tamarak's Comments Stream Stats
- 2 Comments, 0
, 0 
- Total Comment Stream rating - = 0
- Free E-Newsletters
- About Seeking Alpha
- About Us
- Contact Us
- What's New
- Readers Feedback
- Advertise With Us
- Contributors
- Contribute an Article
- Feature Your Book
- Our Contributors
- Anonymous Contributions
- Dispute an Article?
- Legal
- Terms of Use
- Privacy
- Copyright
Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets
Cramer attributes the lack of buying interest in POT after the earning report as due to the perception by hedge fund managers that an end to the ethanol mandate is likely and that would invalidate the projections of future earnings. Your POT forward PE estimates would be too optimistic under their scenario.
On a percentage basis over the past month, money has flowed most out of oil & gas and basic materials, and into health care and financials. (online.wsj.com/mdc/pub...) While the fundamentals for potash and agriculture appear sound for the long term, the short term demand for POT shares could decline more before sentiment turns back in favor of basic materials.
First Solar Looking Good - Collins Stewart
A 2:1 disadvantage in efficiency would be a large disadvantage for thin film technology. Perhaps the disadvantage is not so great for FSLR?
"CdTe will generally produce more electricity under real world conditions than solar modules with comparable power ratings.
Solar cells become less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity as their cell temperatures increase. However, the efficiency of this semiconductor material is less susceptible to cell temperature increases than traditional semiconductors, enabling First Solar thin film modules to generate relatively more electricity under high ambient (and therefore high cell) temperatures. The semiconductor material also converts low and diffuse light to electricity more efficiently than conventional cells under cloudy weather and dawn and dusk conditions. As a result, First Solar thin film modules will generally produce more electricity under real world conditions than conventional solar modules with similar power ratings." From FSLR website.
Seems like most of the comments about efficiency assume that the efficiency of thin film panels cannot be improved while the silicon technology can. Is there a physical limitation for improvements to thin film technology?