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) :)

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.

A Look at Four Polysilicon-Based PV Manufacturers' Funding

in this post i'll be an advocate in behalf of envoy.
untill this post he gave no data and was plain negative.
in this post he specified the cash needs of the companies as he translates them form the reports and gave us his opinion of the danger that lies ahead.
in his opinion this will bring this companies to bad times in the future.

there is nothing wrong with that. on the contrary, we must embrace any opinion that is based on data, as this makes us more educated about what we are facing.

we don't need to afree with this, but we must say thanks for the data presented to us.

those of us that already knew this will look forward for other new data which will be posted.

so to you emvoy don't mind what people are saying. as long as you bring data to support your assumptions and your analysis this is a good thing.
this is coming from one of the people that really disliked the early posts as they gave no references to any data. on this post and somewhere earlier in another thread there were references so it's a good thing.

i personally read things differently, but i totally agree that there is big risk when money needs to be raised constantly, for a company and even can be for a sector as a whole. at least in the short to medium term regarding the sector.

Will Some Solar Companies Face a Cash Crunch?

let's start with the risk of not being able to raise money. with this i totaly agree. capital markets are problematic right now and we don't know when things will get better. of course there is the risk of the companies in the sector but this is another issue.
now let's check the statement "And the list goes on: YingLi (YGE) lost over $300 million from operating activities in 2007, despite claiming a $52 million accounting earnings gain."
this statement is completly WRONG. cash flow isn't a profit and loss statemnet. if we were to use this method we would have been looking at things the wrong way. a company can have a profit even if the cash flow is negative. this is an accounting issue.
the proper way to say is: YGE used 300m$ (assuming this number is the correct one) in it's operating activities. it didn't lose, it used (or burned or whatever term you choose from the accounting lingo).
regarding the future needs for investing activities, there's no doubt money will need to be raised if growth will stay at the current levels.
regarding the accuracy of the statements i can't comment.
regarding the type of contracts there is a problem as the customers can turn down the order as it's take or pay contracts. so for a given fine (or no fine at all if the contracts are not take or pay, but subject to price nagotiations) they can turn it down.
so no doubt we have lot of risks in the sector (many of them aren't even mentioned here), but what does it all say?
for new industries, over the centuries, we can see the same pattern - new companies burn money in the early stages. they give good credir terms to the customers, they build higher inventories, they buy lots of equipment and employ more workers... at some stage things turn and if they don't some of the companies go bust. still, the fact that the cash flow is negative doesn't mean much here. if we have a retailer that has big cash deficits it's a big red sign, but in this sector it's natural and thinking that a company can be in this industry for a short time and have great positive cash flows (operating or free) is kind of misunderstanding the issue.
so the bottom line is simple - there are risks, because of these risks there is a possibilty for high rewards, if someone checks the reports of a company and thinks that the risk is too high than stay out. but do it for the right reasons. if you think the credit crunch will get worst than we must stay away from some of the companies since they might not be able to raise money or the dilution will be too big.