rana

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) :)

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?

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.

Is There Value in Silicon Solar PV?

you use the early stages of growth which is unsustainable.
do you really think that CSIQ will have 600% earnings growth in 2009 and 2010?
i only commented on the reason we don't use 1 year data, just like the reason we calculate moving averages and exponantial MA or the reason we use logarithmic scales and not linear.
if it's not understood you can use the unsmoothed method, but it will probably cost you somewhere down the line.
even here with CSIQ, if you think under 1 is good measure of value, you can pay 500$ for this stock and stay well under 0.5.
do you really think it's logical?

Is There Value in Silicon Solar PV?

these PEG numbers are not how we usually calculate PEG, so please try and use the standart method.
if a company made 1 cent last year and will make 1$ this year and 2$ next year and share price is 50$ with 50 million shares. we get PEG of 0.05 using the above method. if we will apply the concept of PEG of 1 the stock price will be 1000$, while next year we will get PEG of 5 which will take the price to 200$. (all is theoretical and is given for example purposes).
in order to smooth the results and get better picture of the longer term picture we use the 5 yr. expected growth which gives us very different results.
we still get very low numbers compared to other sectors, but no way near these results.
overall good post as it's very informative and comparative.