Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said his government wants to swap new bonds governed by local law for restructured government bonds under US law. The development comes after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Argentina's appeal challenging the claims of holdout hedge fund investors who had refused to participate in the restructuring rounds of 2005 and 2010. Lower US court rulings bar Argentina from making payments to investors who went along with the restructuring deal unless it pays holdout investors at the same time. (As reported by the Buenos Aires Herald via Bloomberg).

So investors who swapped their bonds under the restructuring must accept payment from Argentinian rather than foreign banks. The banks need to gather the dollars in which the bonds are denominated and then send the money to foreign holders, most in the US and Italy. Moreover, it will be hard to do this by payout date (June 30).

The jurisdiction switch is the only way Buenos Aires can begin talks with the hold-outs and avoid default. Under the US refinancing deals it promised those accepting longer-term lower-yield bonds that it would not make an offer to the holdouts until the end of this year. But not including them in a payout now under US court rulings will put Argentina into default.

While it is not a direct commentary on Argentina bond politics, a famous Argentine close to the Peronistas commented yesterday: “Inside every Christian is a Jew.” The same Argentine also called Holocaust denial “madness”.

The commentator was Pope Francis in an interview last Friday with La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper, as reported by Jewish Week.

From when I was growing up in NYC I remember the influx of intellectuals' and Jewish classmates from Argentina including Irene who was one of my best friends, and Alejandro who was (later) the gorgeous tennis player which got the Bronx Science girls in their short white skirts onto the clay.

More from Israel, the Netherlands, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, Britain, China, and Finland. Mostly about cheap stocks, cheap in price compared to assets that is.

*Today Nokia fell for a real reason, unlike yesterday. The Finnish maker of tablet chargers recalled them because they risk electrocuting users. NOK then recovered after it docked the benefit of the second payout of a special dividend (reported yesterday) from board members who have unvested shares or options, which will be deducted from the price. How remarkable that this never happens in the USA!

*I am far from confident in her reading of the short-sellers' report on Chicago Bridge & Iron, which is built up by imputing evil motives to retroactive restatements of the purchase price allocation and fair value from its acquisition of Shaw to goodwill. This has created a $1.5 bn reserve which Prescience Point claims can be used to artificially boost future gross profits and which it says will trigger a default by CBI requiring either the issue shares or bonds to set right. That is exaggeration.

A bit of history. We got into CBI early last year via purchase of SHAW (mainly a builder of nuclear power plants) in part because we thought the CBI offer was generous, even too generous. Our source was Credit Suisse whose analysis was available on e-trade, of which I am a customer. One reason is that, as I keep telling you, I am a nuclear nut. I want the world to generate more electricity from non-polluting carbon-clean uranium fuel.

Shaw used high risk fixed-cost pricing for its projects and it was likely that its projected profits could suffer as nuclear safety rules were tightened in the wake of Fukushima. It aggressively boosted its backlog. For a Shaw veteran, there is nothing evil or unexpected about the restatements.

There are other problems with the short-sellers' reasoning. Restatements occur frequently when companies shift gears: look at the accounts of (for example) Hewlett Packard, without even the excuse of a takeover and a decline in nuclear business in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Goodwill and purchase accounting are a black hole. And most winners of takeover battles wind up doing less well than expected and have to restate terms.

An even less-convincing argument by Prescience claims that the restatements boosted CBI's backlog which it says were “written up.” If projects are delayed they move into the backlog. And as the cost-priced contracts are filled, the backlog moves into the revenue (and profit) column.

That doesn't mean all is well at CBI. Its insiders have been net sellers of shares in the last quarter, not the ones they got from exercising options, but the ones they already own. Of course, insiders sell because they need money for other things, including exercising their generous options. And as Prescience demanded more and more details on its accounts, the savvy CBI managers could guess what was coming. Others may also have been on the trail, of course including Prescience clients. (I was sent the report by the firm yesterday morning although I have no idea why. It is now posted on www.seekingalpha.com )

With fear and trembling we sold over the past few years two Warren Buffett holdings:BYD, the Chinese car-maker tipped by Fei Chen, and Posco, the Korean steel-maker, found by me. Berkshire Hathaway owns 6.5 mn shares of CBI worth, even after the ~20% drop on the short-seller report, $435.5 mn. Mr Buffett knows how to read a balance sheet. Most analysts (with the exception of Credit Suisse, which I quoted yesterday on the Q1 accounts) rate CBI a buy.

It will take a few days for CBI and the analysts to deal with the charges of “accounting shenanigans” because of legal impediments to their saying what I wrote above. The company so far has reaffirmed its 2014 guidance ($4.80-5.65/sh in profits excluding non-recurring items, on revenues of $12.6-13.2 bn, as reported yesterday.) It also warned that there are short-sellers lurking about.

At under $69 (vs $45 where we came in), there is no reason to sell. I anticipate that the rinky little CBI quarterly dividend of 7 cents/sh (a yield of 0.4%!) may be raised again to boost confidence. DA Davidson, a brokerage, put out a strong buy on CBI today, citing its dominance of the gas liquefaction business which is growing fast in Gulf of Mexico sites, precisely where the Prescience short-sellers hang out (they're out of Louisiana). I am too spooked so far to buy more. CBI is ex-div today.

*While on the subject of www.seekingalpha.com, note that Electrovaya has been breaking upward (2.5%) thanks to articles on the website by Livio Filice and Dr Bernard Fleet. The latter appears to be a board member and consultant to EFLVF according to his bio.

Fleet argues that thanks to its production method for lithium-ion storage batteries not using toxic n-methyl-pyrrolidone or NMP, which causes birth defects, Electrovaya has an edge over conventional battery-making. As a woman I am naturally concerned about potential toxic chemicals causing birth defects but I do not like propaganda.

EFLVF just raised $2.9 mn with a non-brokered private placement at 90 cents/sh plus a half warrant to buy anther share at C$1.25 in the next 18 months. EFLVF has raised money in the past by similar issues to CEO Dr Sankar DasGupta and his bullish family who sit with Dr Fleet on its board. We like the stock and its production method but this is a Canadian penny stock which has now been twice in June boomed up on seekingalpha.com in a program run by an IR outfit specializing in small-caps called Agoracom, paid by companies for providing information and a forum on their stocks. The stock fell back after I wrote this note and sent a copy to the www.seekingalpha.com managing editor, Yosef Levenstein. He may have pulled the stuff. I hope he did for the rep of his company.

*As I was not alone in forecasting, Phillip Frost MD will step down this year as Chairman of the Teva board. Dr Frost, an American who runs an acquisitive outfit calledOpko Health and supports its shares by buying them, took the lead in forcing out Jeremy Levin as TEVA president last year. OPK is another share widely written up on www.seekingalpha.com but we sold our Prolor Biotech 1 ½ years ago to avoid becoming OPK shareholders

*Compugen coverage was initiated by JP Morgan Securities today with an “outperform” rating. CGEN is heading up to $10 again, up 7% today. Read Patti the Biotech Maven's take on the Israeli drug discovery firm in yesterday's blog to understand why. JPM's target is $14. Bravo Patti!

*Allana Potash is also up. This penny stock may have been written up somewhere too. It is developing a mine in Ethiopia with shareholders Israel Chemicals and the International Finance Corp. among others. ALLRF is Canadian and fluctuates madly.

*British brokers Daniel Stewart & Co. citing macroeconomic changes and government pro-consumption policies overcoming the risks of shadow banking and excess credit, reiterate their focus on consumer goods, entrepreneurs' companies, and foreign-listed and -regulated companies. Among the UK AIM shares they cover, we also like founder-controlled logistics firm China ChainTek, CTEK:UK, which the broker says has a 200%+ upside and a 6.4% current yield. DS reiterates its enthusiasm for the new logistics park near the plants of a half-dozen of its customers which is expected to wildly boost earnings as it is being totally financed from cash-flow.

The brokerage also likes our better-performing consolation prize Naibu Global,NBU:UK, with a mere 178% potential upside and an 8.3% yield. NBU of Fujian province is China's 10^th largest maker of branded sportwear, with late teens and 20's customer focus. (We bought it because we couldn't deal with the Chronic Investor-Investors' Chronicle promotional ups and downs of a kiddie sportwear competitor, Camkids, CAMK:AIM.) NBU will start producing goods at a new plant this summer doubling output.

NBU will double output at another expanded plant in a different part of Fujian early in 2016. It sells to distributors who in turn sell on to Naibu-brand and other retailers in smaller Chinese cities. These can be in malls or inside department stores but most are free-standing. There are only 145 Naibu-brand stors but the number is growing based on NBU and distributor market research. All goods (shoes, clothing and fast-growing low-base accessories) are sold without right of return. NBU also is launching web sales. From its eastern and northern China bases, NBU is growing fastest in central and southwestern China. Overall sales are growing 15%/yr and after-tax net profits 16%/yr. There is expected to be some slowing in profit and sales growth short-term as the new factories go live, but gross profits and margins should pick up in 2015. The Lin family of the chairman and the VP of production) and two UK investors, Hargreave Hale and Montoya control nearly 60% of the stock.

NBU is ridiculously cheap. It trades are less than its cash on hand and at a pe of 1.3x earnings. While we all have learned to our sorrow to distrust Chinese accounts, British auditors beat US ones. And British brokers do not switch their outlook on small stocks with narrow trading numbers as often as US ones do.

*Singapore's Global Logistic Properties signed a build-to-suit accord for its Yoshimi Tokyo suburban site with Japan Logistic Systems Corp. (Logitem), now entering GBTZF's list of top-ten Japanese clients. The 62 thousand sq m site is slated for completion in August 2015. Price was not disclosed. Logitem also operates in China, Hong Kong, Laos, Taiwan, Thailand, Myanmar, and a lot in Vietnam, where so far there are no GBTZF facilities. It has so much Vietnamese business that its websites are available in French as well as Japanese and English.

*Pure Technologies signed contracts for inspecting North American oil pipelines for a total of $3.5 mn which will be paid for over the next 3 years. PPEHF's Smart-ball system floats in pipes and detects acousic events and metrics to spot leaks. While the oil business is fun, I am more interested in PPEHF water and sewage leak-detection systems, as discussed in this week's Economist (which did not mention this Canadian small cap of course.) Its systems also monitor bridges and other structures using fiberoptics. PUR-Toronto is a play on infrastructure investment (which is desperately needed) and also on the (I hope) Keystone XL pipeline to bring Canadian heavy crude to the US for refining, replacing high risk rail links.

*While I'm fed up I sold half my Covidien too soon, I comfort myself with some other shares like CGEN, discussed above, and my US yield portfolio star, Williams Cos, buying into a shale gas pipeline run by Access Midstream Partners, another potential PPEHF client. All three are up in double digits this week. Another top performer garnered from Dr KSS, a writer on stockgumshoe.com, an honest website, and by broker Aegis Capital, is also up in double-digits, but it is pure USA like WMB, BIOC or Biocept Inc.You should not put all your money into global if you live in the USA and eat in dollars.

*Delek Group, mopping up cash to develop Israeli offshore gasfields, will be helped by the new policy of distributing dividends at its listed Israeli controlled subs Avner Oil & Gas and Delek Drilling LP. They are slated to pay their parent $100 mn on June 25, most of it from DD.

*I bought more Paddy Power plc and was not alone. UBS's London branch reported to the Dublin stock market today that it had bought 6.42% of PDYPF's stock on Bloomsday.

*Several US readers and a Canadian asked me what is up with the Portugal Telecom dividend. We all should have been credited by now. I was told by e-trade that the holdup may be at the Depository Trust Co., but I fear it may be in fact in Lisbon. Portugal has now instituted withholding on accounts from what PT calls “tax heavens”. It means tax havens. The US is not a tax haven and we have a double taxation treaty with Lisbon dating back nearly 20 years. But the bureaucracy is very slow and stupid. There is no link between this payout and the merger-takeover of Oi in Brazil, slated to close later this month.

Given the rumble I wrote in my best Fundação Gulbenkian Portuguese to the IR at PT, Nuno Vieira, but I have not had the favor of a reply. I am resending my message and this blog to nuno.t.vieira@telecom.pt and will follow suit by a descent upon him early next month in Lisbon unless the money has come in the interval.