Online Stock Trading - Alternative Investments - Investing in Green Energy
Stocks to Watch
President Obama has promised to make renewable energy a major plank of his energy policy. I am not qualified to give investing advice but it would seem ike a good idea however to seek out alternative energy companies that may be in a position to make some nice fat profits.
First Solar Inc. which produces thin-film solar panels more than doubled Q4 net income, to $132 million, up from $62 million in 2007. Net income for the year rose to $348 million, compared to $158 million in 2007. [Update : FSLR is down 17% on the NASDAQ futures due to "guidance".]
Revenues amounted to $1 billion thanks to its development of a solar cell at less than $1 per watt.
CEO and Chairman, Mike Ahearn, told investors that the company passed another threshold in the quarter: the creation of a solar cell with a 98 cent per watt cost.
“Breaking that $1 per watt cost barrier is a major milestone. It’s something that the industry has been searching for 20 years.”
First Solar has been seeking to lower the cost per watt in order to make solar power more competitive with utility-generated electricity.
First Solar 3 Year Chart with 200 Day Moving Average
The company has set itself a target of producing cells with a cost per watt of between 65 cents and 75 cents by 2012, and even lower after that.
Strangely the main challenge facing the company in 2009, is obtaining loans from a financial system reluctant to lend to solar projects.
Solar manufacturing however is headed for an even greater boom as an increasing number of countries seek to make use of green energy and who knows one day solar powered laptops may allow us to partake in that most precarious of activities, investing online.
Clearly those smart bankers know something the rest of us don't, although given the drop in FSLR today, they may be right..
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