Are Solar Tech Stocks Being Unfairly Trampled in the Rush?

Thursday night on NBR, Hilary Kramer, Market Strategist & Author of "Ahead of the Curve: Nine Simple Ways to Create Wealth by Spotting Stock Trends" said she thought the bottom was in and she saw value in the tech group where she recommended SunPower (SPWR), First Solar (FSLR) and Apple Computer (AAPL).

KRAMER: Yes, Paul. I believe we have seen the bottom and we are going to now see a bull come back into Wall Street. We have formed a bottom and the reason we know that is that we finally had real buyers come in today. But we know it even more so because of what I saw this morning [Thursday] and yesterday [Wednesday], which is real fear. Fear took over and it over powered greed. Greed for so long was fueling the market, including as it was going down people buying into it.

KANGAS: Huh-uh.

KRAMER: But once that pessimism, a rational pessimism took over and the last of us capitulated because that's what Wall Street waits for. They wait for the very very last person who's holding onto their stock to give up and to sell, and that's when the Street turns around and surprises you.

KANGAS: OK so a bottom we have seen. We might test it a couple of times, wouldn't you agree?

KRAMER: Absolutely. We may be testing and we'll be testing certain sectors.

To Paul Kangas's question "Where do you see value among the tech group?"

KRAMER: That's a great question, Paul. What I have been looking at are the solar technology companies. In particular there's a company called SunPower. The ticker symbol is SPWR and it is off 50 percent from its high which was only a few weeks ago. Now SunPower is reporting before the bell Friday and we could see SunPower have some great guidance. If they say that there's a lot of demand out there for their solar modules and if that's the case, the whole solar sector may rise.
click to enlargeKANGAS: What else shines in your mind?

KRAMER: OK another solar stock, a different one called First Solar (FSLR) and it's a different technology, thin film technology, very efficient form of solar. And First Solar is also off 45 percent since December. It's unbelievable what has happened to these stocks because of momentum buyers became momentum sellers and shorters. So if SunPower goes up, we will see First Solar go up.

KANGAS: Very briefly one more. We have less than a minute.

KRAMER: I would like to talk about Apple (AAPL). This is very important, because as we know, Apple was $202 just recently and it closed today at $139 and it tested $126. I may go back into Apple. But what happened there is Steve Jobs is very conservative in giving guidance. But the key is, they are going to make inroads into the PCs because they can convert iPod users into desk top users and lap top users.

KANGAS: OK. Hilary, do you own any of the stocks mentioned?

KRAMER: Yes, I own First Solar. And SunPower I do intend to buy tomorrow morning if the earnings come out strong.

Comments

[Shameless Ko]

Readers of Seeking Alpha beware. Those writers give "opinions" that do not reflect actual market conditions. They want to suck you into LONG positions that they are shorting into.

Look at their recent articles. Option Dragon piece of crap was saying buy AAPL before earnings, or this asshole is saying now to buy SOLAR? SUN Power reported 6 cents earnings and it's trading at 300 times earnings right now. FSLR is better, still trading at over 100 times earnings. AAPL is pretty much in the shithole too because ipod demand showed slowed growth. Those three stocks are the primary target of shorting. I guess you can listen to this "Kirk" guy, and lose your money.

[Thomas A,Gaughan]

kangas. My question to you is. Is this Hillary Cramer any relations to Jim Cramer? The reason I ask, these the three same stocks Jim Cramer has pumping for the last month as they been tanking,. I must be disclose, I'm a long term investor is Apple, that has lost his as# because of morons like Jim cramer pumping the stock one day while shorting it and bashing on his ( TCM) site, street dot common. If she is relate, it throws up a reg flag to me. She properly shoring like her other half Jim is.

Thomas A. Gaughan

[Shameless Ko]

Solar stocks are so grossly overvalued, let me get your brains straight.

I treat solar stocks such as FSLR and SPWR as home builders. They buy semiconductor material and put it on top of people's roofs. Basically they are home builders with exposure to the alternative energy. So my question to you is this: why not buy the supplier of the semiconductors? WFR for example has the same SOLAR exposure, yet it trades at 22 times earnings vs FSLR's 120 times earnings, or SPWR's 300+ earnings.

They are treating the "contracts" as if the margins are guaranteed. If there is anything for sure about the solar stocks, you buy up the suppliers and short the "home builders".

Buy some WFR and short some FSLR would be a totally hedged position.

[ProudCanadian]

ALL solars stocks are a big BUBBLE and I don't consider them as Tech stocks, like Shameless Ko, but home builder's stocks. Real tech stocks are the like of RIMM, AAPL, QCOM...
And you guess that I'M proud of RIMM....

[frflyer]

Shameless Ko
To say that solar companies are like home builders requires some kind of pretzel logic and gross generalization. Do home builders make PV ingots or wafers or solar cells? What are you talking about? And yes the valuations of some solar stocks are quite high, while some are dirt cheap. Look at the forward PE for TSL,SOLF,CSIQ,YGE even STP has a reasonable forward PE now. TSL has forward PE of about 13.
Some are verticaly integrated companies, some aren't. You can't generalize across companies with completely differrent business models. When is the last time a home builder invented a better 2x4 or anything else? You're a little late for the bubble bursting, as it already has for most solar stocks.
What you say about WFR is true, and I have that stock, but some solar companies make their own wafers.

[KirkLindstrom]

I don't own the solar companies and don't recommend any... unless you count AMAT that I've made a small fortune on over the years in my newsletter and personal accounts.

My goal for writing the article was to track what Hilary Kramer was saying about them on NBR for some of my readers on my facebook forum who like the solars despite the huge valuations they carry.

If I own a stock, then I will put that in a disclaimer at the end of the article.