October Stock Talk II

Global warming aside, we should be investing more in alternate energies to fossil fuels for selfish reasons.  Get off of the oil drug and we can get the hell out of the Middle East and tell them all to fuck off.  Plus, peak oil is real.  Oil prices are frighteningly unstable.  There are plenty of reasons aside from environmental ones, which are also real.  Solar, wind, fuel cells, etc etc. you name it, we need to do everything possible to encourage and move it along.  Incentive it like crazy.  It has started.  It will accelerate.  I am heavily invested in alternate anc clean energy and tech.  They have been some of the best ETF performers too -- PBW, PBD, PZD, PUW, etc.  They are going to continue to outperform too.  Everyone should have some of this in their portfolio.  ETF is a cheap diversified way to do it.  PBW is up 38% YTD.

 Umm,,,, not a political argument, just would point out that...I don't think anyone forced niwits to buy bigger and bigger gas guzzlers..or buy bigger and bigger energy guzzling houses (how bout that 30 foot ceiling, Harvey??) Yet McMansions and Hummers were the rage of the 90s...

 Peak oil is real. If it is real, then there is already a huge incentive to find alternative fuels, unless one doe not trust the free market.But given the free market produced the twits that roll around in Hummers, and all the other minitanks that pollute suburbia, one might question its efficacy.

 Americans have been dependent upon imported oil for four decades. Through Denmocrat and Republican regimes, the American public has continued its ridiculous patterns of consumption.

  Oh well...here is to making money off the usual suspects. But say what you will about alternative energy, oil will be required for its thousands of uses beyond pure fuel, no matter what twit the public elects in the upcoming election.


 

 PS I would also add that the people who provide you with alternative fuel will be...most likely, the oil giants. They are producers of energy, not just oil. They may be handy straw men for people who would rather feel victimized by conspirators, but they supply a critical national resource, a resource that China for one will make certain it has plenty of in the coming decades.
 There were very very sound reasons for  Halliburton depart Houston for friendlier and more lucrative shores:that is where the real money will be made in the oil services industry, not in a country that demands more and more oil while demonizing those that produce it.

The problem is that the current administration has too many allies and lobbyist involved with oil and automobiles to give the kind of incentives necessary to remove our independance from oil.

Remember during the Carter years he started a huge solar initiative and right as things were starting to get rolling, OPEC raised production like CRAZY and oil went from historic highs to dramatic lower levels in no time.

I really wonder about "peak oil", as since OPEC is a cartel and monopoly there is no real way of knowing if they really are holding back capacity or not. I tend to think they are.

Now if we REALLY wanted to get our automotive industry going, then we would take some of the tax cuts from the capital gains tax area and give them to the automotive group ONLY for production of hybrid and electric vehicles, and give a 15-20k incentive to every household towards a purchase of a vehicle that gets over 35 miles to the gallon..and make it a sliding scale UP for the less the reliance on oil..so an electric car would be near the upper boundary and 35 MPG would be the lower boundary.

There definately are things we could be doing to spur activity, but Bush has no reason to do these things..

And let us not talk about our own oil discovery in places like Alaska.....

 Again, and really I do not wish to create poltical issues in an economic forum, but nothing has made the citizenry of the US choose to buy gas guzzlers. Throughout my entire life I hav e watched people gladly pay for more and more oil wasting vehicles, then complain about the price of oil!!!  I suspect Al Gore alone has consumed more jet fuel this year than many small countires. (I know, he has bought "carbon offsets" and thinks that rectifies his waste).

 I particularly am amused ay an "environmentalist" I know who arrives at a cocktail parties leaping out of...the inevitable SUV. Please!!

  Democrat or Republican, it makes little difference:this country has failed to choose to be "off" imported oil. It has not even bothered to construct refineries for decades. Then it complains about the evil oil companies, or the evil Saudis, who are guilty of....pumping oil so "cheaply" that we just cannot resist wasting more of it????

  Everything Hubbard predicted (long ago) about oil field life expectancy has been proven correct. We may or may not be able to devise solutions to the dilemma our wastefulness has created.I hope we can. Unfortunately, I see no serious solutions being proposed by either party, and I have been waiting, ever since I was in the gas line during the first oil embargo, thirty years ago.

CC:

One last remark and I will shut up as well (and bring up, yes, a stock that interested me but which I never acted on , and maybe should have)...I think you need to look less at Halliburton and the Bush family, and towards the nitwits in Detroit for an explanation of the popularity of said engine.Electric cars have been around from the start.They lost.And that happened long before the Bush family entered the picture, either in business or politics.
Now, as pertains to stocks:
 What does anyone think of ALTI? (There is the electric car connection, see?)
 Also, anyone think IEP will continue to do what Icahn has done, which is basically print money in his sleep?
 Lastly, here is an interesting article on a guy that remains of interst to me, for various reasons..

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/business/13speculate.html?ex=1192939200&en=3fd543193ab577b1&ei=5070&emc=eta1


 

This site needs spell check make that "interest" gdmn it.

Grid,

There was state incentives down here I think two years ago and it really drove demand..so much that the Prius had monster backlogs.

I have a hard time giving corporate incentives since most of these companies as a pecentage of sales, their R&D for alt energy/vehicles isnt very big and they should be able to afford the R&D to develop all we need and more, but like that documentary about the electric vehicle, keep in mind that companies like GM make MORE MONEY from service and maintenance than they do selling the car. So without a combustion engine with oil changes, they not only lose money from the lower margin alt engine vehicles, but these same vehicles require little to no maintenance.

Anyone wonder why Chrystler stopped production on those EV1 vehicles? Was it because they werent successful? Not at all..that there were problems?? no...the company make MORE money from selling gas/oil guzzling vehicles than not..and that is the bottom line.

About ALTI..we talked about this company last year I think when they came out with the battery initially. I question the ability of current managment to take the technology to the next level. They had the market by storm and decided to sign up with some OTCBB junk stock for developing their product..makes no sense to me. I LOVE the nano-battery idea and potential, I question the ability of the company to take this product/technology and really make money from it.

Fellas..its ok to talk politics as it relates to the market..I have no problem with this discussion.

I think the government needs to make the concerted effort to push the development of alternative energy and vehicles..it isnt impossible, it just has to reach a critical mass production wise where it can be feasable and affordable.

I read that writeup from ALTI about that car, and the thing has to be charged too often to make it commercially acceptable on a broad scope..it needs to be able to run for a full days needs and not weigh a ton..and be affordable as well. So if that means we give corporate incentives to increase production and get the raw goods developed technologically speaking, then if we want to wean ourselves from oil  consumption, then we do it...  

Back to the investing side of it, what do you guys thin of the alt energy ETF's -- PBW, PZD, PUW, etc.  I think they are no brainer outperformers, unless the market were to seriously collapse.

Depeche,

To be honest I really need to look hard at the ETFs and see how they are balanced..and there is a way to do that, I think Merrill has a site that shows the GUTS of ETFs..meaning the holdings..

link

Before I invested in an ETF I would want to compare each and go with the ETF which had the balance I thought was best...

Here is another good resource-

Vectors

Look at the choices, gold miners, nuke energy, alt-energy, russia, steel.

Here is another link for IShares

LINK

If you CAN try and stick with Ishares or ETFs or Vectors..they are more efficient and cost effective than mutual funds if all else is equal (not pointing that reply to anyone in particular)

  I am looking at for any Asian (not limited to China) ETFs...I am already in one of the best mutual funds (at least to me) but closed to new investors, The Third Avenue International Value Fund. However, I am hunting for an ETF of similar quality to open an account for my Dad. Thanks fot the links to the Ishares funds and others:been through them cursorily and will continue to look through them.If anyone has any suggestions, love to hear them.

Stayed up late re-reading the classic Benjamin Graham. I liked the commentary added in the fourth edition:

 "If you buy a stock purely because its price has been going up-instead of asking whether the underlying company's value is increasing-then sooner or later you will be extremely sorry.That is not a likelihood.It is a certainty."

Well sure you can "ask" whether the underlying value is increasing, but getting the right answer is easier said than done.  The price usually increases for the right reasons, but obviously not always.  The only sure thing is to buy low and sell high,  Of course determining what is low and what is high is easier after the fact.

Sometimes the CURRENT value is either wrong or right..that is the unknown..meaning you cannot look at the books and business of a company and draw a conclusion to buy or not based on that alone.

Someone could look at a stock and think the company is doing terrible when in fact the business in the present and past is not reflective of the FUTURE.

Finding value is done by discovering what the market doesnt know, or what the market is either marking UP or marking DOWN incorrectly..or riding MOMENTUM of current pricing.

I know D2, but let's face it, guys like Munger, Buffett, and others are consistently able to do the hard work that delivers proper valuations And they are not just asking, they are critically looking at public records,proxy statements and balance sheets.

 Buffett concludes with this commentary:

  "..I have seen no trend toward value investing in the 35 year I have practiced it.There seems some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.The academic world, if anything, has actually backed away from the teaching of value investing  over the last thirty years.It is likely to continue that way.Ships will sail around the earth but the Flat Earth Society will flourish.There will continue to be wide discrepencies between price and value in the marketplace, and those who read their Graham and Dodd will continue to prosper."

 By the way, I don't agree that it is easy work to slog through proxy statements and  balance sheets. Not for me, anyway.
  And I am cognizant of the diffference between investment and speculation, and I enjoy both.

  But there are days I look at Baidu's price, and then look at MSFT's and shake my head.I think a lot of people are going to get burned with the former, and they will ask themselves, what was I thinking?, just as many did who loaded up on Enron.

  And in some respects, this is aimed more at myself than anyone else. I research stuff, waste time on it,get beguiled by it, and then conclude: I will let Buffett lose my money if he can...and let him do the "easy" work.After all, he quotes approvingly of Reagan's remark: "It may be true hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?"

 
  Anyone willing to take a chance on MO beating expectations this week?

 You have probablyseen this breakdown on PBW but what the heck for those that have not..

PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio: Top holdings

Top holdings

Company name	% Net assets
Echelon Corporation	4.77%
Emcore Corporation	4.33%
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company, Ltd. ADR	3.71%
Ormat Technologies, Inc.	3.56%
First Solar, Inc.	3.45%
JA Solar Holdings Co., ADR ADR	3.43%
SunPower Corporation	3.25%
Itron Inc.	3.20%
Applied Materials	3.18%
MEMC Electronic Materials	3.13%
	Percentage of holdings  36.01%

Top sectors

Sector name	% Net assets
Hardware	43.93%
Industrial Materials	35.24%
Utilities	9.38%
Telecom	3.20%
Energy	2.51%
Consumer Goods	1.87%
Healthcare	1.54%
Media	0.00%
Software	0.00%
Consumer Services	0.00%
	Percentage of sectors  97.67%

Holding data through 8/31/2007
Sector data through 8/31/2007


Data providers
Fund data provided by Morningstar, Inc. © 2007. All rights reserved.

Almost too conservative..