Andrew Ling

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

"The energy bill passed overwhelmingly with a 86-8 vote, but only after the Senate removed a tax package that would have extended tax breaks for wind and solar projects and cut tax breaks for big oil and gas companies."

money.cnn.com/news/new...

The renewables bill will probably be introduced again soon an a separate bill. Also, today, the US pull a 180 on the Kyoto protocol and is no longer opposed to it.

afp.google.com/article...

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

Not exactly true. A company only needs to be seasoned one year is among the top 25% of Nasdaq 100 stocks in market cap. FSLR is currently in the top 30%. SPWR will not make it this year, however.

A momo stock is a momentum stock. Some put FSLR in this category. They probably discovered FSLR by looking at lists of this year's best performers. I'm not a momentum investor. I've been buying FSLR since Feb. simply because it's the best alternative energy investment I can find.

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

"The amount of Cd in CdTe solar cells is very small, and could be reduced even further as the cells become thinner; a NiCd flashlight battery has more Cd (7g) than a square meter of today's CdTe PV module. About 20,000 tons of Cd are used worldwide each year, about half for Ni/Cd batteries. About 2,000 tons of Cd is thrown away each year in the form of used toy batteries. Using this quantity of Cd in CdTe photovoltaics would produce 35 GW of PV per year."

www.pv.bnl.gov/cdte.ht...

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

Exactly. The earnings estimates game is much like the buy sell or hold ratings game. In theory an analyst doing his job should have just as many "sell" rated stocks as "buy" rated stocks. In reality there are far more buy rated stocks. Similarly there are far more companies that "beat" expectations than miss. The analysts figure this is the safe side to error on. It reminds me of home appraisers who, on the west coast, simply appraise the house at it's sale price 95% of the time. I always felt I was getting ripped off paying an appraiser $300 just to satisfy the bank.

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

There is also potential for additions to the S&P 500. Although I'm not sure exactly how their reorganization schedule works there was an article yesterday about Gamestop, a 9B company replacing Dow Jones & Co a 5B company

www.chron.com/disp/sto...

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

Part of the reason the analysts are always behind is because their numbers use current data to extrapolate future earnings. For example they should've known there would be new plants coming online by 2009 and figured those into 09 earnings long before the official announcements. In terms of the "valuation" of the stock most people understand some of FSLR's advantages but few understand them all. In order to truly appreciate the business you have to understand them all. The throughput improvement was one that was overlooked all the way up until the most recent earnings. I remember a few months ago someone in the message boards insisting that FSLR's accounting was fraudulent because they were already producing more than their nameplate ratings. He had no clue about the throughput improvements and conservative ratings.

First Solar, Sunpower Likely to Be Added to the Nasdaq 100 This Month

Yes the throughput increase was about the best news I can imagine. Still, it was old news and already priced in. All in all I think the stock is more attractive at these levels than before the earnings announcement. Much like I said that FSLR was a better value after their first earnings report at $45 than before at $33. That first earnings report basically put the company a year ahead of schedule. This latest earnings report puts them another year ahead of an already accelerated schedule. Remember FSLR upon IPO was not expected to turn a profit until 2008.