John Cordes

Equity Market Bears, Take Careful Note of the Chinese Stock Market

Well, Goldman, and UBS have just raised Chinese GDP estimates for both 2009 and 2010, (9.6% and 11.3%). It may be hard to understand a continuing building wedge if your context is dominated by the S & P and DOW where the US GDP finally found a positive quarter. The Chinese story is 1.3 billion people discovering the joys of consumerism and a government rotating it's managed economic goals from high export/cheap labor to domestic consumption. Combined with enormorous savings behavior, and a legitimate urban middle class larger than the entire population of the United States and you may begin to get what these charts are telling you.

Wall Street: Dumb as It Ever Was

"One world, one heart: let's get together and feel alright." Freaking funny. Good article. I swear, I think Larry Kudlow is auditioning daily to be the co-host of the O'Reilly factor.
I think in actuality it's not the psychological factor of crossing 10%, it's the analysts and traders looking for another intangible catalyst on which to swing the market, with help of course from CNBC. After all, not volatility, no profits, no fun.

There's No Bubble in China

I agree on your thesis regarding Chinese risk and valuation, however your style is somewhat needlessly abusive. The notion of a "battle of opinions" is a euphemism. Try sandwich positives instead of blowtorches.

Senator Schumer Misses the Full Picture on A-Power's Joint Texas Wind Farm

Evergreen Solar just announced their move to China lock stock and barrel. How many subsidies for the Devon Plant?

The Complete List of Chinese ADR Stocks

You missed quite a number including; FUQI, APWR, FEED, ABAT, CBAK, YONG, UTA, KONG, CGA to name a few. Should call the list, "the incomplete ADR list".

America Is Creating Green Energy Jobs...in China

As boorish as it may sound, the Bush administration and a Republican Congress wasted eight years, refusing to pass the significant green energy subsidies for wind and solar. Hardly surprising when you consider their fealty to big oil. China has been overtly promoting polysilicon production, wind turbine production and domestic consumption of both for quite some time. They have used tax abatement, eased financing and subsidized utility costs. The Repbulicans dithered on this until 2008 when an anemic bill was finally passed at the end of the year. No surprises then. I have owned APWR for a year.

Finding Opportunities in Wind Energy

apwr

The Sweet Smell of Solar Values

Nice concise artcle, easy to follow and straight forward.

Will Exide's Run Continue?

ABAT, Lithium Ion, Wuxi electric cycles, ZAPP collaboration, positive PE, little debt, core business in miners' lamp batteries and notebook batteries, and enjoys favorable tax treatment from the government. Slightly beat estimates but forcast a near doubling in next quarter revenue.

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

Tax rebate or deduction fails to target the intended goal, get poor mileage, pollution spewing dangerous vehicles off the road and replace them with cleaner, fuel efficient cars while boosting car manufacturing and all the collateral service jobs that go with it. A tax deduction only works if you have enough taxable income to receive a deduction, ergo, only wealthier Americans would get the benefit, the ones who actually are most likely to buy a new car anyway and precisely the group less likely to be driving a piece of crap that needs to be taken off the road. The rebate simply makes the program a bit more democratic, insofar as anyone can take advantage of it.


On Aug 01 10:38 AM tonym wrote:

> "Finally, the real economic impact is actually a boon insofar as
> it leverages the purchase from the consumer four or five to one at
> minimum, produceing local sales tax, jobs, distribution, recycling,
> future warranty work etc. I think your article is politically motivated,
> untruthful, and flat out wrong. "
>
> Presenting valid numbers is not "political." This program might have
> benefits for our struggling economy. Incentives are a good idea.
> But the cost of this program is excessive like most government interference.
> Debt is going to destroy the government itself as it is doing in
> California. Those benefits could easily be duplicated by significant
> tax deductions for purchasing the new vehicles.

Why Lead-Carbon Batteries Will Deflate the Li-ion Bubble

John, since last we exchanged comments about XIDE, AXPW and ABAT, the entire space seems to be generating fresh interest from both investors and press. Most boats are rising incrementally. However most of the names remain in the enterprise column except for my fav. ABAT. I just wanted your take about the recent announcment of product combination with ZAP motors and your current take on ABAT's on going ramp up with Wuxi electric cycles and bikes?

They have also just completed tripling their battery production lines and are now seriously moving into the car and cycle market after successfully raising capital on a secondary offering with warrants. They maintain a very nice cash flow and positive earnings with their meat and potatoes business of being the primary supplier of miner's cap light batteries, and continueing sales in the cell phone and notebook battery market. They are obviously benefitting from tax abatement reductions from the government and loan guarantees, I'm trying to figure out any reason to have reervations about ABAT. In other words, what's not to like"? However everytime I arrive at this point with the fundementals of a company and I can see virtually no negatives, I begin to get nervous. Help me out? (Also I noticed a recent insider purchase of 1million shares, do you have any info on this?)

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

Clever gymnastics, but it doesn't hold water and is calculated to be controversial without genuine veracity. The real cost is the subsidy amount. The argued economic impact supposedly robs future sales that have been deferred. Not true! Already many news stories have shown people making repairs just to get their clunkers in for the trade that would have otherwise sat on blocks or never left the shed or carport.

As any salesman will tell you, there is no sale and no propect of one until a client walks in the door. Can't make sales in an empty showroom. Dealers are reporting as high as one to one non rebated sales taking place as a result of the added traffic.

Finally, the real economic impact is actually a boon insofar as it leverages the purchase from the consumer four or five to one at minimum, produceing local sales tax, jobs, distribution, recycling, future warranty work etc. I think your article is politically motivated, untruthful, and flat out wrong. Other than that, good job.

Meritage Homes Does Face Plant on Earnings

This stock is currently pumped up over it's price for the last two years. Still not sure how contracting asset values, missed income, and continueing bleakness in foreclosures and employment put this stock up to pre-2007 August levels.

Obama's Donut Economics

So?

Jon Stewart Takes on Goldman Sachs [Video]

When comedians appear more poignant than news programs, and reaction is pious indignation from some quarters, then you know that massive inequities and conspiracies are happening. Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin served the same legitimate purpose of satirizing power and influence to its face as Stewart does. In order to have punch and relevance, satire must closely follow reality and peel back some amount of truth to avoid just being rhetoric.
Jon Stewart and other comedians become more relevant and news moutpieces less so as reality morphs into the bizarre, and credibility and ethics become parody. Try to remember the dichotomy of the Vietnam era when college students and youth defined the difference between generations as the "establishment". "The establishment" meant, in their view, that an entire generation of politicians, military and business leaders could not be trusted and were somehow bound up together in a loose and misguided conspiracy to protect the status quo and continue oppressing the minorities, the poor and the young. To a great extent they were right, if you consider the causes for legitimate reform at the time, the war (and the draft), civil rights and economic dispartiy and labor laws. Thus resulted "the cultural revolution" which for all intense purposes was a paradigm shift toward more progressive and liberal values which played out through the seventies.
In the current era, if a person is even slightly inclined to believe in conspiracy theories and hidden manipulation of the instruments of power and wealth, then obviously Goldman Slacks is the epicenter of suspicion considering their connection to the highest offices of govenment and economic policy. What becomes obvious then to the suspicious mind may only be spoken of openly by the satirist and the comedian until the matter enters the mainstream of consciousness in society. Obviously when the Goldman is the only notable commercial bank of past glory left standing and whose alumni write policy and generally escape the fallout and rake in extreme wealth, then it's reasonable to expect some attention will be paid. In fact one could say that only the naive would not feel something is amiss.