solar jim

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

And how exactly does having the lowest cost per watt in the industry regardless of type of substrate used, as FSLR does, influence your decision on how badly FSLR's technology "sucks", considering that they do have the lowest cost basis per watt of energy produced.

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

Here we go again. Another post that is pure opinion. Hey, User 128398, are you sure you're not really Mark Anthony? Here's an idea, rather than just spit out that something "sucks", actually explain why it isn't the best. How about some, you know, data. This is what logical people do, look at data and extrapolate to a specific conclusion, or a future point. Since you've apparently already talked to these "experts" in the solar industry, why not save us some time and effort and actually post a link to these "experts" and/or actually sprinkle some of their wisdom into your posts rather than pure opinion with absolutely nothing to back up your assertion.

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

Enter your comment hereAnother reason analysts generally run behind new(er) growth companies is that it's not as important (as an analyst) that you were wrong estimating growth of the company rather than how wrong you were versus the rest of the analysts. As long as all the analysts under estimate future growth the same then they come out and say how unexpectedly well they company did over expectations, even though the company generally has said they will do that amount in conference calls. By being conservative, it is then a company outperforming rather than analysts being phenomanally wrong on the actual state of the business. I know someone that works at Cowen & Co. as a stock analyst and we have had this discussion multiple times. The result is that analysts are always more conservative than the company estimates. So wqhen you find a company that does UPOD (Under Promise Over Deliver) as FSLR has, you got a good bet that the analysts are going to continue to be behind this one for quite some time to come.

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

Here's an item I saw on the Internet today regarding FSLR. The interesting item here was the 2010 earnings estiamte they put on FSLR of $7.25/share. Considering past performance of not only the company, but the lag time from analysts trying to catch up, this estimate seems to very beateable in 2010 based on previous performance of trying to gauge this companies profitablility. The item from the internet page follows below...

Analyst Sanjay Shrestha of Lazard Capital Markets is sticking with his Buy ratings this morning on shares of First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) and Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ:CPST).

On First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR):

We maintain our BUY rating on First Solar shares following the company's analyst day and tour of the company's Perrysburg, Ohio, manufacturing facility.... elaborated on its overall strategy to garner leading and defendable market share in the mainstream electric power generating market, without subsidy, while maintaining a superior return on capital through people, processes, technological leadership, scale, strong financial discipline, and risk control..... reiterated its cost-reduction goal of achieving module ASP of $1-$1.25/watt by 2010-2012.
Shrestha adds, "We believe this strategy will allow First Solar to successfully migrate from subsidized markets, to renewable energy markets, to mainstream electric power markets over the next several years.... We are raising our price target to $250 from $225. Our new target equates to a 40x multiple on our 2010E EPS of $7.25 (up from $6.50), discounted back 15% for one year.

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

I do remember that fact (not profitable til 2008). Although from my recollection that was analysts estimates, not the company. The analysts have been behind on this one from the first quarter as a public company and that has continued to today. As for the increased throughput being priced in already - I agree. I was simply trying to illustrate that increases in annual production capacity can be achieved without having to actually build a new plant. It can happen through increased conversion efficiency, increased throughput (speed of the line), solutions to previous bottlenecks in the chain of production, etc... Building a new plant is pure gravy right now considering they are advancing on all the other fronts continuously as well.

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

Seeing SPWR added would be a nice development. I agree, getting into one of the index's is usually a free ride. It also acts, generally, to remove some of the volatility that a stock may have been exhibiting prior to being added to the index. All in all, a very solid move should that come to pass for either FSLR or SPWR.

Although some people were apparently dissapointed with FSLR's analyst day as they did not announce a new expansion I think people weren't paying attention. They increased the per line throughput from 30Mw per line in the 2nd qtr to 39.6Mw in the 3rd qtr. That's over a 30% capacity expansion right there without adding any plants, yet it's the equivalent of adding two to three plants with four lines. They already had announced expansion to total around 700Mw in 2009. Now that's close to 1 Gigawatt without adding any new plants based on increasing from 30 to 39.6 per line. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Mark Anthony, where are you? I know you're somewhere around here. I'm surprised you haven't spammed this post yet with your Te "chicken little" panic routine.