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Latest Comments52 Comments
The Honeymoon Is Over: Gauging the Market with an Obama Presidency
"There are 55 million Americans who did not swallow the Obama Kool-Aid." Speaking for myself, I can only hope his statement is the truest one uttered by him in at least 21 months. He promised more than he could payoff, but the pandering got him the votes he needed to get elected.
But to be fair, the only difference between him, the Democrats collectively, and the Republicans collectively is the speed with which they will bankrupt the nation and confiscate our individual wealth through monetization of the ever increasing debt.
If you didn't drink the Obama KoolAid did you drink the McCain KoolAid? Or just not vote? Or go with a third party candidate that does nothing but appease your inner self as they will never win and have no power base once in?
Especially since you said the only difference is how fast either will get to the same spot and that Obama won because he pandered. And McCain wasn't?
So did you vote at all? If so, McCain? Obama? Third party?
Your statements would imply that it's useless to vote for either or any, yet if you don't vote then you have no point to complain. Yet you then attack Obama... interesting.
A Giant Pinball Game - Fast Money Recap (9/30/08)
A Giant Pinball Game - Fast Money Recap (9/30/08)
First Solar Cheaper Than SunPower - Citi
FSLR is actually finishing their plant expansions faster than initially planned and talked about and the ramp is going faster and quicker each plant as well. So considering they will have just about or over 1 Gw in yearly production capacity at end of next year I'm interested to hear how they are going to 'fail'. Everything they do they deliver better than initially projected, which means you have an interesting idea of failure.
Just as they have long term contracts to deliver panels to customers they have contracts to get delivered to them a bunch of tellerium on a long term basis. Anyone who uses the Te argument and tight supply is a dumbass. It's called a long term contract for delivery of the element needed in supply to meet the long term contracts they have to make panels. Tough, I know, to actually do a few minutes of investigation, but very much worth it.
Solar Cycles and Stocks: The Sun Also Rises
In opposition to many types of manufacturing, solar doesn't take all that much labor in the form of people. Its a small part of the total cost equation meaning China doesn't enjoy this huge advantage like they do in textiles or other labor intensive industries.
Solar panels weigh a good bit. Shipping from China, at these oil prices, increases the cost and it becomes harder to maintain any cost advantage.
And the idea that AMAT is going to do anything is laughable. Maybe in ten years. They sell undifferentiated equipment, which was an adaptation of chip gear. I believe that proprietary technologies and equipment are going to do better (FSLR, ENER, Nanosolar), otherwise they would already be buying AMAT equipment instead of continuing to expand with their own technology.
Janet Yellen on Risks, Prospects for the U.S. Economy
Janet Yellen on Risks, Prospects for the U.S. Economy
SEPA Report Showing End-Market Demand Disconnect Could Sink First Solar, SunPower
First Solar Spreads Some Sunshine
First Solar Spreads Some Sunshine
Northern Oil May Be Headed South - Barron's
While I don't own any NOG and don't plan on it, I did research them along with CLR when I was looking into the Bakken oil. I went with CLR, but not because I thought NOG was in trouble as the author of this article does.
All Barron's does is print with abondon all the rumors they get from anonymous 'insiders' who in actuality are more likely hedge funds that have huge short positions they want to blow out at a profit (after using Barrons to disseminate the propaganda).
I saw the cover of Barrons a week or two ago (and really, there's not much point in wasting your time reading past the front page) and they had the question on the front asking if the housing downturn was over. I bet they advocated to get in and buy some homebuilders. Watch how that one plays out over the next year while the market still tries to find a bottom, unsuccessfully, in housing. People like to bash Cramer, but these guys are soooo much worse. Cramer at least gets it right sometimes on some grand slams. These guys.... I think the best that can be said is that they might not lose you too much money if your lucky.
Investing in Oil Prices, Not Companies
If speculation is the reason oil is going up then at some point people would have to take actual possession of the good and continue to keep taking it off the market and continually reduce the total supply enough to actually raise prices over the amount actually produced by hoarding it somewhere. Please show me where these extra barrels that speculators are buying are being stored - which costs still more capital.
The fact that people don't want to address is that the US dollar has decreased in purchasing power under the Bush administration. As oil is priced in dollars and these other sovereign nations (middle east) want to have the same purchasing power as before the price goes up as a reflection of that fact.
China and India are growing at a very fast pace. The US and other devloped nations can do little to stop the rise in energy costs by raising interet rates so long as China, India, Brazil, etc... keep growing as fast as they currently are. If the major users, and buyers, are these fast groing counties that don't have a problem continuing to buy and push up rates then everyone else gets to join in for higher prices.
If this doesn't make sense then get ready to keep paying ever more over the next decade, or two, and have no idea why prices keep going up.
Senate May Kill Solar Rally
Is Energy Conversion Devices Ready for a Comeback?
At first, like many things, I thought 'yeah right, here's someone pumping up so they can dump later'...
Went to the USPTO site and checked it out. While it has only been filed and the actual implementation of this tech/machine may take a few years to work out the kinks, I have to admit this sounds very interesting. They claim to be able to use a plasma deposition process instead of the current process that will enable an increase in the run rate per machine/line from the current rate of about 30Mw per line to Gw's per line in the same space due to increased throughput rates from new deposition process. If actually true then this is big. Really big. The question is how long it takes to actually implement. Now I wonder if the reconfiguration of their plant has anything to do with this machine/process, or if its just normal optimazation of current plant space.
Former Merck CEO Prods Industry on Drug Pricing
We live in a country whose economy is more market oriented than centrally run (govt) oriented. As a result, you have for profit companies in the pharma industry. The reason to incorporate is to make money. Period. That's the one responsibility a "company" has to abide by. As long as medicine continues to be a for profit business then the way it is will continue ad infinitum. Putting restrictions on profit motive will make future investment (R&D) more expensive relative to future profit. Ultimately, This means that their are some drug candidates that are not as risk free in developing and these will be the ones not pursued. Breakthroughs wont stop, but they will come at a much slower pace.
Personally, I think people are having an argument over the wrong question/issue. It's not about legislating the prices that companies can charge. It's about whether pharma should be allowed to be for profit companies. Non-profits could still invest for R&D as current Co's do and still charge less because they don't need to make all these billions of dollars of profits every year.