After Two Years and 200 Companies, Total Group Picks SunPower – A Watershed Solar Deal With More Upside

(This is an excerpt from an article I published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece) Perhaps it is not a good idea to use the term “watershed” twice in a year when referring to solar stocks, but it seems to me that Total Group’s acquisition of a 60% controlling stake in … Read more

Amazon Buyers Step Up for the “13% Discount”

A month ago, I took issue with a UBS downgrade of Amazon (AMZN) and tried to demonstrate how this analyst action and commentary could be twisted into a blueprint for a buying opportunity. At the time, I noted that a test of the November lows on a 13% drop could produce the 8% upside potential … Read more

Amazon’s Streaming Video Will Provide Buying Opportunity By the Second Half of the Year

In “The Tech Trade,” Eric Savitz provides details on a downgrade of Amazon.com (AMZN) by UBS. The title seems quite alarming: “Amazon: Streaming Video Will Pressure Margins, UBS Warns.” After I realized UBS was taking its price target from $195 to $180, just above AMZN’s current price of $177, I wondered why this research note … Read more

Steel Stalls

The massive and historic floods in Australia have driven coal prices up. This is particularly important for steel since Australia exports 2/3 of the world’s coal used for making steel (coking coal). Steelmakers have already been struggling with increasing input costs, so the Australian floods are sure to pinch profits further. At the close of … Read more

Earnings Recap for GT Solar As Wunderlich Heaps Praise

NOW I better understand Wunderlich Securities’s bullish case for GT Solar (SOLR). When I wrote December 1 about how diversification into sapphire crystallization systems (used in the manufacture of LED products) is paying dividends for SOLR, I noted my confusion over Wunderlich’s reiteration of a buy rating on SOLR. That reiteration came at the same … Read more