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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value

dicki
there is no talk about TSL (which i'm long) poly positioning but what if..
with that said, it seems you don't know how poly contracts work, so you better learn them first and than we can talk about possible scenarios.

Chinese Solar Stocks Present Compelling Value

there is no way to compare WFR to TSL.
if we'll get growing demand next year for silicon from the semiconductors industry, WFR will probably go balistic while TSL will go down hill.
for this reason alone they can't be compared and there are other reasons which i won't even mention.
i am a solar fan myself, but i am realistic and as long as the markets are bearish there will be negative premium for high growth high risk companies.

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.

Polysilicon-Based PV Manufacturers: Clarifying the Financial Issues

since it seems there is no one who knows how to paste the excel spreadsheets we'll have to make things much shorter.

regarding SPIR

the big growth comes from the solar equipment segment akthough there is sime growth in the semis segment.
the company has a lot of customers which is a positive.
the company is getting advances more than deposits which can make the cash flows sufficient to achieve growth objectives.
the company has customers in the PV and the thin film segments, which may act as support if one of the technologies lose in this wild race.
a lot of companies are now building new facilities and after they will finish with all the land developement, reactors and other big items they will need the equipment to produce the end products, this equals to lot of growth still ahead (unless the industry cracks very hard).

we can see that the growth in the solar segment is as good as many of the companies we look at daily in this sector.
if there is a decline in poly prices which may hurt margins for the other companies we watch, it may have positive impact on SPIR if some will buy new lines in order to get more efficient. it will probably have less impact than on the others, unless prices crash and than everyone is game.

i hope this gives some clue to how I LOOK AT THE COMPANY AND THE SECTOR. there are some other data that we can look at and some basic assumptions regarding this industry when we try and analyze these numbers, but without using the excel it's too much work and most of it was posted in many parts in the past.

in the next few days i'll deal with the other companies, but i will use more words and less numbers.

Polysilicon-Based PV Manufacturers: Clarifying the Financial Issues

i'm dying here tring to post numbers.
i don't find a way to copy straight from the excel.
is there a way? if so, how?

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.