cool alternate energy blog

Here is a cool site I found today called Alternative Energy Stock. Check it out.

BP and GE

Both of these companies are involved in huge solar and wind programs that are really taking off. Unfortunately they are just a segment of their business overall business so it might take more for these sectors to influence their stock. BP has the head start on its competitors in alternative energy investments, but GE double dips. They manufacture the products and then they turn around and finance them. I don’t really have the time today to expand much more, but both of these stocks will do will in the long term. Buy and hold for 5 years. GE is at 35 and BP, 64.

Toyota still has drive

After a fantastic 2005, they are posed to do it again in 2006. They have recently announced the arrival of several new cars that are getting quite a bit of interest.
In the Toyota lineup there is the new retro FJ Cruiser, a mid-sized SUV that has panache. It seems to me that this sector hasn’t seen any new cars in a while--think of the Toyota RAV and Honda CRV, which have been around too long with no major changes. Although I think that most of the people who would consider the FJ Cruiser are looking for a SUV that they can take off road a bit more. Nissan’s Xterra or Honda’s Element will possibly see their numbers slip when this comes out.
They also have a new Yaris come out. The American Yaris doesn’t look too much like the European version. I especially think the sedan version will be very popular in the US. Its body calls to mind the new Lexus IS 350, a great comparison for an entry-level car.
In addition, they have covered the high and low end of the markets with some new cars in their Lexus and Scion brand that are getting a lot of attention. And to top things off, they are expanding their hybrids to include a new hybrid in the Toyota line, the Camry, and one more in the Lexus lineup, the GS 450h. Within two years, more than half of their cars will have hybrid versions available.
The Prius, to the chagrin of many Americans, will not have many more sold in the US because they are stretched to capacity already. This is a purely strategic move. First, they are hoping that if people can’t get a Prius, they will look at the Camry instead of looking at Honda. Second, I think the first car made in China that we are going to see on US soil is going to be a Prius. People want the car so badly, even if it is made in China, they will still be willing to buy it. A great move by Toyota, I think.
Toyota is sitting pretty. They have some exciting cars arriving early in spring that people are talking about, unlike the Chevrolet Cobalt or Malibu. In terms of simple financials, they had a huge run up in 2005. The question is can they keep that momentum going, can they have another 47% year in 2006? I think they can. My thoughts: at 102 a share, it is still a good price. Buy and hold at least until the end of 2006.

A bright idea: CREE

CREE (stock symbol CREE) is along the lines of ENER, similar sizes and similarly posed for the future. The difference is, however, that unlike ENER, CREE does mostly 1 thing: LED lights, the lights that are taking over the world: they are now used in cars, stoplights, and are making their way into houses. They also make the screens we see in cell phones and Ipods. As far as I can tell, they have a sort of vertical monopoly. According to their website, they are "the world leader in the development and manufacture of silicon carbide (SiC), a base material used in the fabrication of the company's products and materials." Their product is basically a solid-state lighting making it much more efficient. They are also the largest producer of this product. A recent article on the Motley Fool (dec 14) website also seems to thing that Cree is a bright idea because of the US Department of Energy's mandate to improve energy consumption. My advice, at 26.18 it is a strong buy.

http://www.investopedia.com/

Here is a website I ran into by accident. Maybe I will finally understand what it means to sell short.

Annie is to coffee as Ford (F) is to SUVs

Although I drink coffee and Ford makes SUVs, the relation between the statement is that we just can’t stay away from the objects of our affection. I try to drink less coffee just as Ford tries to wean itself from SUVs. But at the end of the day, or at midday as is the case for me, I pick up another cup of coffee and Ford is back making more huge cars that people no longer seem to want. According to an article in the Money Section of CNN, Ford is about to introduce a new SUV called the EVEREST. The article notes that Ford isn’t going to introduce the car at the super cool car show in Detroit. Given most auto manufactures spend a lot of money to show off their cars in order to woo both media and buyers it seems a bit odd. The logic, as the article suggested, is that Ford is caught in a conundrum, they want to be green and they want to sell lucrative SUVs. However, it seems to me that the best way to do that is to eco-pimp their new SUV. Make it a plug in hybrid with solar power—beat Toyota to it. Show that off at the Detroit car show and you would have a hit. So I say to Ford, buy some Toyota stock and stop making SUVs

Gettin hot with ENER

I was looking over ENER's website today and I found one of the articles I had mentioned in a previous blog about the company's backlog. I sometimes feel like ENER must, with all my dissertation writing, I surly have a six month backlog, but in a bad kind of way. Strong buy on ENER.

making green out of glass: XsunX

OK, my last stock pick before I get back to work: Xsunx (Xsunx,inc) I don’t even know how one goes about buying this over-the-counter stock, but it is the next ENER, I think. They make solar windows. So buildings can turn into massive solar panels, but not as efficiently as straight out solar panels. Nonetheless, the benefits are obvious, especially for large buildings with good sun exposure. But imagine making these for hybrids? Slap a front and rear XsunX window on a Prius and before you can say pimp my Prius, you will have saved another 5% on gas mileage. Buy, if you know how, and tell me so I can buy some too.

My Xmas list: Apple stock

I really want a new Apple Powerbookfor Xmas, and a new Nano, oh and a Video Ipod, but what I really want is some Apple stock. My father might argue that I just bought a Powerbook less than a year ago along with an Ipod I hardly use, but that is just the point. This is how Apple is making money hand over fist. Am I pissed that a bigger and better Powerbook came out shortly after I bought mine? Yes! But it just makes me want to buy another one. I don’t even use my Ipod and yet I can’t stop, I want both the Nano and Ipod video and I am not alone. Once you start using Apple products you just want more. I am normally not a name brand person, but I love Apple. So as long as Apple can keep this up, I am sold on it as a stock. They will continue to keep current customers and draw in new ones once they start playing on any Apple product, just ask my mom after I talked her into buying an Ibook.
If that weren’t enough, here is the other reason why I am so hip on Apple: the will be our sole provider for home entertainment. This is a daring statement, but this is where they are headed. They won’t tell us this, in the same way Toyota won’t tell us that they are about to take the #1 title from GM for the same reasons: they don’t want to scare us off until its too late. Go get a coffee refill and lets sit down to talk, cause this is heavy. After just downloading my first video on Itunes, it became immediately clear to me: videos, TV show and next??? Yeah, movies, downloadable (or uploadable, depending on how you look at it) movies. They say it ain’t so, but come on…Steve Jobs frickin’ owns Pixar. Adios Netflix, Blockbusters and Hollywood Video. I suspect they know it’s coming too. It is a race to see who can make downloading movies the easiest and fastest and it seems that Apple has the head start and the customer loyalty to make it happen. Itunes just has to find a new name: Ieverything, I propose, because they will do just about everything: music, videos, movies, even home movies. Tres cool! This stock has been so hot, I know, but I think that it still is going to outperform, especially when they can finally figure out how to make my dream: Ipod wifi smart phone with video all in one, and I am guessin’ that’s not too far off.

If only I had some ENER(gy): ENERGY CONVERSION DEVICES

For those of you who have ENER, please hold on to it and allow me to live vicariously through you. This one is still going to ride. I am still toying with the idea of buying some. I read somewhere that their factory is at capacity and that their solar panels are essentially sold out for quite a while, but I can’t seem to find that bit again. Don’t know what to make of that. The obvious is that it is wonderful that a company has its product sold out for the next few months/years. But that doesn’t leave much room to grow. Did this article I read include their new solar power panel machine maker (not the technical term) or not? Don’t know? I do know that people are going crazy over the flexible solar panel stuff. The latest use that I think is going to catch on: a couple of panels stuck to the roof of a hybrid, a sort of pimp my green ride. I saw one already and it looks sweet!
Hmm? But ENER is such a diverse company that there are still other sides left to make money or lose it? I say make money.
But ENER isn’t just about making money, they are about making technology, technology that the Big oil companies want! BP, Chevron (which also owns a chunk of ENER) and the likes need to step up on the alternate, renewable energy before all the oil runs out and they know it. I’m thinking Chevron will buy out ENER in the next 5 years. If not, they will just keep humming along making their solar panels that will become commonplace by then and we will be slapping them on anything we can find (these days all the RV and boating buff love them). And if you have read this far I say, buy some BP (British Petrolium) stock too. It has the lead on the companies for being green and governments are dropping lots of money these days on solar and wind power. Smaller companies can’t handle the size of these contracts, too big in scope, so they go to the big guns.

Seeing Green with Toyota (TM)

Here is my next suggestion: TM (Toyota Motor). I am not so hot on this, it has done quite of bit of moving already and may be taking a rest for a while. It’s at 97, coming down from a new history high at 100+. However, this stock has three things going for it. First is the emotional barrier. It’s looking like it is posed to take over GM’s #1 spot sometime in 2006, although they don’t like to brag about it. While GM hemorrhages, TM just keeps seeing green. GM cuts the prices of their cars, TM just keeps raising them (which will give them plenty of room to move around if times get tough), and still TM keeps taking shares. TM has spent a lot, and I mean a lot, of money for new factories, but it looks like they have the numbers to back it up in terms of ability to sell cars. Some of these factories are also PR factories. In other words, how could Americans say that Toyota was anti American if they have huge factories all over the US? Is there anything less American than a car made in Texas? We’ll see. But once these factories come on line and start spitting out cars, and if there is a market, the TM stock will be like a money tree: it'll just keep making money and taking GM shares from them (which is another problem for another day: who pays when GM goes belly up?).
But what Toyota really has going for it is that it makes the most green pimpable car out there (I think that is the first time in my life I have used the word ‘pimpable’): the Prius. Two different companies have made two very cool ‘mods’ (that’s ‘modifications’ for those of you who aren’t ‘in’) for this car. The first company, out of California, turns the Prius into a plug in car. Goes from 50mpg to 100 by plugging the thing in at night. Toyota is on the fence about this because they have spent a lot of time and $ convincing people in Kansas that you don’t have to plug in a hybrid. But consumers, I think, have gotten the message, they are interested in moving on to the next technology, which seems to be a plug in. So this company modifies cars so that you can plug them in at night, while Toyota just sits tightlipped. People say its because Toyota doesn’t know what to do with the warranty: does this void it or not. I say it’s because Toyota is going to come out with their own version and start selling it to a select number of people who ask for it until it becomes as common as the Prius is now. While pundits are saying that even if we plug it in, it still consumes nonrenewable energy, coal, nuclear, etc, depending where you live, to them I say shut your pie hole. Here comes ‘mod’ 2: solar panels on the car and on the roof. For a bit more than $2000 you can get slick solar panels on the roof of your Prius, improving gas mileage by another 10%. Surely Toyota is watching this. Both of these ‘mods’ within the next few years will become ‘options’ when you go to buy your sweet Prius and other Toyota hybrids. Prius is going to be the next Apple: each time you buy a Toyota product, you will always want the next, newer one because it is just a little bit cooler. And while Toyota gets cooler, the American Automakers will just keep insisting that what Americans want are SUVs. So to sum it up: moderate Buy on TM.

What to do with INAMED (IMDC)?

For those of you who still have IMDC, I think I am going to hold on to it for a bit longer and go ahead and see what happens. Basically it comes down to two things: 1. Don’t want to pay higher taxes on the earnings since I bought some less than a year ago. By not selling and taking the new stock, as of today, that would be worth more. AGN is at 108 so 85% of that is obviously worth more than the $84/share to sell out. 2, Baby boomers. The company buying IMDC, AGN, is famous for Botox, that’s about all they do, I think. However, this purchase is ideal because of the beautification synergy: face (botox), stomach (stomach banding), boobs (silicon inserts), thereby offering a complete body fix. I am hoping that some of the baby boomers will use their disposable income for keeping themselves young. At the same time, AGN stock has been flat for some time—maybe that’s why they are buying IMDC (you know, for a financial boob job so to speak) Will IMDC help? I am going to say hold for a couple months, but be weary. After the acquisitional swelling goes down, we might either see a new improved AGN or not. IMDC’s growth might just have been deflated by this acquisition.