Fueling The Winds Of Change With Zoltek

First of all, I just want to say that the market has been very hard to take the past month or two. What you need to remember, is that we are in it for the long haul. If you are an investor that thinks long-term, you should be drooling over all of the values out there in the market today. Even with an "economic slow down" here in the states, it really doesn't change the global growth stories of plenty of companies out there today.

For instance, Intel just reported today only 2 cents under estimates yet it is hammered in after hours. The market is overreacting and focusing on any negative news, without even considering a tomorrow. Now is the time to be concentrating on the future, a long term investor needs to be ready to buy at these moments, not panic like some many people tend to do.

That being said, my next long term pick is the carbon fiber producer Zoltek (zolt). This company is the leading producer of the carbon fibers that go into producing wind turbines, a growing source of green energy. This relatively small company (1.26 Billion Market Cap), has signed long term supply contracts with the top manufactures of wind turbines in the entire world! Gamesa Group of Spain, DeWind and the world's largest producer Vestas Wind System will be begin to be reflected in Zoltek's bottom line very soon.

In case you missed the figures wind energy is projected to grow at 25% per year worldwide, and I personally think this is a pretty conservative estimate. As I stated earlier with Evergreen Solar and Ormat Technologies, green energy is going to become the next multi-year bull market.

Zoltek is in one of the sweet spots, and appears to have a near monopoly on a key area of this growing trend. Their revenues have been growing at a very impressive rate and should only continue to do so with it's recent announcement that it had purchased the Guadalajara, Mexico-based Crysel Acrylic Fiber.

As if that weren't enough reason to own Zoltek, they also have the potential to be huge in the automotive market as their light weight carbon fiber could easily be used in the manufacturing of more fuel efficient vehicles. Think about it, the government is just beginning it's push to increase fuel standards, and as oil rises the process will only speed up.

Yeah the market is pretty bearish right now, but there is always plenty of companies to pick up on sale at this level. Always, don't buy all at once and focus long-term... as with all things, this will pass...

Buy Evergreen Solar Ahead Of Earnings?

Well I certainly can't say that I would put too much down on the table before earnings on Thursday, but this certainly is a good stock to consider for the long run. Evergreen Solar (eslr) is small company that is quickly expanding it's manufacturing facilities not only here in the states, but in Germany as well with it's joint venture with Everq. Germany is arguable the leader in the world when it comes to Solar technology, so ESLR has it's eggs in the right basket. They are still operating at a loss though, so this play is not for the faint of heart. They are also very small compared to the other players out there with only a 960 million dollar market cap, but with great risk comes great rewards. Here is a look at their 1 year chart courtesy of Google Finance.


I believe things can only get better for this company as governments around the world begin to offer even more incentives for green energy. Climate change is becoming more of a reality ever day and I believe we are soon going to be scrambling to provide the world with cleaner forms of energy.

One of the things that separates Evergreen Solar from the rest of the solar industry is the fact that they manufacture wafers, cells and panels all under one roof which will allow them to more efficiently control costs, and perfect the manufacturing process. They also produce panels that have the smallest carbon footprint of any panels on the market today, and with their revolutionary quad furnace I think Evergreen has a leg up on the competition.

Is Evergreen the best solar play out there right now? Maybe not, two others to consider are SunPower Corp (SPWR) and Suntech (STP) but I think that a year or two down the line Evergreen will be vastly outperforming both of these stocks... What are your thoughts?

NASDAQ ESLR is trading at $9.60 as I write this...

Google Beat's The Street Again

Nothing new here, Google (goog) blows past analysts estimates posting $3.91 earnings per share (eps) vs the estimated $3.78 that analysts were predicting. They also beat on revenues with 3.01 billion which is 70 million above what the analyst were looking for. Mind you this beat was already after many analysts had raised their estimates prior to the release, so the bar was already very high, and Google still had no problem beating!

The only blemish on the quarter was continued hiring by the company that spooked investors a bit in after hours trading. If you listened to the conference call though, they explained that some of that was due to the acquisition of Postini and some due to an overhang of people that were hired in the second quarter that didn't start till the third quarter. The management said that they would keep a watchful eye on hiring in the future as well.

Overall, this looks like another great quarter from the company that never seems to stop growing it's impressive bottom line. They have introduce serveral new ad formats for adsense and have just begun to start making money off of Youtube with the new overlay ads. Also, with the release of the I-Phone, mobile Internet use has only begun to hit and Google just released adsense for mobile which will pad the bottom line a bit next quarter! Basically, with the seasonally strong forth quarter coming up it is hard to find another stock out there with this much potential.

You might be thinking I can afford to buy a $600 stock, but don't forget that you don't have to buy a full share of a company like this and others with such a high price tag. You can buy partial shares though places like sharebuilder and other brokerages. Don't think you missed the boat either, because as grows the Internet grows Google. This is a worldwide play on the growth of the Internet and the push from traditional adverting into Internet advertising which is much easier to track through services like Google Analytics. Plus, with the Summer Olympics coming up in China and the presidential election next year things are only going to get better for this company.

For more information on how I see the Google Story check out these past posts...

Cramer Goes Ga Ga Over Google
Google Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
Putting A Value On A Stock
Evolution Of Traditional Advertising

Google Train And The Forming Tech Alliance

Tearing Down The Microsoft Monopoly

Can Vasco Data Securities Continue This Run?

I have to admit Vasco Data Securities (vdsi) has gone a lot higher then I thought it ever could in this time frame, but there are some fundamental reasons and major momentum moving this stock upwards this quarter and towards the next earnings release on October 25th. Vasco is a security company that is growing at an astounding pace, and judging by the recent additions of a few key contracts this company is poise to continue this growth in the future. It even opened up a new location in Brazil on October 1st to ensure it's growth prospects in the region. Vasco does the majority of it's business outside the United States, and therefore has a huge untapped market that is just beginning to embrace online banking.

As more people realize the convenience of online banking here in The States, customer's will demand higher security just as they did in Europe and the other over 60 countries that Vasco does business in. The only question I have is the growth already priced into the soaring stock price? It is currently trading at a 80 P/E ratio or multiple which is normally considered to be "expensive". Still there is only a couple analysist that even cover this stock, and it is only a 1.6 billion dollar company market cap wise so it certainly has breathing room still.

No matter what happens this earnings report it appears that the long term story remains, they are a small company (184 employees) that has hit the sweet spot of online banking industry and is leading in almost every place but the united states, which they are beginning to penetrate with their recent agreements with The Royal Bank Of Canada and Az-lan Tech Data which both have a very extensive reach!

Just to be clear though this pick is not for the faint of heart is has been on a crazy run, I would personally wait till after earnings or buy some now and buy some after earnings if all continues to go well...

Cramer Goes Ga-Ga Over Google

One of the biggest bulls of Google's stock (goog) Jim Cramer just did one of his famous rants on the recent run up in the stock price tonight on his show Madd Money. Now I have to admit that Jim gets it wrong some if not a lot of the time and I take his advice with a grain of salt, but he does make some very good points about Google's stock valuation.

First off, people can't seem to get their heads around a $600 dollar stock. The first thing you need to realize is that there are a lot of other stocks out there that have high price tags. For instance The Washington Post (wpo) at $800, or even Berkshire Hathaway (brk) which is valued at over $120,000 a share!

The only real reason that most stocks don't have such high prices is that they have all gone through stock splits. A stock split is when you take a stock that is $100 for example and you split it in 2. This leaves you with 2 stocks at $50 dollars. Google's management has said from the very beginning that they do not plan on split the stock anytime in the future so the price tag will just continue to go up if the earnings keep pace.

While I do realize that Google's stock price has been on a decent run, it is all up to next weeks earnings to see just how long this can last. If they beat the numbers the stock will continue it's mad pace to 700, if they miss or meat there will be a pull back which would be a good opportunity to place your bets. The only problem is if they beat you could miss out on the fun.

It is up to you though if you believe in the long term story of Google I would put in a little before earnings and a little after this way you can't get burned too bad by a surprise either way. I have been convinced of this story since the IPO and the Google long term story just seems to gets better every day...

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