rana

66 Comments

    • ON: Wed Sep 3rd 14:44 PM
      Commented on:
      Three Reasons Solar Sell-off May Be in Early Innings
      selloff in solar because of valuation - what is this simplistic generalization?
      we get examples like FSLR ENER..., but what about SOL WFR TSL that trade with PE's close to 10 for this year and many others that are well below?
      most of this forward estimates are based on oil at 90-110. so companies that are growing well above 20% and have PE's in the teens or lower are overvalued?
      let's get real and stop being like deers in the headlights. we will always get price flactuations since this is the nature of the market. read about it in articles that deal with market psychology.
      are we in the first inning of major selloff? only time will tell. if it does it will be confluence of events that will drive the selloff. they will all create enough fear to make it happen.
      saying that the selloff is because oil dropped to 100$ or the wrong claim of overvaluation (the wrong claim is because of the generalization, there are few that sure are overvalued), is just small part of what is driving and what will keep driving stock prices in the solar industry or in many others.
      View article »
    • ON: Mon Sep 1st 14:36 PM
      Commented on:
      Solar Breaks Oil Price Dependence
      we need to understand that the solar market and the solar stocks are 2 different things, especially in the short term.
      to read a comment like the one of sirfisup is quiet discouraging:"I must say that the writer is a pure amateur and knows very little about solar technology and where its heading. Sand is about one third of the earths natural resource and is the primary commodity to manufacture silicon. Solar technology efficiencies are improving significantly and of all the alternative energies is the cleanest form of energy. The writer must have very little regrad for the emerging economies of China and India and unfortunately a very poor understanding of the fundamentals of capitalism. The only reason why you haven't received many more retort replies is simply because you are an idiot."
      this comment itself shows very low intelligance and no knowledge of the stock market and how it works. from the comment one might assume that solar stocks are heading only one way and will not have pullbacks of any degree. this is not the case.
      investing in stocks is sensitive to many outside variables like the availability of money (interest rates), alternative investments, sentiment, political climate and many others.
      they all translate to valuations. when everything is good we can get double the valuation relative to the bad times.
      the fact that silicon will get cheaper and that the solar technologies are advancing will carry risk that is as high as is the opportunity. the solar industry will be commoditized all along the food chane. while costs will be much lower so will go the ASP's.
      history shows us how things work and we will be fools to ignore it.
      while i am a huge solar fan, i will never close my eyes and ears to the presence of risk. any growth industry carries risk and investing in stocks in these industries is also risky.
      i can only wish investing was as simple as some of the commentators make it seem. we were all much richer. since it's not, please invest with your head and not with your heart. it is way more profitable (i started investing with my heart and fell in love with investments and it didn't work well. sometimes it's worst than a divorce as you can pay much more than half) :)
      View article »
    • ON: Mon Aug 18th 15:04 PM
      Commented on:
      Trina Solar: Will 2009 Be a Breakout Year?
      SOL is reporting tomorow and i hope thier management will also keep the thier track record.
      they might even give TSL a push, hopefuly :)
      View article »
    • ON: Mon Aug 18th 15:01 PM
      Commented on:
      Trina Solar: Will 2009 Be a Breakout Year?
      TSL stink. period. the management is the worst ever.
      like mark mentioned, they totaly got the exchange loss wrong. worst than that, they are very wrong about margins.
      the only good thing is that the solar market is strong for now, so operations are holding the company from going to zero.
      unfortunate for me i'm long this crap. i assumed that earnings will be around 0.85$ and as such we will be able to cross 40$ easily.
      as always with TSL they like to surprise us, but it seems they know onky one direction with the surprises.
      at 30$ this stock is very cheap, but i guess it deserves this "cheapness" and we also deserve the surprises as we keep liking the negative management premium, which is increasing each quarter.
      View article »
    • ON: Fri Aug 15th 07:10 AM
      Commented on:
      Las Vegas Housing, Casino Revenues Have Dropped Like a Pair of Loaded Dice
      must agree with "STILL RENTING"
      these markets are in a downtrend that is supported by the fundamentals. prices will be better in the near future.
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Aug 13th 01:10 AM
      Commented on:
      LDK Solar Nearly Doubles Estimates
      forgot about another "5th tier" client: Hyundai. this company is much bigger than all these "1st tier" combind. :)
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Aug 13th 00:57 AM
      Commented on:
      LDK Solar Nearly Doubles Estimates
      don't pay too much attention to obscure unacurate posts jack. it's not worth it.
      GT solar will not be supplying to LDK which is why many law suits are being presented against GT solar, but i guess facts don't bother people as they want to say something.
      as for customers they have one like Qimonda, but i guess the fact that they have more than 4 times the sales of these giants like SPWR, YGE....., is problematic to what alpha wants to say, so he calls them 3rd and 4th tier. :) it would have been funny if it wasn't so sad that people are posting from the imagination and not the facts. it would have been good red flag on LDK if the facts were correct.
      nanosolar was a favorite of mine as a real winner, which thin film will probably won't be, but after almost a year waiting for them to go with big projects after they said they are starting to go commercial, i'm starting to be a little sceptic about them. something is wrong there, since they really don't have any problem with financing (just like many others i tried to check with them about investing, but they declined and in the end they posted in thier site that they don't plan to raise money soon). if they will be able to do what they say, they will rock.
      regarding thin film - the funny thing is that if polysi will drop to the levels people are talking, it will destroy the competitive advantage of thin film against PV.
      EMKR might be the black horse if they will leverage thier technology by licensing it to others instead of going solo.
      disruptive technologies may win the market or not, but the time isn't near. for the next 2-3 years, no matter what technologies will emerge, the PV industry will still be the biggest in this area (financing and actual time to build these kind of plants take a long time).
      btw, the fact that wafer pricing was high this quarter is good for SOL, if they controlled the costs side.

      View article »
    • ON: Fri Aug 1st 10:02 AM
      Commented on:
      Solar and Cash: The Big Boys Have an Answer - Do You?
      maybe i'm dumb, but didn't JASO raised 400,000,000 in convertible bonds? isn't it debt?
      View article »
    • ON: Fri Aug 1st 07:12 AM
      Commented on:
      Solar and Cash: The Big Boys Have an Answer - Do You?
      good article.
      i like the way you point out the risks while not making a stand as it's almost impossible to point out future winners and losers in an evolving industry.
      i totaly love SOL (long). it seems they look great almost in every aspect, cash needs aside. since they are wafer suppliers cash needs are lower than for the integrated companies and since it's now a cloud over the manufac.. it seems the company is in better shape than many others. when cash needs will cease to be a problem the company will be less desired as the risk for integrated companies will be percieved as lower.
      yet, there is one thing i miss in all the articles regarding solars, they all deal with the manufacturers along the food chain, but i saw none (maybe there are few, but i didn't see them), that deal with the other related companies.
      INFRASTRUCTURE and EQUIPMENT. these are two sectors within the industry that will probably still grow even if pricing and margins will be volatile for the manufac...
      our goal is to find the cheap stocks in these sectors or to find market leaders that don't have huge price premium.
      i already pointed out SPIR (which i'm long), but i'm looking at other companies like FLR ASYS SOLR .... for good entry points.
      everyone must do thier own due dilligence on each stock as they are very different (what they do, how big they are, how much risk they carry...) and if they like a stock then it's time to calculate entry price based on the return you demand that will create a high risk reward ratio.
      if the price you want can't be achieved you stay out, or you can make a multiple step plan which basically calls for different levels of entry prices (taking into account the number of shares you want to buy). at the end of the proccess you need the average price to be equal or lower than the initial price you calculated. this method is more compicated and more risky so it is better for most to stick with the simple method.
      View article »
    • ON: Thu Jul 17th 02:53 AM
      Commented on:
      Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value
      TSL - with the option to the underwriters they will raise close to 140M$.
      if we take low conversion price of 40$ per ADS we get 3.5M additional shares. if we add this to the current count we have around 28.6M shares.
      if we had this count in this Q the current estimated EPS for Q2 2008 would have been (under the assumption of the mid range, which i agree with jack that it's more likely we'll be at the higher end, but we always prefer being conservative):
      73-74
      this means we have a 12-13% reduction in the EPS.
      the important thing is that the cloud of financing will be lifted (at least for the short term).
      margins are still a problem, but it goes to all the industry and the higher growth might compensate for that partially.
      regarding the stock price - if we take the new dilution into account and assume 10% EPS growth for each coming Q and use the mediam assumption for the current Q - we get EPS around 3$ (this is super conservative if we assume no more margin erosion). we have 2008 PE around 11 and 2009 is under 8.5 assuming EPS of 4$ for 2009 (33% EPS growth for 2009).
      i like the numbers, but off course everyone needs to make thier own decisions regarding price vs. risk and there are clouds out there in the futureas we don't have a clue regarding which technology will be the big winner, or how silicon prices will be in the future (some new companies that are building new silicon plants may not be able to raise enough money to complete the new plants, see HOKU as an example) and so many other uncertainties that with the current environment of risk aversion is impacting the prices of risky assets.
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Jul 16th 15:39 PM
      Commented on:
      Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value
      SPIR 2009 estimated PE is under 10 now.
      the stock created a falling wedge formation with bullish divergence on the RSI on 3 points and the same with the money flow.
      i'm long SPIR and adding.
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Jul 16th 15:26 PM
      Commented on:
      Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value
      the latest annoucments from CSIQ TSL lead me to believe that the silicon shortage is almost certain to stay with us at least till 2009, which is still unclear also.
      as i posted before regarding pricing of wafers in taiwan, the prices moved up in June which brings more pressure to the market.
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Jul 16th 15:14 PM
      Commented on:
      Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value
      SOL book to bill in the 2nd Q was over 1GW bookings to an estimated 75-80MW shipments. nice ratio.
      i looked at each news item in the Q to get the bookings number and the estimated shipments from the 1st Q report, the guidance for Q2.
      i didn't calculate the exact average period of the bookings, but if it's for 5-6 years, or 24 quarters, the average addition per Q is over 40MW. do the math.
      View article »
    • ON: Wed Jul 16th 10:33 AM
      Commented on:
      Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value
      TSL gave preliminary 2nd Q results.
      if we take the lower end of the results we get 200M$ sales and 14% operating margin. this gives us 28M$ operating profit.
      if we assume higher interest expenses, net, and lower exchange loss, which will offset each other, and 10% tax expense we get:
      28000000-6200000=21800...
      EPS - 19620000/25130000=0.78...
      if we use the median:
      202500000*0.146=295650...
      EPS - 0.84
      we have a range of 0.78-0.89 between the high and low end, depending on exchange loss, interest expenses, net, and income tax.
      the median gives us 0.09$ better than estimates.
      a big question will be the margins.
      View article »
    • ON: Tue Jul 15th 15:59 PM
      Commented on:
      Expect Continued Canadian Solar Financing This Year
      jack go to the PDF version of CSIQ F-20 exhibit 19 page F-26
      View article »
Contribute an Article Become a Seeking Alpha Contributor