Andrew Ling

Trina Solar: Best Value in the Solar Space

Also, all the debate your hear about silicon supply and pricing, government subsidies, new cigs entrants, solar's viability vs other renewables etc are all really arguments about whether future earnings will be better or worse than expect. 2009 silicon prices has a direct impact on 2009 and 2010 earnings of all solar stocks, and therefore effects today's stock price. Whether solar's market share vs wind in 2030 is a sort of 2030 earnings debate, with far less effect on today's share prices. The only reason that the dramatic stock movements are cause by things such as current and next quarter's earnings is because 2009 earnings change very gradually. They determine the intermediate term performance of the stock.

Trina Solar: Best Value in the Solar Space

Ignoring 2009/2010 earnings is a big mistake. 2009 earnings on what today's stocks will be primarily trading on. Even if you find the analyst's estimates unreliable you should at least use 2007/2008 earnings and growth rates to extrapolate 2009 earnings. In Feb. 07 FSLR analysts called for 0 08 earnings. I speculated $1.50 08 earnings and bought the stock. The rest is history. If you ignore them you're just throwing darts at the Wall Street journal. Just because speculation is difficult it doesn't mean you shouldn't speculate at all.