Solar and Alternative Energy Stocks

The alternative energy sector is continuing to perform well. I found a couple small companies with good charts that I like. Primarily I like the charts. Jinko Solar (JKS) is one of the solars I posted on Twitter awhile back and it ran 17% today on good volume.

The first new one is Ballard Power Systems (BLDP) with a market cap of around 200 million. BLDP sells fuel cells which is a very promising alternative energy. The stock price just broke out of a triangle consolidation.

The second one I like is Suntech Power (STP). STP is a 250 million dollar company that also just broke out of a long triangle. Both of these stocks look ready to keep running.

MEET Flag Setup

I've had MeetMe Inc. ticker MEET on my watchlist since it made that big run about a week ago. It's started a flag on Fridays run with light sell volume on the flag and looks poised to continue to run again. I am going to put a buy stop order in at 1.87 a share. I also added LEE XXII JKS to the watchlist.

Trading Range Breakout For Crude Oil

This is a followup to the post I did on crude oil in June. The triangular consolidation on crude had been forming for a long time. Crude finally broke out of the ascending triangle. This is a very bullish chart still and I wouldn't be surprised to see a 110 retest. Triangles are very powerful chart signals. I drew up a new chart and I posted it below. The trend line breakdown I circled was very telling of what direction it was heading. That was definitely a failed signal.

I sold my KWT solar etf position for a slight loss at $46. I didn't get an ideal entry and didn't like the price action so a stop loss is a stop loss. I'm thinking of uploading some video posts in the near future here. I'm looking for a good desktop video software so I can show what I'm talking about simultaneously.

Net Net SORL

I recently looked through a lot of NCAV net-net's. These are stocks with market caps below net current assets. The most compelling recent net-net I noticed is a company called SORL Auto Parts.

SORL Auto Parts (SORL) is a Chinese company that develops, manufactures and distributes automotive brake systems and other key safety related auto parts to automotive original equipment manufacturers, and the related aftermarket both in China and aboard. The Company’s products are used in different types of commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses. SORL is trading below net current asset value and is profitable. It even has earnings growth.

Crunching numbers straight from their annual 10-K filing the market cap is $51 million and net current assets are 124 million. At the current stock price of 2.65 it is trading 41% below net current asset value. Cash has also been stable over the past couple years which is good. Moving from the balance sheet to the income statement we find earnings and a current PE ratio of 4. The PEG ratio (price to estimated earnings growth) is incredibly nice at .89 over the next 5 years. In 2012 the company had free cash flow of around 29 million for the year.

The stock had a big run from 1.80 a share in Sept of last year all the way to 4.00 in February of this year.

Crude Oil Chart and Position Update

I'm long KWT the solar ETF from a $49 entry. I have a mental stop loss of $46 a share. Around $38 a share is more of an ideal stop area because it is below the old resistance from Fall of 2012. I run a lot of Stockfetcher scans throughout the week and there are a lot of long setups that keep popping up as the market is still in bull mode. I only scan for stocks priced from pennies to $10 a share. This pull-back in the major indices looks like just a consolidation right now after that huge run-up.

I try and follow crude oil regularly. I've posted up a chart that shows the resistance level that crude has failed to break through over the past 12 months. Along the way from where the price is from the summer of 2012 there has been some triangular consolidation that you can see in the chart.

The short-term chart technicals clearly say to get short right here. If I actively traded CL futures the stance here is definitely short biased. We will have to see what becomes of the triangular consolidation over the coming weeks. It may be very telling.

Solar Stocks Play

Solar stocks are continuing to deliver big returns lately. One way to invest in the solar sector is Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (KWT) or the Guggenheim ETF (TAN). The Guggenheim TAN is more overweight First Solar FSLR and it's price fluctuates more in lockstep with the stock. I like KWT more because it's not so heavily invested in FSLR. I wouldn't be surprised to see more double digit returns from solar as a sector this year. Technically, the charts on solar as a sector look very bullish here. See the picture below. I see a lot more upside. Of course, with big run-ups in all solar stocks across the board some stocks not so worthy of such high multiples will eventually fade out. I remember the big run in solar around 2007 and 2008 and the ridiculous multiples pegged on even the best companies. Some of the PE ratios were totally insane like Nasdaq bubble of the year 2000 insane and of course they eventually came down to reality. I'll be looking for some good shorts eventually after the momentum continues. The momentum is going to continue for awhile though.

Deep Value Stock PRLS

I find Peerless Systems (PRLS) to be one the more compelling net current asset stocks I currently know of. The company has a market cap of $10.1 million. There is $4.58 per share in net current asset value and $1.77 in net cash per share. The stock last traded at $3.35 per share. They've repurchased a lot stock over the past couple years. The company has bought in aggregate 482,111 shares of stock or $1.8 million in fiscal 2013. Additionally, from February 1st of this year to April 23, 2013 they repurchased $230,652 of stock.

Caribou Coffee Bought By Private Equity For $340 Mil

I recently read that Caribou Coffee was purchased by a private equity company for $340 million. This is surprising yet at the same time not all that surprising to see the second biggest coffee chain next to Starbucks get bought out. People have been speculating on a buyout for years. I've been writing about Caribou Coffee (former ticker symbol CBOU) since 2009 here on the blog. I remember back in either 2009 or 2010 Caribou was actually trading for not that much over its net tangible equity value. The recent purchase price was for over 30 times earnings.

YOU On Demand Holdings (YOD) Trade Setup

YOU On Demand (YOD) has had a big sell-off and is down to $1.57 here. I like this stock a lot technically here. This is a very clean and tight symmetrical triangle bull flag. Looking at some fundamentals the market cap is $18 million. There is nothing stellar in the financial statements that I saw. Revenue growth is flat. No net income. I like the balance sheet however. I looked at quarter end Sept 2012 and the past couple years. The balance sheet is healthy. There is about $10 million in tangible assets, $22 million in total assets and total liabilities of just $13 million with just 17K in long term debt. I like what I read on the founding partners bio. This is more of a technical play and I am going to put a buy stop order in for 1.71 a share. If it breaks out above the flag I want to be long. I'm watching the consolidation on BLDP to. Something worthwhile technically may develop or it may not. That's how it goes. I'm also watching PRLS as a pure fundamentals play which has net cash per share of $2.62.

Apple AAPL Short Setup

Major indices are holding up very strong around their highs. Although, Apple (AAPL) saw a drop today of 2%. Looking at the long-term chart here one can see how AAPL likes to congest right around resistance and then breakout as it did twice in the chart below. I drew in the red lines where the consolidation occurred.

So, onto the chart now and the short setup. I see this as a particularly attractive short trade because of the failed signal. When the recent gap down got filled it was a bullish move, however, that gap fill failed because we are now back into a breakdown. Rather, the massive fade is just continuing. There is a bunch of support coming up at around 400 so we will see what happens there.

If you are like most novice investors long AAPL then this post may come as incomprehensible to expect Apple stock to drop. I would ask you one question as this applies to anyone who ventures into capital markets. Do you want to be right? Or do you want to make money?

Supernova on GNIN

I posted up GNIN last weekend as a short trade watch for Monday or Tuesday. The crash finally came on Tuesday after the stock went supernova all the way over $3.00 a share. GNIN actually printed $.42 a share today! This is a classic pump and dump chart. The volume came in out of nowhere in January and it saw a steady climb that ended in this massive fade. Incredible drop in 3 days.

Looking at Net-Net BAMM and Short Watch GNIN

Net-Net BAMM I am currently looking for some net-net's and deep asset value worth writing about. After spending some time going through a stock screen I found Books a Million (BAMM) to be one of the most compelling net current asset stocks I saw for the time being. In looking in the stock market sewers for deep value stocks one can often find somewhat of a diamond like Silver Leaf Resorts SLVF or Adams Golf ADGF were. I'm not sure if BAMM is a diamond but it is something to look at if the stock price gets a lot cheaper. So I think it is something to just watch as the price here at $2.40 is just below net current asset value.

Short Watch Green Innovations (GNIN) Green Innovations (GNIN) traded over $7 million shares Friday and is currently going full zombie. It's up from $1.00 to $2.75 just this month. It's been running everyday and buying volume is eventually going to get exhausted. It's been volatile on the way up so it will be volatile on the way down. To short a momo stock like this it's a bad idea to short when it is green (positive) on the day. It needs to crack the previous days close before it is a short setup. The setup is going to be here very soon. Could even be Monday or Tuesday.

Dry Bulk Shipping Stock SHIP

Hello folks. I put this shipper Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (SHIP) up on Twitter about a week ago after the dry bulk shipper post. SHIP is a low floater. It has a small float and it only has a market cap of $26 million. It has run especially well along with all the other shippers. It's a really good one to trade because of how volatile it is. Very high day range. It had a huge run in January from $1.20 to $2.70 a share. It just printed a hammer off this new flag. Right now it definitely looks like another flag because of the decreasing sell volume I drew the red lines over.

Old Net-Net Blonder Tongue BDR On The Move

Former net-net Blonder Tongue Labs (BDR) has 5.5 mil in net current asset value and a market cap of 9.6 million. It has always been one of those perennial net-nets. Always below and around net current asset value. Unfortunately I wasn't watching it lately. It has bottomed out as this chart shows. I circled the failed breakdown. The stock then was in breakdown mode until the lower low turned into a spike bottom. Confirmation of the failed breakdown is where I drew the arrow. Failed signals can be very powerful. The second chart is the beautiful flag it printed. The chart is real bullish here still even though I missed the perfect setups and price. I'm long biased on BDR.

Follow Up On Shippers

DRYS made the push I was looking for in the last post. That was the move. FREE still has light sell volume on this consolidation so the set-up is still there on a strong intra-day move on volume. It needs to run to atleast .26 tomorrow before it is a good set-up. It needs to atleast break above the prior days high.

Watch The Baltic Dry Index and Shippers

The Baltic Dry Index has formed a little base recently. It is far from a confirmed bottom but it has held this area very well. Very big blocks of shares have come into the shippers that haven't been seen in awhile. I really like NEWL FREE and DRYS with a long bias here. Watch FREE, DRYS and NEWL this week.

Gold Technical Analysis January 2013

Gold is still in a secular uptrend. The yearly charts are a lot more choppy. There was a spike bottom in the chart below that is getting retested. I don't see any good signals here because of how choppy the long-term chart is. Crude oil is equally range-bound and in an uptrend the past couple weeks.

Some Cool Economic and Market Videos

Economic discussion on currency and gold from the most unique economics blog on the internet. Below is a short talk about market cycles, bubble jumping and the challenges of pure investing. The video quality is bad so just listen to it. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Quantitative Easing and The Stock Market

As you may know it is widely hypothesized that quantitative easing has contributed to the rise in asset prices the past couple years. Here is that in pictures.

click to enlarge

I think in the near-term any QE3 would probably more than likely continue to lift assets. I find now that getting a grasp on major economic trends locally and globally can make industry and equity selection much easier as well. As any QE continues stocks and commodities will rise especially metals like gold and silver. Same dance, only a new song.

A Contrarian Setup With Penson PNSN

Last week Penson Worldwide (PNSN) a major international clearing firm and the second largest clearing firm in the U.S. came out about $42 million that might bring a write-down. A board member who had a relationship to the $42 million resigned. Immediately following this news the stock crashed from $5.00 to $2.73 a share in two days.

Although the $42 million seems significant it is only a measly 0.49 percent of their $8.7 billion in average daily customer balances. Penson also has more than $5.8 billion in cash and equivalents. They even had a pretty good recent quarter. In their last quarter revenue was up. I don't see this development seriously damaging their long-term business. In-fact with a market cap now of around $100 million I see this as an attractive valuation.

Although this is an opportunity there are things to keep in mind. Over recent years their revenue growth has declined slightly and they aren't consistently profitable. Overall, I think this is a more speculative play but I think there is a good setup for a small position here off what appears to be some capitulation and technical strength.

The price action looks like the beginning of a bullish engulf. Buy volume needs to stay steady for this to continue. I like an entry point on price strength above Fridays close. If the stock doesn't follow through here, however, I only want to watch and see how the technicals develop.


full disclosure: no position currently

Macroeconomic Stock Plays

I have been writing a lot about macro trends from monetary metals like gold and silver, oil to rare earth element stocks. Outside of the precious metals I haven't included that many individual stock picks. So, today I'm going to look at a couple of stocks.

Rare Element Resources (REE) mines for rare earth elements and gold. REE has a market cap of only $568 million at yesterdays close of $13.17 a share. Their Bear Lodge property looks to have a substantial amount of rare earths. I think this major is a good addition or alternative to other majors like Molycorp (MCP).

If you are interested in rare earths here is some information from the US Government Accountability Office on rare earths in the defense supply chain. One interesting tidbit from the report is that once a company gets the capital to begin a mine it can take from 7 to 15 years to get a property fully online due to regulatory procedures.

This next stock is currently my favorite setup at the moment. It is a natural gas company called Union Drilling (UDRL). While there is roughly $200 million in net tangible asset value and only a $237 million market cap I'm more interested in the chart play. The $10.40-$10.50 area has become a resistance level and as it stands today it is still consolidating around these levels. This is bullish consolidation currently and I see UDRL heading higher if it can print $10.61.

I expect a significant move higher either today or the next couple trading days.

A Final Thought
I believe that a top down approach continues to be one of the best strategies in this current environment. I want to continue to look at the oil and gas drillers, commodities and the precious metal miners. The writing has and should continue to be on the wall in regard to these areas outperforming.

There's Still Time To Buy Commodities

I want to talk a little about the macro situation in this article. More importantly I want to share my thoughts on crude oil at the moment. I also have a silver stock that looks interesting.

I won't go deep into the thesis behind the bullish case for commodities because I talked about that before. I still think it is important to be allocated in hard and soft commodities at this time. There is going to continue to be "dollar" inflation and this should allow certain assets like stocks and especially commodities to continue higher. It's essentially a Cantillion Effect. The rise in prices we have seen across the board really can't be totally explained otherwise.

Commodities Gains

Crude Oil At The Moment
Oil looks particularly bullish fundamentally and technically still. In the big scheme of things it won't be good at all if oil takes off like it did in the 70s or 2008. Some of you probably know the story from the late 70s but if you don't there was a severe oil crisis. There was also very significant inflation that was only struck down by Paul Volcker getting interest rates up to a whopping 19%. This saved the dollar but it also brought a recession.

Oil has gotten particularly volatile lately. Part of this is uncertainty about supply following the revolutions. There was a news story about what might happen if Libya and Algeria shut down supply.

Technically, there has been some congestion following the big spike day. It looks like bullish consolidation. It's starting to be confirmed as there was just a pop out of it. If we continue hitting new highs I think there may be some more explosive momentum. There definitely is more upside.

3 month chart of crude oil

As far as holding oil for any time period the best instrument is the futures themselves (CL). The US Oil Fund ETF ticker (USO) is a terrible way to play oil. It's because of the way the contracts roll. The ETF must buy oil futures contracts and sell them before expiry. As a result there is decay in the ETF. The natural gas ETF (UNG) is a good example of the dynamics of these ETFs. Natural gas has been pretty flat but the ETF has performed even worse because it bought the expensive monthly contracts and had to sell them cheaper right before expiration.

I think United States 12 Month Oil (USL) holds longer contracts than USO. USL has outperformed USO over long time frames.

Teucrium WTI Crude Oil Fund (CRUD) is also another alternative as it tries to buy contracts on three different maturities to offset decay.

Silver Mining Stocks
Here are some ideas in the mining sector. As silver continues hitting new highs I like this Canadian junior miner Aurcana Corporation (AUNFF) here. It's a smaller company and in the penny stock range. Some other larger market cap names that are worth a look include Hecla Mining (HL), Silver Standard Resources (SSRI) and Pan American Silver (PAAS).

Why U.S. Stocks Will Rise in 2011

I think it is highly likely that the U.S. stock market will continue to put up significant gains in 2011. The reason is nothing complex. In-fact, it is just a simple phenomenon that has been going on since the 2009 lows in equities and continues to lift asset prices at this moment. It is quantitative easing and the Federal Reserves commitment to attain significant dollar inflation. Anything else one hears to the contrary is just chicanery.

But before we delve into this and the future let us look at a similar economic situation and how stocks performed in those years. In the depression immediately following the crash in 1929 banks were failing, assets were deflating and commercial credit was collapsing.

But what happened to stocks all through the 1930s despite high double digit unemployment? Stocks went up!

The big catalyst that allowed for the rise in stocks was that we went off the gold standard in 1933. This depreciated the dollar significantly and you can even see it in the CPI below.

click to enlarge

The same thing is going on now with the dollar and equities as it did in the 1930s. Bernanke has even admitted publicly that the goal of QE is to raise stock prices.



Final Thoughts
The macro picture hasn't changed much this past year and likely won't for some time. The FED will continue to try and prop up the debt bubble by rolling cheap money. Stagflation remains one of the best case scenarios. Money will run to the best assets while the bad assets continue to deflate. So, I see major commodities like oil and agriculture continuing to do well while real-estate remains flat. And of course metals like gold and silver will do well. This is all nothing new of course but I think it is going to be the status quo for many, many months to come.