David White

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431 Comments

    • Wed Aug 13th 10:52 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Retail on a Tear - Fast Money Recap (8/11/08)
      Today K+S AG a European specialty fertilizer supplier reported fantastic earnings. They more than quadrupled the year ago quarter. This may be the impetus to turn around the POT, MOS, and AGU trades. They moved to the upside yesterday when the dollar weakened. However, they are continuing to move up today even with a relatively strong dollar. Grain futures are up today. Oil futures are up slightly. Things are boding very well for POT et al.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 11:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
      LDK, which has been extremely conservative lately, lifted its full year revenue guidance by about 50%. This probably translates into more than the current 20% run up in the price. You also want to consider that all of the solar stocks were recently hit by the commodities downturn. They are all likely very near short term lows, barring a big downturn in the overall markets. Most solars have significant room to move upward.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 10:53 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
      LDK has reported sequential EPS growth in each of the last 5 quarters. It seems a good bet that this will continue next quarter.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 10:47 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
      SOL is in relatively the same market space as LDK. It should report great numbers also. The numbers may not be quite as good as LDK, but they should still be great.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 10:37 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
      I should note that LDK's current PE went to about $39/$2.55 = 15.29 on the basis of this quarter's earnings. If next quarter is at all a repeat of this quarter, this number should go down considerably further. Assuming $1.29 EPS next quarter (which may be an underestimate???), LDK would have earned $3.47 in its most recent 4 quarters. This would translate into a PE of $39/$3.47 = 11.24. Is the stock under valued for a high growth stock? It would appear that it is.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 10:25 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
      The item above on JASO is slightly misleading. Excluding one time factors. The EPS on JASO were $.15 (at analysts estimates) or $.14 on a fully diluted basis. This was a large improvement over last year. In addition guidance for the year was unchanged. This is actually very positive. It means that the future quarters this year must be expected to be great to make up for this one time item. In effect this is a raise in guidance for the rest of this year.

      How are solar stocks going to do in the short term from here? I think they are still likely to go up fairly dramatically, barring a huge short term overall market correction. CSIQ reports Wed. They pre-announced. Their earnings will be fantastic. When their early announcement is confirmed by audited results, CSIQ should go up considerably. It should also tend to lift other solar stocks. Further a number of saolar stocks are due to report next week. These should also report great results. This should push solar stock prices up further. TSL reports 8/18/2008. SOL reports 8/19/2008. SOLF reports 8/27/08. It is in the same market sector as CSIQ, so it should also do great. Barring a big market downturn, I am expecting the solar stock prices to rise for the next two weeks or more.

      The commodities prices seem to be easing, stopping, or reversing their latest decline. This should also help solar stocks. Bespoke group today cited evidence that the US dollar is overbought. A temporary correction downward in the US dollar should buoy commodity stocks temporarily. This should again help the solar stocks to move upward.
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    • Tue Aug 12th 10:05 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Potash Corp.: Sitting on the Long-Term Trendline
      The big reason for the decline in commodities recently seems likely to have been the US dollar strengthening. The led to investor exiting their commodity futures hedges against the dollar. Today the EURO is up against the dollar. Not coincidentally POT has started to go up again. The strength of the US Dollar does appear to be the key issue in commodities prices these days. Also by now a lot of people have already exited their hedge (of the dollar) trades. This was creating a short term temporary spike downward in demand on most commodities. If the US dollar is now wavering, hedgers might try to re-enter. This would spike prices the other way. If the US dollar strength is still improving overall, enough hedgers may already be out of the market to allow commodity prices to rise. Demand is actually increasing for most commodities. Oil demand may be the one commodity demand that is most tied to economic performance, especially US economic performance. For the "food" commodities the demand should still be great. The temporary downward spike in demand may be nearly over if most of the hedgers are now out???? If so, this would allow the Ag stocks to begin their rise.
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    • Mon Aug 11th 09:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      China ADRs: Mixed July
      I should have mentioned JASO which also reports this week. It was recently given a new buy recommendation. Also SOL has steadily moved up from a 2 star CAPS rating to a 5 star CAPS rating. It should do well.
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    • Mon Aug 11th 08:58 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      China ADRs: Mixed July
      Both LDK and CSIQ report earnings this week (8/11/08-8/15/08). Other solar stocks report the next week such as SOL, STP, and TSL (perhaps others also). After the big down movement recently, I think we can expect an up movement over the next couple of weeks from these stocks. Virtually all should report great earnings. Hopefully LDK will report some positive guidance about their polysilicone plant also. The ones will great multiples seem likely to move up substanitally. This would include LDK, SOL, CSIQ, and TSL. LDK's movement will likely be dependent on its margins and its guidance about the two polysilicone plants it is building. The others should all move up on great results. The highest rated ones should move up more easily. The average analyst ratings for the latter three stocks are: SOL (1.8), CSIQ (2.0), and TSL (2.3). The FPE's are: SOL (6.88), CSIQ (7.40), and TSL (6.23). It looks like there is likely some room for these stocks to move up. They all have low PEG ratios, especially when compared to FSLR (which has moved down after its great earnings). FSLR's PEG ratio is currently 1.29. FSLR's FPE is 37.54 (even after the great earnings). The PEG ratios of the others are: LDK (.34), SOL (.26), CSIQ (.39), and TSL(.28). I think you can see where these other solar stocks may behave differently than FSLR at this point in time. Of course, there is still the possible headwind of oil prices continuing to go down.
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    • Fri Aug 8th 10:05 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Buy, Sell, or Hold Fertilizer Stocks: Agriculture Bust (Part II)
      gerbonzer: I tend to agree about food. I think the Grain futures hedging (as a hedge against the falling dollar) is unwinding currently. This is creating an artificial and temporary spike lower in the demand for grain. However, the hedgers were never really keeping the grain long term. They were generally only keeping futures contracts. The demand for grain is actually remaining roughly the same. Once the hedgers have exited rather fully, the futures prices will start to pick back up, even if they are lower to some degree due to the higher value of the US dollar. Fertilizer stocks still look good to me long term.
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    • Fri Aug 8th 09:51 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Buy, Sell, or Hold Fertilizer Stocks: Agriculture Bust (Part II)
      The same situation should set up in the oil service stocks. These are all going down in sympathy with the decreasing prices of oil. However, the demand for oil services does not have a one to one relationship to the price of oil. In fact beyond a certain minimum prices, which we are currently no where close to, the demand for oil services (drilling, etc.) is relatively inelastic. This is especially true of the demand for the deep sea drilling services. Stocks such as RIG, which have been tanking recently in sympathy with the decreasing price of oil, should bottom out a little bit before the bottom of oil. These should be a terrific upside play eventually.
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    • Fri Aug 8th 09:29 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Buy, Sell, or Hold Fertilizer Stocks: Agriculture Bust (Part II)
      Another blogger commented to me that the reason the commodities (and their related stocks) are virtually all going down at the moment is the fact that the US dollar is rising. This translates into hedgers via commodities leaving the commodities markets, which translates into lower commodity prices. Plus the dollar rising translates into lower commodity prices by itself. The combination is causing a sustained downtrend in commodities (and commodity related stocks). This will eventually bottom out after a lot of the speculators are gone (or a new wave of speculators is starting to enter). Until then the other blogger's thought was that commodity prices and the prices of commodity related stocks would continue to decline. I thought there was likely a lot of sense to his statements.

      I am not sure how this will play out in Ag stocks. The fertilizer costs are only pennies on the bushel (or other measure). The fertilizers also tend to lead to gains of many times the added costs of the fertilizer. The above argument does not mean that the actual demand for the commodities is decreasing. Plus there is not a one to one relationship between decreased grain prices and decreased demand for fertilizer. In fact, it would seem that the demand for fertilizer would be relatively unaffected. This might mean that the fertilizer stocks could start to rally before the commodity prices hit bottom. I don't think commodity prices have done that yet. The word from oil speculators is that the bottom there may be in the $90-$100 range. This is another 20% or more down from the current levels. If grain futures follow this scenario, the grain related stocks could just go down in sympathy with them. Alternatively some stocks, such as fertizer stocks, could start to disconnect from the downtrend due to the lack of the specific one to one connection of the demand for fertilizer to the price of the grains. Also if you envision the bottom as coming this fall, there may be good reason to continue to spend heavily on fertilizer because the grain prices will be higher again by the time the crops based on the fertilizer purchases are harvested. Certainly the demand for food is not likely to lessen appreciably anytime soon. Currently POT is hovering around its 200 day moving average. If it breaks below that I am guessing it might be better to sell it in the short term. If it rallies from its 200 day moving average sustainably, I think the stock becomes a buy again.
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    • Thu Aug 7th 16:06 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Potash Corp., Agrium Caught in Industry-Wide Downturn
      After all was done today, POT was down slightly, but the bounce off of the 200 day moving average was still intact. Actually POT was down less than the market on a percentage basis. This was a mildly positive sign. It gives another indication that POT may want to head upward in the very near future.
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    • Thu Aug 7th 11:19 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Potash Corp., Agrium Caught in Industry-Wide Downturn
      AGU got a reiteration of a buy rating from UBS today. This is generally good for Ag stocks.
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    • Thu Aug 7th 10:03 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Potash Corp., Agrium Caught in Industry-Wide Downturn
      Apparently AIG's $5.4 billion loss on mortgage debt was a big downer for the market. The Initial Jobless Claims rise didn't help either. Ditto a bit of a down outlook by Walmart. Still oil and grains futures are up, so the Ag stocks should rise, especially from where there are at this point in the day. This could be fairly important to the near term performance of POT et al. If they can sustain the small uptrend from yesterday, they may go screaming back up. If not, they may still have further downside first. I am hoping for the former.
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