“Whatever it takes”, Mario Draghi's agenda for the European Central Bank (which he heads) to act against the risk of a deflationary spiral into depression, today was defined further as the ECB slashed interest rates to 0.05%. A 20^th of a percentage point interest rate to borrow money is close to no interest rate at all.

This will make the euro currency cheaper and boost the exports of European companies, which is good for our stocks. But it threatens our gains, since we base our results on US dollars, and our dividends, which we also collect in US money.

But there are ways to protect yourself against adverse currency trends using simple, liquid, and easily accessible traded funds. There is absolutely no need to get into currency trading which is for specialists.

By the way, chances are that direct investment flows which have been mostly eastward across the Atlantic lately (partly for tax-inversion and partly for good-old diversification) may revert to bring more foreign investment here from the east.

America's appeals include: a tech edge, safer geopolitics because Russia is much further away, cheaper energy thanks to fracking, less bureaucracy for hiring and firing, more space, a very large market for whatever the Europeans make, and faster growth prospects. And good-old diversification works both ways.

Add Johnson & Johnson to the list of companies aiming to develop an Ebola vaccine. We have a pair of non-US firms also working on a jab against hemorrhagic horrors like Ebola and Marburg.

Oops. The Munich Agreement was signed not in 1937 as I wrote yesterday, but in 1938, which means the Chamberlain capitulation and appeasement staved off World War II by less than a year. As a former PhD candidate in European history I failed to look up the date.

Plus another buy recommendation, not new.

*One of our Ebola stocks is not being touted because of vaccine prospects, which by the way are unlikely to boost results at JNJ. Large pharma stock GlaxoSmithKline is testing a potential vaccine in phase II trials (in healthy British volunteers) to make sure the jab is safe and also gearing up to produce 10,000 doses should the vaccination work. Neither JNJ nor GSK will make money enough to hit their bottom line if they succeed

*More likely to gain if its existing work on hemorrhagic diseases pans out is the stock of Danish small-cap Bavarian Nordic (BVNRY, BAVA-Copenshagen) which has a contract from the US Dept of Defense DAFSA arm and the US National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases to find a vaccine for these and other epidemics (like smallpox). BVNKF with its MVA-BN technology is the designated partner ofJohnson & Johnson in developing an Ebola vaccine, and will work with JNJ sub Crucell (which we used to own) to speed things up. CRXL-that-was uses the AdVac vaccine platform. I recently bought more BVNRY mainly because the Ebola news had not upped the share price. It still lags on no volume here in the USA. Today it is at $19.11 bid $20.01 ask. Its unsponsored ADRs which still trade here are at $19.41 bid $19.78 ask, and are a better buy. I just put in an order. Bavarian's contract for Ebola is with the NIAID and is for a vaccine that covers both Ebola and Marburg viruses which are both filoviridae.

Separately, BVNRY today announced that the US govt Biomedical Advanced R&D Authority has exercised its option worth $118 mn for continued delivery of Imvamune smallpox vaccine to the US Strategic National Stockpile. I just bought more BVNKF at $19.67.

*I wrote about Pewershares DB US$ Index Bullish yesterday. UUP is an exchange traded fund. We recommend that readers use ETFs to protect against a soaring Greenback: Powershares DB US$ bullish UUP; Proshares Ultrashort Yen, YCS; and Horizons US$ Currency Class A ETF, listed in Toronto as DLR which hedges our C$ risks. I had no idea the ECB would cut rates today.

*Nokia is offering a new and better iOS 8 Apple iPhone application for its mapping-navigation software, HERE, after pulling its former version when Apple changed its specs for apps. NOK is aggressively peddling HERE to fight Google'sMaps app among other things by letting iPhone users keep maps on screen even if they are off-line. The Finnish firm has made mapping deals for Samsung smart phones' map app and also head-on for Android Google devices. Meanwhile Microsoft is offering dual SIM mobilephones with both MSFT Windows Phone 8.1 operating system and NOK Lumia 830, 735, and 730 platforms. These work with android and iPhone.

*Paddy Power plc, the Irish bookie, has named Andy McCue as CEO-designate, to replace Patrick Kennedy who will step down next May. Mr McCue added 1,200 PDYPF shares to the 8,100 he already owned to mark his move up from being Paddy's job as managing director UK and Irish retail with responsibility for regulatory matters. Mr. McHue is a Scot but married to an Irishwoman and a resident of Dublin. Before joining Paddy in 2006 he worked for Arthur Andersen.

The Capital Group, Los Angeles investment managers with $1 trillion under management, meanwhile, raised its stake in Paddy to over 12%. Like your editor I think they anticipate a Paddy move into on-line gambling in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

*Teva reported that 2 phase 3 trials of its novel differentiated asthma drug reslizumab wildly beat placebos in cutting the frequency of clinical asthma exacerbations by 50-60% while improving lung function in patients with eleveaed blood eosinophils.

Teva also took on Bristol Myers Squibb with a generic of Baraclude tablets in two formulations launched in the US market. It has 90 days exclusivity under US rules as first to file for the drug to treat chronic Hepatitis B (CHB). Your editor owns BMS in her US portfolio, mainly for the dividend.

*More on the Jordan gas memorandum of understanding for a sale of Israeli offshore gas reported yesterday. The signatory for the Leviathan partners is the operator, Texan Noble Energy via its Mediterranean sub, on behalf of a new marketing company. The buyer is National Electric Power Co of Jordan. The lead seller is Delek Group which via 2 subs owns 45.34% of Leviathan. The final contract is expected to be signed later this year.

*The Cameco strike which has taken out ~10% of the world's uranium supply is good news for Uranerz, a share this nuclear booster owns in her US portfolio. URZ has just delivered its first U308. 36,000 lbs, from its Powder River Basin mine (in Nichols Ranch, Wyoming, why this is not a GI pick). The uranium will eventually go to URZ's ute customers which include Excelon. CCJ.

*Banco Santander hit a new high after rising 2.5% in Madrid trading. SAN.

*Your editor owns Royal Dutch Shell stock but has never felt impelled to put it into the model portfolio. Shell just announced that it had found shale gas in Pennsylvania ~300 miles from where the Utica Shale deposit was believed to end (in Ohio). As noted Sunday, Cleveland is ~350 miles from Washington, DC, about the distance from Moscow to the nearest Ukrainian border.

Fund notes:

*From an ad in The Financial Times we learn that the private capital arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corp., via its Asset Management Co., plans to create a new institutional fund for investing in Mexico. This should boost our Mexican Equity & Income Fund (MXE) as well as the reformist Peña Neto govt. Separetely, despite the Mexican peso meeting its forex target, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch continues to advise being long the MXN because of what it called today “an extra leg to the rally.”

*Rio Tinto has named a new president for its jv with the govt called Oyu Tolgoi LLC in Mongolia, Andrew Woodley, to try to reach and agreement on the financing and taxation of the future underground portion of huge open-pit copper-gold mine. If Mr Woodley succeds in settling the dispute this will boost our Mongolian Growth Fund, MNGGF for us, and YAK for Canadians. It is currently half weighted because I need tax losses, but I may add some more in my IRA.

*Raven Rus (RUS:GB) managed to hold its gain despite the confusion over a Ukrainian ceasefire.