Mark Situ

Gulf Resources: Cashing in on Bromine

no


On Oct 30 11:02 AM jarco wrote:

> Is this the old Gulf Resources & Chemical who mined lead in Idaho,
> salts in Salt Lake, Utah, etc?

Tri-Tech Holding: The Most Exciting Chinese IPO Ever Listed

I had chance to talk to TRIT's president Phil Fan. I am impressed by him.

Usually, companies that do government sponsored projects will have large account receivable. However, governments in China seldom default payments. The process may take some time, but collection will not be a big issue.

I once talked to an American private equity investor in China. He told me Chinese governments use cash to finance projects. While here in US, governments issue IOU.

RINO International: A Company Worth Watching

first, research is based on public information.
second, this is a firm still at its growth stage.
some basic financial information such as number of shares outstanding, warrants outstanding, cash balance, outstanding long and st debt, can be found from yahoo/google finance easily. If I put all these here, this article will be too long.

Other information like DSO, cash flow generation, need for future capital expenditures are changing all the time.

What we need to focus on these kind of firms are its technology, market, and competitive advantages. If we put too much attention on only financial metrics, we will lose the big picture.

I do have simple valuation model, but I think a broad picture of its technology and potential market are more important.



On Jul 12 11:43 AM China Expert wrote:

> There is no analysis here....simply cut and paste from public info....
> How can you value this company without some basic financial information
> such as number of shares outstanding, warrants outstanding, cash
> balance, outstanding long and st debt, DSO, cash flow generation,
> need for future capital expenditures, etc. ? I guess you omitted
> these important metrics since they cannot be cut and pasted from
> public documents.
>
> Sounds like a nice story stock with some interesting growth prospects
> and some EPS estimates pulled from the air.
>

How to Invest in Water

Mad Hedge Fund:

Thanks for your reply, which is a great complementary to my original post.

I think water infrastructure and some water ETFs are also great water investment vehicles. I will put more focus on these in my other posts.

This is my first post at SA and hope to attract more meaningful discussions here. Except sector overview, I will post some individual stock analysis.


On Jul 06 11:42 AM Mad Hedge Fund Trader wrote:

> Thanks for the names. If you think that the upcoming energy shortage
> is going to be bad, it will pale in comparison to the next water
> crisis, so investment in fresh water infrastructure is going to be
> a recurring long term investment theme. (See my earlier efforts to
> get you into the water space at www.madhedgefundtrader...).
> One theory about the endless wars in the Middle East since 1918 is
> that they have really been over water rights. Although Earth is often
> referred to as the water planet, only 2.5% is fresh, and three quarters
> of that is locked up in ice at the North and South poles. In places
> like China, with a quarter of the world’s population, up to 90% of
> the fresh water is already polluted, some irretrievably so. Some
> 18% of the world population lacks access to potable water, and demand
> is expected to rise by 40% in the next 20 years. Aquifers in the
> US, which took nature millennia to create, are approaching exhaustion.
> While membrane osmosis technologies exist to convert sea water into
> fresh, they use ten times more energy than current treatment processes,
> a real problem if you don’t have any, and will easily double the
> end cost to consumers. While it may take 16 pounds of grain to produce
> a pound of beef, it takes a staggering 2,416 gallons of water to
> do the same. The UN says that $11 billion a year is needed for water
> infrastructure investment, and $15 billion of the US stimulus package
> will be similarly spent. It says a lot that when I went to the UC
> Berkeley School of Engineering to research this piece, most of the
> experts in the field had already been retained by major hedge funds!
> At the top of the shopping list to participate here should be the
> Claymore S&P Global Water Index ETF (seekingalpha.com/symbo...),
> which has appreciated by 32% since I first brought it up. You can
> also visit the PowerShares Water Resource Portfolio (seekingalpha.com/symbo...),
> the First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (seekingalpha.com/symbo...),
> or the individual stocks Veolia Environment (seekingalpha.com/symbo...),
> Tetra-Tech (seekingalpha.com/symbo...), and Pentair (seekingalpha.com/symbo...).
> Who has the world’s greatest per capita water resources? Siberia,
> which could become a major exporter to China in the decades to come.

China and Starbucks' Late Stage Growth Obesity

China is in debt? Look at its balance sheet then look at ours.

China has the highest saving rate and highest surplus in its current account.

In BRICs countries, I think India is the only one that may have some problems mentioned in this article.

China? No way, it is still growing, maybe slower this or next year but it will be the next power.

Again, don't judge a country just because it has different ideaology from ours. Western value may not work in Chinese culture. Chinese can decide which way to go by themselves.

Further Thoughts on Trina Solar and the Solar Space

I personally found Goldman's report not convincing on why they gave TSL a "sell".

In April, Cheryl Tang, the solar sector analyst of GS, said that she prefers solar companies with high quality sales/supply contracts, diversified client base.

This time, she says the winner will be those cautious on cash burning and can generate good cash flow.

It is understandable that sell side analyst 's job is to sell story but Cheryl Tang is obviously not good at selling stories if her purpose is to promote STP, which always has a "buy" rating.

Just look at TSL's polysilicon supply. TSL has supply contracts from China, Russia, Korea, and Germany. Almost all the other solar companies purchase from same suppliers that supply polysilicon to TSL. How can you say suppliers of TSL are not committed?

Look at its client base, Jack has already provided detail description of it. TSL's management explains that why they started to have decreasing percentage of total revenue in Spain is because of the possible policy change in that country. And Cheryl Tang used the decreasing revenue percentage in Spain as one of the reasons that TSL can not sustain its growth! How ridiculous!

Finally, let's look at TSL and another hot pick, CSIQ.

CSIQ started to have positive netincome in 1Q2008 and the change is stunning $22 milliion from last quarter's $0.2 million.

Let's look at CSIQ's account receivable, it increased 370.81% in 1Q3008. This probably explains that why CSIQ got great Net Income but still poor cash flow from operations.

But look TSL, they have very stable and reasonable account receivable and net income growth. A/R as percentage of Revenue has been very consistent in the past 3 years.

TSL also has pretty decent cash collection cycle, which is very critical to manufacturing business and much better debt/equity ratio than CSIQ.

Finally, Cheryl Tang said that TSL has very aggressive expansion plan. But if we listen to YGE and TSL's earning calls carefully, we found actually they have very similar expansion plan. Considering almost 90% debt/equity ratio of YGE, I just found Cheryl Tang's argument of TSL' tight debt capacity and negative Free Cash flow not convincing at all.