $40 for the conversion after the 1:10 reverse split in Norway. They say it will take up to 4 weeks to boot. Sometimes cheap discount brokerages are dear. It is now listed as MHG on the Big Board. Readers should tell me if they had a better experience with another broker.

*Teva shares are up some more after our FDA approved its new 3x/week double-dose (40 mg) injections for multiple sclerosis using blockbuster drug Copaxone. This extends the patent to 2030.

*Global Logistics Properties announced four big new leases, two in Tianjin for Sanky, one in Suzhou for Lightnin' in the Box, an on-line retailer, and another for retailer Watson in Wuhan. The total new leases is for 43 thousand square meters. GBTZF is Singaporean and operates also in Japan and Brazil, directly and via jv's with sovereign wealth and retirement funds.

*Bombardier got upgraded to market perform by analysts at Scotiabank yesterday giving BDRAF a C$4.75 target price.

*CAE unveiled a maternal fetal simulator called Fidelis yesterday at a healthcare simulation conference. While its main business is flight simulators, the Canada firm is diversifying into medical. It also was designated exclusive training provider for France's new Dassault Falcon 5x fighter plane.

*GlaxoSmithKline warned European doctors that it faces a shortage of chickenpox vaccines given singly or in combination jabs with measles, mumps, and rubella after a Belgian sub-standard plant was shut down.

*CIBC did a roundup of how to play gold these days in which it wound up recommending a bunch of juniors plus Barrick, ABX, which we sold. We own its bonds.