March 2009

Wednesday, March 26, 2009

I've resorted to trying to time the market. What's the point of buying and holding anymore in this market? I've resorted to buying Bank of America on the upswings and shorting it on the downswings ...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Tomorrow is GE's big day. They're opening up the books for GE Capital to quell Wall Street rumors. I'm betting good news is inevitable. Better be ... I'm heavily leveraged as I'm expecting nothing but good news tomorrow.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Looks like "cram down" is headed for defeat in the US Senate because of Republican opposition. This legislation is critical to the success of Obama's housing plan to stem the rate of foreclosures.

Republicans support "cram down" when it involves corporate interests ("cram down" is an integral part of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy law for the uninformed ...) but Republicans oppose "cram down" if one of the parties is an individual homeowner. How is it Americans can't see through their lies and how did Americans become so stupid?

Friday, March 13, 2009

I'm bewildered by this false choice between Government, on the one hand, and the so-called "free" market on the other.

I work in the private sector.

I work for a multinational corporation. It's a top-down, hierarchical institution. I don't make decisions over how the business is run and management is not accountable to me. That would be absurd. I'm accountable to them and I serve at their pleasure. I can be fired from my job for any reason, "at will."

These types of institutions, when/if they are nation-states, are called dictatorships, tyrannies, aristocrices, or oligarchies. And yet, in America, we refer to a landscape dominated and populated by these types of institutions as the "free" market?

What if there was nothing besides these corporations? What if the radical "free" market proponents got what they desired, and government was castrated, rendered powerless, and reduced to nothing? Nothing but corporate fiefdoms vying for power within the so-called "free" market?

Who would answer to me? Who would represent me? Who would heed my voice?

When did top-down, oligarchical institutions become "free" and when did a representative Government, by and for the People, become the enemy of freedom? Freedom is Oligarchy and Oligarchy is now Freedom?

Have we gone insane? How did we get here?

Perhaps we should call our friends in France and see if they can loan us their guillotines ... it's time to make America sane again ...

Thursday, March 12, 2009

News on SunPower was worse than LDK. Turns out SunPower CEO finally fessed up at an investor conference that they're expecting dismal results this year. That does it for me ... I'm done with Solar for the time being. Time to snap up GE, Harman, WESCO, and American Superconductor. It's a strong industrial mix with 2 'stimulus' picks that should both get a boost from the stimulus this year (i.e. GE and American Superconductor). WESCO is just plain solid and is extremely undervalued. Harman is looking to have a bad year in 2009 but they're such a strong company they're worth buying now and holding.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

UGLY earnings result from LDK. I sold my 7k shares just in time -- SPWRB has tanked to 19.4/share. I bought back in (6000 shares) at 20.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

FINALLY! After 2 months of torture we finally got our rally. I bought more shares on margin on the way up. Unless this thing fades too quickly, I'm now officially LONG on SunPower. Today's rally finished strong so I expect this thing to continue into tomorrow.

Monday, March 9, 2009

I've been shorting the NASDAQ today. I've given up on trying to be a real investor and now I'm just trying to keep my head above water. Bought back into SunPower at end of the day. A rally is coming soon and I don't want to not have a position when it comes ...

Friday, March 6, 2009

I've been losing my shirt. This is unbelievable -- hard to imagine we could go any lower and yet here we are ...

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Spent the past couple days trying to peg the market bottom. I'm calling the bottom yesterday at DJIA 6726. Let's hope I'm right. I loaded up on SPWRB and bought as much on margin as possible. If it ain't the bottom, I'll lose my shirt ...

Cramer is a chump. Too much negativity. He and his ilk are holding us back with all their whining and crying about Obama. Wall Street scum like Cramer are why we are where we are. They've been busy screwing America for over 10 years now cooking up one racket after another. How do you destroy trillions of dollars of wealth in less than a year? Can anyone say Ponzi Scheme?

Monday, March 2, 2009

I've been tossing around the idea all weekend of investing in Bank of America. They took a huge hit on Friday on fears that BofA would suffer a fate similar to Citigroup's.

If there is a Government investment, it will not be any where near the scale of it's investment in Citi. It was fear and panic that led the sell-off of BofA on Friday and this has created an incredible oppurtunity for a short-term investment in BofA.

Kenneth Lewis has been vehemently rejecting the notion that BofA will need more capital and he almost seems believable. I really have no idea if he's lying or not, but I do believe that if the Gov DOES convert to common stock, dilution will be much less than what it was for Citi and BofA should still see a pop.

Week of 2/23/2009-2/27/2009

Friday, Febuary 27, 2009

Bad call today. I moved my position back into SPWRB (I really like this company and I'm committed to the idea that efficiency trumps price in the long run). I thought SPWRB would be more resilient than FSLR in this market. I was WRONG and lost considerable money. SPWRB has now dropped nearly AS MUCH as FSLR because of FSLR's CEO's REPORT ON FSLR! It's a fear driven market for sure.

I have a bad feeling about this market. The GDP report was even WORSE than an already downwardly revised estimate. I think it's time for me to pursue a short only strategy for the time being. Somehow this feels a bit safer right now ...

Thursday, Febuary 26, 2009

14.6M shares of First Solar traded yesterday and the stock stayed put at $107. That means a lot of investors thought 107 was a very good price. I think the smart money is on the buyer's side and I think First Solar has just become a very attractive investment (and I've just added it to my blog as a STRONG BUY). Trailing PE is 25 and Forward PE is now 16. These are now more reasonable prices and I have to put it on par or possibly even a more attractive investment than SPWRB at this price. Hmmm... maybe time to hop on the thin film bandwagon?

Tuesday, Febuary 24, 2009

They're going to try again... futures are up for the 4th time in the last 5 sessions. Will this one stick I wonder?

Market indices are now down 20% from the time I began investing and now my return is only 82% after nearly 3 months ... slow going ... And to think I thought I was beginning this experiment at a market bottom...

Very good day today. I'm up over 133% on my investments again. I made a lot of trades in and out of SPWRB today ... it feels so sleazy making money this way. I'm definitely feeling that we've seen our bottom. It was very overdone IMHO. I'm looking forward now to abandoning this daily trading of trying to time the markets. I'm ready to do some serious investing now. I'm way LONG on SPWRB, SOLR, and AMSC (although I'll give AMSC a bit more time before taking a position).

Waiting on FSLR's earnings results ... on good news all solars should see a bump. Fresh on the heels of SOLR and SPWRB, a strong earnings report should go a long ways towards shutting up the numerous Wall Street solar critics.

Sweet ... First Solar crushed estimates earning $1.61/share topping consensus estimate by .31.

However ... CEO of First Solar gave a really bleak outlook for 2009 stating that in the short-term it "has never looked so difficult" for solar as does the current climate. Very sobering words. I wish he'd been a bit more diplomatic. Solar stocks are down everywhere in after-market since his statements ...

Monday, Febuary 23, 2009

First Solar (FSLR) reports tomorrow after the market close. The smart money is on FSLR beating Wall Street estimates for the NINTH CONSECUTIVE QUARTER. SunPower's track record in beating Wall Street estimates is similarly impressive (as is GT Solar). It's a not so well kept secret that Wall Street is obsessively attached to big oil (Jim Cramer, for example, has said it many times that oil stocks are his personal favorites) and has been consistently getting it wrong about the growth potential of solar quarter after quarter after quarter...

I'd definitely be interested in buying stock in FSLR today were it not for the fact that even with yet another earnings surprise, FSLR's PE will be in the low 30s. That's just too high for this market.

Good call on holding SPWRB through the weekend ;) Stock futures are pointing to a small bounce today and SPWRA is already up a buck in pre-market.

As go the indices, so goes individual stocks ... Investors have thrown stock fundamentals out the window and buy/sell individual stocks based on what the market indices are doing. Follow the macro news cycle folks; and invest accordingly.

NASDAQ off over 2% to 1400 ... Why are investors continuing to sell off? Why stop at 1400 for the NASDAQ or 7000 for DJIA? Let's go to DJIA 6000 ... 5000 ... 4000 ... why the hell not? This behavior would make sense if the world really was coming to an end. The mindless mob that is the market has lost all objectivity. Why don't they all just put a gun to their heads and pull the trigger if they're feeling so hopeless and helpless?

Week of 2/16/2009-2/20/2009

Friday, Febuary 16, 2009

OUCH!!! Market was UGLY this week. I'm only 87% up now on my investments (from 120% up just a few weeks ago). I took a gamble and jumped in on 2000 more shares of SPWRB (on margin) late today and timed it perfectly, 20 minutes before the Friday afternoon rally. I hope (expect) that we should see some sort of mild bounce back next week so I opted to hold my position in SPWRB through the weekend into next week.

I've become annoyed at all this 'buy gold' mentality out there right now. I can't help but feel contempt for the intelligence of all the traders/experts advising people to have some "gold" in their portfolio. Who are these guys kidding? Do they really think that if things get so bad in world economies, and currencies break down, that they'll be able to redeem their certificates for gold ingots? How is buying/selling gold where transactions are 100% electronic any different from any other currency? Do they really believe that in our worst-case scenario, people will respect the "closing price" of gold, as systems world-wide breakdown? Can you use gold? eat gold? is it good for anything other than trinkets? Do they really believe that gold is a safe haven? Don't they realize gold is a "safe" haven only because they've all agreed (in the current economic reality) that gold is "safe" and that these sorts of "agreements" would all be re-evaluated in worst-case scenarios? Are these the best investment minds in the world? Or are these the same minds that created the trillions of dollars of wealth over the past 11 years that just vanished before our eyes?

Monday, Febuary 16, 2009

I'm considering taking a short position on SPWRA and a long position on SPWRB until the price differential between the two dissappears. If I buy/short 3,000 shares of each I stand to make nearly $20,000. My only concern is the length of time it takes for the price discrepancy to dissolve. The anomaly has lasted for 6 months so far ...

Sunday, Febuary 15, 2009

Legendary investor Richard Perry has initiated holdings in GT Solar International Inc.. His purchase prices were between $2.49 and $6.18, with an estimated average price of $3.8. The impact to his portfolio due to this purchase was 0.23%. His holdings were 550,887 shares as of 12/31/2008.

Week of 2/9/2009-2/13/2009

Friday, Febuary 13, 2009

Interesting article on SPWRA and SPWRB shares. This type of anomaly really puts the nail in the coffin on the so-called "efficent-market" hypothesis. And this type of anomaly proves my basic axiom that "THE MARKET, CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, IS NOT RATIONAL." Why would any rational investor buy an inferior stock in SunPower for a price 20% higher?

Wednesday, Febuary 11, 2009

Futures are up at 12:30am pointing to a higher open in the morning. Given the ridiculously overdone sell-off yesterday, we should get a nice rally tomorrow. Unfortunately my account is still stuck with Schwab so I won't be able to buy shares on margin tomorrow morning.

Futures are still pointing to a slightly higher open.

Tuesday, Febuary 10, 2009

AMSC released more news today on it's superconductor wind turbine. Apparently the DOE will be benchmarking and evaluating the wind turbine’s economic impact. This could be huge for AMSC when this turbine becomes commercialized.

Market is tanking today [DJIA down -381.99 (-4.62%) @7,888.88] after the Treasury Secretary announced a wide-ranging financial sector rescue plan.

Hopefully, the market will stagnate here until I'm up and running in my E*TRADE account. SOLR, fortunately, is a great defensive play given it's low PE. Monday's gain was wiped out by today. I'm back to where I was on Friday.

Monday, Febuary 9, 2009

I've initiated an account transfer to E*TRADE this morning after never hearing back on my email and after a fourth conversation with a Schwab broker. Account transfer should be complete by next week. I can only hope SOLR doesn't go much higher until I'm in my E*TRAE account.

Doesn't look like I'm going to get my wish, SOLR is up again (high so far at $6.0) on above average volume for a fourth straight day.

On Mad Money tonight, I read Cramer "can’t get behind this stock [American Superconductor]. AMSC has too much exposure to alternative energy, and oil’s too cheap for that to work right now."

Too much exposure to alternative energy? Cramer is a self-professed lover of big oil and oil stocks (it's his 'fave'). What a putz. According to an article by Barron's, Cramer's Mad Money picks lag the market by more than 5%. Their advice to their readers was to short stocks he liked.

Week of 2/2/2009-2/6/2009

Friday, Febuary 6, 2009

I called Scwhab again today and was promised a call back from one of their brokers. I never heard back so I've finally resorted to sending an email to Schwab's margin department threatening them that I'm prepared to move to E*TRADE if they don't re-evaluate SOLR's maintenance requirement. I'm now $17,000 less than where I would be if they'd acted on my request earlier in the week.

SOLR closed today at $5.37, up for a third straight day on very heavy volume with most of the volume trading significantly higher than the closing price. I expect SOLR to continue rising early next week, regardless of what the market indices are doing.

Thursday, Febuary 5, 2009

I called Schwab again today. Apparently they subscribe to the "efficient-market hypothesis". At least that's their underlying assumption whether they're aware or not. They are hung up on the fact that SOLR traded below a dollar back in November and therefore they cite volatility as the issue for why they won't raise the maintenance requirement. They're assuming that the "market" was behaving rationally last fall with respect to SOLR. I now have PROOF (with 3 Quarters of earnings) that there was nothing rational or justified about SOLR's prices last fall.

But they're just too damned attached to this ridiculous theory in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Wednesday, Febuary 4, 2009

I'm hesitant to try and get too many shares in pre-market today. I want 35,000 and this wouldn't be too easy to do in pre-market. I'll just end up pushing the opening price higher.

#@$#! Before the market opened, I tried placing an limit order (@4.10) for 35,000 shares and apparently Schwab has a 100% maintenance requirement on SOLR. I can only buy 20,000. I placed the order for 20k and there's still time to call Schwab and point out to someone there that their requirement is overly harsh given how much this company's balance sheet and earnings rock. Fundamentally, this stock is clearly stronger than half the equities on Schwabls list of marginable securities.

This is really painful. This stock is the most stunning find I've seen in months (currently at 3.35!!!). There is no doubt this thing will double within at least 2 weeks and Scwhab is not going to let me fully profit from this!

Schwab basically gave me the runaround and told me they'd review it in the next 48 hours.

Tuesday, Febuary 3, 2009

Market had an up day building on yesterday's late rally. I sold AMSC at $17.75 for a tidy $8,000 profit, recovering my losses from yesterday.

GT Solar reports tonight. Given SPWRA's recent earnings surprise, good things might happen with GT Solar.

STUNNED. I JUST FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR. GT Solar's results were shockingly good. I have no idea how to estimate what this stock is going to do tomorrow except that it is going to go through the roof. Results are SO GOOD this thing may open a couple dollars above where it's trading currently ($3.35).

Monday, Febuary 2, 2009

It's difficult to get a sense of where the market will be heading this week. I'm reading the sentiment today from my news sources as being pretty evenly divided. The DJIA is under 8000 and there's palpable fear we could be headed lower.

I'm feeling like today is too much of a gamble right now. I just sold the 500 shares I bought in after-hours last Friday.

I should've stayed out of the market today. But I couldn't resist buying SPWRA again as the price dropped to just below $32. I bought 4,000 shares at $31.90 and then watched the price drop down to under $31 on a tough day in the market. I got too nervous holding the stock and watching the DJIA under 8000 all morning. I'm long on SPWRA but it's trading at too high a multiple for this market. I decided to take the loss and get out before all my gains up to this point evaporated. It was tough to do but I took a $3,000 loss today. One of my biggest losses so far.

I see the market is rallying at the end of the day and I have a chance of recouping some of my earlier losses. I quickly jumped in to pick up 8000 shares of AMSC at $16.75. AMSC has been as tightly correlated with market indices as any stock I've been following. It's a good stock to have when the market is rising.

Week of 1/26/2009-1/30/2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

I was able to get SPWRA at a very good price in pre-market trading today ($32/share).

As expected, the shorts were in a frenzy to cover and we pushed over 35 by 10am. I knew once the shorts covered, the price would drop a bit so I sold all 3,000 shares at 35 for a quick $9,000 1-hour profit.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

SunPower's (SPWRA) earnings came out after-hours and they were VERY strong. Yet more confirmation of my belief that Wall Street analysts are morons. I checked volume on shorts at NASDAQ and shorts are 10% of float. There'll be a lot of short covering when the market opens tomorrow and I wouldn't be surprised to see the share price hit mid-30s tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I'm torn about what to do with SPWRA. I want to load up before earnings tomorrow. In my gut, I feel like they're going to surprise. It seems everywhere I look these days I see someone else installing solar panels on their roof. And given that our beliefs are informed by our senses, what I see with my eyes should always be more relevant that what some Wall Analyst "thinks." This is common sense.

Wall Street has been beating solar down recently with lots of disparaging comments on business shows and on the web. I know better than to listen to the "experts", but the buzz is pretty loud that SPWRA is going to dissappoint. Short positions are on the rise.

I've decided to play it prudent, and give the "experts" their due and wait till SPWRA announces earnings. I may still have time in pre-market or after-hours to pick up some shares.

Week of 1/5/2009-2/9/2009

Friday, January 9, 2009

I think I've milked this thing for all it's worth. Time to get out before it settles back down. Nice 40% return this week.

Monday, January 5, 2009

I didn't have long to wait. This thing popped today and off we go. I love making money off of short sellers.

Week of 12/29/2008-1/2/2009

Friday, January 2, 2009

I went trolling for some heavily shorted stocks today that might pop from too much short-interest. I think I've found an excellent prospect in USG. Short interest is 25% of the float and Buffet has recently invested $300M to clean up their balance sheet.

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