CT Programmer

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    • Tue Nov 18th 12:47 PM
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      Four Chinese Solar Stocks Under Threat from Pollution
      Is this article for real?!? Are you SERIOUSLY trying to argue that solar is dead because the sun can't make its way through Beijing's smog?!? Even if that were the case, it would be an argument for MORE SOLAR IN CHINA! Smog comes from burning fossil fuels. How do you get rid of smog? Stop burning so many fossil fuels. Do I really need to continue the argument (maybe I do with the author of this POS article). Hey, since there won't be any sun anymore, do you think I should invest in Chinese subterranean real estate?
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    • Mon Nov 17th 09:42 AM
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      As Solar Plummets, Stocks Drop Below Book Value
      Obama was just on 60 minutes, and he said something that I think he just might be able to pull off. He said that the US has a history of dependence on oil --- much like narcotics (his words) --- where we're all screaming about it when the price gets high, but then the price comes down and we get adjusted to the new lower price (which is actually higher than before). He said now is the best time to break that addiction. I'm no starry-eyed supporter or any politician, but his frankness and directness about the subject was refreshing, and I think that this country will finally have a REAL energy policy put in place soon, and that will include cutbacks in imported oil and increased incentives for solar, wind and NG.

      And in reference to the last comment about states laying off people, he (or she) doesn't realize that most states have already put into place mandated increases in the percentage of "alternative"... energy sources that utilities must use. It has nothing to do with the state --- its all on the utility companies to do it. That is the bulk of this stuff --- not private individuals and subsidies. Just like WPSPIKER said the subsidies, while they are there, are currently not enough to push the average Joe to invest in panels for his roof. I've looked into it and even with big incentives from CT that nearly pay half of the system, its still 15 years to break-even.
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    • Mon Nov 10th 08:09 AM
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      Rating: +4 0
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      Don't Let Bulk Shippers Sink Your Portfolio... For Now
      When someone mis-spells "Genko" (it's "Genco"), it makes it fairly obvious that they don't really follow that stock, so I don't put too much weight in what they say. It's when companies are "stuck in the mud" that you want to invest in the strong ones that will survive the washout. A "slowdown" is just that --- a slowdown, not a collapse. Last time I checked ships were still transporting goods all around the globe. Now is the perfect time to invest --- when people like you are saying not to --- and hold until everything returns to normal. If you don't, by the time the "all clear" has been sounded, you've missed out on a lot of the returns. And I've collected my dividends while they've waited on the sidelines.
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    • Mon Oct 27th 09:11 AM
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      More on TARP and the Insurance Industry
      Remember how California was saying they didn't need bond insurance and how they were going to start their own line? That was before their Gubernator went begging for cash from the Treasury. By almost all estimates I've seen put out there (except for the shorts), MBIA is highly capitalized. And they've got a CEO who has proven that he's actually WORTH the money they pay him. He is savvy and quick on his feet. Sure they've been downgraded and that triggered some losses, but they've calculated all that in. They have been very conservative. I don't want to take any blame away from their increase in riskier practices, or from the rating agencies for not properly analyzing their (or anyone's) risk, but people started acting like these bond insurers were worthless business models and needed to go under, and that their struggling was indicative of that, yet we now know that they were the first red flag of a systemic financial crisis. Yet, given all that, I don't think MBIA should take any money from the Feds. I don't think they really need to. Sure, it would boost them to AAA overnight, but I think damage has been done to the credibility of bond insurance as a whole, and what it will take to cure that is time, not a quick cash infusion. If MBIA surfaces from all this without Fed money, they gain back more credibility than if they take the money. I agree with appro that an FDR approach of an increase in government spending (especially at the state or local level) could help us dig out of a recession, but I also doubt that will happen. Towns and municipalities are now starting to tighten their belts as their tax bases erode. That means less projects, not more. I don't think lowering the costs of bond insurance (and thus the cost of projects) will cause more projects to come about. I think the projects are being shelved at any cost. You would have to have targeted Federal injections at the local or state level to change that, and I haven't heard any kind of talk along those lines.
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    • Thu Oct 23rd 08:54 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Nothing To Ship - Cramer's Stop Trading! (10/22/08)
      There's no rhyme or reason for the share price of anything these days. A railroad sees a decline in traffic of what? 5%? 10%? And suddenly "they're shipping nothing". What BS. Cramer is full of hot air. I used to hold Woodward Governor (WGOV), but I pushed the button and sold a while back because their PE was just getting too high. A few days later Cramer gets on and hawks them to the moon. They get about a 15% bump (I kick myself for selling a week too early). Of course, 2 weeks later they're back where they were when I sold, and now of course the stock is 20% cheaper.
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    • Thu Oct 16th 10:00 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Trina Solar Looks Good, Though Market Yawns
      Peppio is more right than he realizes. The REAL push for alternative energy is not coming from the Feds. It's coming from the states that are gradually increasing the percentage of "alternative"... energy that utilities must use. These are called RPS's (Renewable Portfolio Standards) and 29 states have them in place, including my home state of CT. California is just getting on board with this. This is a good article regarding RPS's: seekingalpha.com/artic.... Not only that, but many states have tax incentives for home use of "alternative"... energy. CT will subsidize a huge chunk of a solar system you put on your roof. BUT, even with the subsidy it still is 15 years before you break even. As traditional energy costs rise, the ROI equation changes and makes alternatives more enticing even at the household level. But as energy prices back off like they have done recently, it does hurt the alternative energy market. It is very closely linked, although more to natural gas and coal than to oil.
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    • Thu Oct 16th 09:10 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Seven Stocks for an Impending Apocalypse
      Great article! It's really refreshing to see someone ACTUALLY ANALYZE something, giving you both a realistic upside and downside for each stock. As opposed to the many articles on SA either ultra-hyping or ultra-bashing stocks depending on whether they are long or short. Really good analysis. Keep up the good work.

      Question: You mention TSL scares you due to the cash flow lay (which of course scares me because I have TSL shares). Can you elaborate a bit?
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    • Tue Oct 14th 09:52 AM
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      Chesapeake Bites McLendon
      Oh c'mon Lea. CHK is down just like everything else in the market is down. The recent drop is proof of nothing other than fundamentals went completely out the window. Did Aubrey being forced to sell his puts contribute? Yes, for about one day. It was down something like 10-20% the other day because of it. The huge slide came long before news of this broke, and EVERYTHING has been sliding. NG has taken huge hits as prices have come down. CHK has a lot of money coming in, and worst case is they'll start selling off some of these leaseholds to the majors like they did with BP. You've been harping on this leverage issue before, and while I don't think they're going to have enough to keep up their former pace of break-neck expansion, they definitely are not going away. Aubrey's interests are completely aligned with the shareholders, ESPECIALLY since he gets the 2.5%. I just don't buy into this cult of personality thing. But aside from that, CHK has great prospects, and if I didn't have XTO right now as my gas play (which I picked merely based on valuation at the time), I'd be picking up CHK. Were they hyped a lot? Sure. But I wouldn't count them out by a long shot.
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    • Mon Oct 13th 15:06 PM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      Chesapeake Bites McLendon
      I don't want to sound like I'm bearish on CHK, because I'm not. They're still huge and bought up nearly all the leases around, and I think they will always be the major contender in the NG field. But at its peak, you couldn't write one negative thing about CHK without everyone jumping all over you like you were an idiot for doubting Aubrey. And mostly the thinking went like this: Aubrey is spending all his money buying CHK, so that shows that he as an insider believes its going up, up, up. That thinking always made me nervous, and even though I rode one of CHK's waves to jump off near the top, I never got back in because my "hype-meter" kept blinking (I picked up XTO instead but still follow CHK closely). Now I think its clear that Aubrey was really just buying everything on margin --- not REALLY spending his own money, but merely speculating in it. It's also likely that the CEO of XTO (and lots of others) probably have been doing the same. Again, I'm NOT bearish on CHK or tying to bash them. Just maybe a little less enthusiastic than some. Also, I think the time for a buyout was when they were dirt-cheap last week. It's not like the oil majors are running around scooping up gas right now. If they had good incentives to do that, they would have been doing it already full force at these prices.
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    • Fri Oct 10th 10:57 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Midstream MLPs Crashing, Present Opportunity
      Great article. I have both EEP and OKS and I think they are solid investments. Unfortunately, like you said in the current market valuations are out the window and both the good and the bad are being sold off heavily by hedge funds and panicked investors. If you buy in, expect that the price will continue to drop. So I'd buy immediately prior to the cutoff date to receive a dividend. Who knows when anything will hit bottom, but at current valuations these companies are a steal, even if they'll go lower in the short term. And they'll be the first to recover once the "all clear" whistle is blown. At least with them you get paid generously in the meantime to wait for some semblance of normalcy. Also note that MLP dividends have special tax handling both within and without an IRA, but nothing a normal tax-prep software program can't handle. But I recommend reading up on MLP's and their tax implications before investing. Avi Morris has some good blogs regarding MLP's on Seeking Alpha (seekingalpha.com/autho...).
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    • Thu Oct 9th 09:41 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      MLPs Still Attractive After Recent Selloff
      oldtrdr, you're absolutely right. My mistake. It is a trust. High dividends like the others, similar business, but not an MLP. Wasn't thinking.
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    • Wed Oct 8th 11:24 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      MLPs Still Attractive After Recent Selloff
      Oh, quick note... I promise this is it then I'm out of here. When looking at PGH, they kick out dividends monthly, not quarterly, so just looking at their dividend amount is misleading. It's currently at 23% annually based on today's price.
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    • Wed Oct 8th 11:20 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      MLPs Still Attractive After Recent Selloff
      Best bets for MLP's, or for anything? As for MLP's, I have EEP, OKS and PGH. I won't claim they're the best... just the ones I picked up for various reasons. I like OKS's significant exposure to gas, but last time I checked we still needed to move oil around. Today they just seem to keep going down and down. Timing of bottom-fishing aside, they are good companies at a good price with good dividends. Read some of Avi's prior articles regarding the tax-handling of MLP's within or without an IRA. It gets a little muddy within an IRA.

      As for good buys in general... take your pick. Fertilizer companies, copper miners, gold (maybe), dry bulk shippers, gas and oil producers. They're all down significantly as if they're going out of business, yet they all have solid cash flows and last time I checked Asia was still running red-hot (and China just lowered its rates!!!). I personally put a lot of stock (no pun intended) in Jim Jubak's list on MSN and read him regularly.

      As a side note, I love how the press is saying that EEP is down 18% today because of the 2.4m fine. That happened last fall, and I read about that fine last week. I guess knee-jerk reactions are on a delay ;-)
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    • Wed Oct 8th 10:41 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      MLPs Still Attractive After Recent Selloff
      "Crash" assumes that the event has finished. Judging by today, it ain't over. Most of these are down a good number of points, after a few weeks of general decline. Not sure what's going on. I think "good" stocks are being punished in this market because they are the best thing to sell. I read something today that said hedge funds have liquidated about 20% of their total assets in the last month. That's a lot of selling. Personally, anything that pays me a dividend, and has a fwd PE below the S&P norm of around 15, is a double-gimmie. You eventually get both the dividends and the appreciation. And these MLP's have lower taxes.
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    • Wed Oct 8th 08:16 AM
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      Rating: 0 0
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      MLPs Still Attractive After Recent Selloff
      You should add OKS to your list of tags. I agree that these are good plays right now in the crazy market. They have stable cash flows, regardless of the price of the commodity running through their pipes. Even though we're likely heading into a significant recession, these guys provide stable dividends for those who sit and wait, and the prices will return to normal eventually. However, I would have changed the article's title to "MLP's MORE attractive after recent selloff".
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