Capping a crazy week, broad markets end up, while commodities retreated slightly.
Camino's indices ended the week mixed amid highly volitile trading.
In Biofuels, we again saw the potential for huge losses driven by poor risk management practices applied to hedging strategies. Read more here.
Verasun (VSE) dragged the Biofuels strategy down for the week with a 67 % decline. This is after a 50% bounce the stock received following its announcement it was reviewing "strategic alternatives" in the wake of its hedging loss.
On the up side, LED-Lighting's Cree (CREE) capped its strong week with an upgrade. Oppenheimer's analyst apparently thinks light-emitting diodes are being adopted as a mainstream lighting product. This is a continuing demonstration of the influence of analysts.
I like LEDs. They last a long time (5x a CFL), they have a cool form factor, they don't use mercury, they are rugged, they can be dimmed, and produce very nice light. Unfortunately, commercial LED products are no more efficient then CFLs and currently cost 20 times as much. Their long life doesn't yet offset this high cost. Given time, I expect them to penetrate more lighting applications but we are not there just yet for mainstream use. I'll get excited when their cost start to fall significantly and approach no more the 5x the cost of a CFL.
Mark is the founder of Camino Energy, an information provider specializing in globally traded sustainable energy stocks.
