FIRSTSOLAR - $1,50 pro Wp - Werden die etablierten Solarzellenhersteller unter Druck kommen? (Seite 244)

[meinolf67]

Börse...!!??:

First Solar Shares Slip After Company Did Not Report Any Major News at Monday Analyst Day

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of solar cell maker First Solar Inc. slid nearly 3 percent Tuesday, as investors seemed dissatisfied with the lack of news coming out of the company's first analyst day.

In morning trading, the stock slipped $6.21, or 2.7 percent, to $222.76. The stock rose 9.9 percent at the end of last week ahead of yesterday's analyst meeting, but fell 3.3 percent Monday.

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Collins Stewart analyst Daniel Ries said investors were expecting First Solar to share some major news.

"There was some anticipation... that there would be an announcement of either a new customer or additional plant expansion," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "While certainly not negative in any way, the event was primarily an overview of the company's strategy."

Ries has a "Buy" rating and $260 price target on the stock. He said First Solar will become the first solar power company that can compete with traditional utilities with government subsidies, and believes its prices will reach competitive levels between 2010 and 2012.

In a client note, CIBC World Markets analyst Adam Hinckley said the company did offer some insight into its plans to enter the U.S. utility market.

Hinckley said the company plans to reach the U.S. through Turner Renewable Energy LLC, a company it bought last week. He said Turner, which does business as DT Solar, sells solar systems to utilities, and the move will increase First Solar's profit.

"We expect the move into the U.S. utility market to drive net income growth, although volume and profitability of system sales is very difficult to quantify at this point," he said.

The analyst maintained a "Sector Outperformer," or "Buy," rating, and raised his target price to $250 per share from $230. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial have price targets ranging from $220 to $310 on the Phoenix-based company.

[meinolf67]

Habe mir jetzt 4h lang den gestrigen Webcast von FSLR reingetan.

Ist ein "MUST"!!!

Wer nicht soviel Zeit mitbringt, sollte sich die Präsentation ansehen:

http://www.shareholder.com/visitors/event/build2/mediapresen…

Button links unten.

[meinolf67]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.655.168 von Hoerschwelle am 04.12.07 09:06:46

Noch kein Statement.

So schnell bin ich nicht; habe nur schon mal gepostet, damit ich einen Platz zum Nachlesen habe.

Prinzipiell glaube ich schon, dass man die Materialversorgung im Auge haben muss.

Immerhin hängt c-SI massiv an einem Engpass OBWOHL der Grundstoff ubiquitär ist. Um wie viel schlimmer KÖNNTE es da bei seltenen Elementen werden?

Kurzfristig sehe ich allerdings kene Probleme.

Könnte aber z.B. schon interesant werden, zu sehen wie es bei Calyxo, AVA, PrimeStar mit der Te-Versorgung läuft.

[Hoerschwelle]

Und, wie ist Dein Statement zu den Berichten?

Der Markt nimmt ja davon nichts zur Kenntnis, zumindest nichts Kursmäßiges, sieht aus wie Desinteresse.

[meinolf67]

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kammen/C226/7r.pdf


ab Seite 13...

[meinolf67]

Tellurium, one of the rarest elements on earth, was once not thought to be very useful. According to USGS and a Mining Journal Review article, half of its traditional use is as an alloying agent in iron and steel to improve machinability; 25% of it is in catalysts and chemical use; 10% of it in alloying with non-ferrous metals like copper and lead; 8% of it is in electronic application and the remaining 7% in other applications, including as pigment agent in ceramics.

Annual global tellurium production is about 170 tons to 200 tons, based on various different estimates. It's mainly produced from the anode slime accumulated during electrolytic process of copper refining. According to this detailed analysis, copper produced from different places contain vastly different tellurium content. Typically, one ton of copper contains 100 grams of tellurium and only 33 grams are extracted and produced using existing technology. That caps the current global tellurium production at no more than 400 tons, without major investment to improve the tellurium extraction efficiency, assuming globally 12.4 million tons of copper is produced using electrolytic process per year. Because of the low quantity and thin revenue of tellurium in comparison to the revenue from main copper product, copper refineries are UNLIKELY to invest money, time and effort to improve the tellurium extraction rate, unless tellurium price goes up a lot from here, approaching gold price levels.

According to USGS, tellurium price started 2004 at $10 a pound. By the year-end it reached $22.50 a pound. In 2005 the price quickly rallied to $130-$180 a pound in mid year, then flat down to $100-$130 a pound. In 2006, it once again ran up to $155 a pound and then settled for the year at $50-$75 a pound.

So what prompted the rapid price raise? First Solar's (FSLR) CdTe solar panel was one of the demand factors. FSLR produced 60 MW in 2006 and about 20 MW in 2005. At 8 grams of tellurium per panel and 60 watts per panel, that's 8 tons tellurium consumed in 2006 and 2.7 tons in 2005. That's barely 4% and 1.4% of the supply. It's a factor in demand increase, but not the major factor.

The main Te demand increase was from other applications. CD-RW discs use tellurium, as do DVD-RW discs. And even later, ReWritable Blu-Ray DVD discs were developed by Panasonic, using a material called tellurium-suboxide-palladium.

Recently, Intel (INTC) announced a new type of phase change memory chips to start mass production in later 2007. This also uses tellurium. To understand the background of this break through, you need to read an old article: A 30-year memory problem solved?

All those electronic applications mentioned above, CD, DVD and memory chips, relate to the same phase change material called chalcogenide, which contains tellurium. Chalcogenide, the material used in ovonics, is really the cultimation of decades of scientific research on amorphous materials, which was once considered of very little practical use, but of academic interest only.

I originally connected these dots from an article I read entitled "Is There a Tellurium Rush in the Making?". Kudos to Sergio Garcia de Alba for submitting the article Energy Conversion Devices: An Amorphous Gem, which finally allowed me to connect the dots. It's all related to tellurium. Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ENER) was funded by Stanford Ovshinsky, who invented the amorphous semiconductor materials and coined the name Ovonics. He has numerous important inventions. Chalcogenide, which is a tellurium containing material, is one of them.

Today, after many decades of quiet research and perfection, chalcogenide has suddenly become a very very useful material, having revolutionized and is continuely revolutionizing the whole electronic industry. I like to compare the precious element tellurium to a supernova. It's been quiet and ignored for so long, but all of a sudden it erupts into an extremely bright superstar. The tellurium supernova shines so brightly that it could KILL.

Let's follow the ENER article a little bit:

...a little company called Ovonyx...licensed its memory technology to semiconductor giants like Intel (which is a partner in Ovonyx), Samsung, Elpida, Hynix, Qimonda, and ST Microelectronics. The memory technology is based on chalcogenidephase change memory. It is expected to replace NOR flash memory, and could also eventually replace DRAM and NAND flash. Samsung has announced production of a 512Mbit part in 2008, and Intel a 128Mbit part that could arrive as soon as the end of this year or early 2008 (Intel's part codename is Alverstone). ...What's interesting for investors is that phase change memory could become a $40 billion+ market in a few years.

This phase change material thing is really HUGE! $40B+ market just in memory chips and we have not even included all the rewritable CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray DVDs. And it ultimately could also replace the hard disk drives so future computers would no longer need a hard disk drive.

If you are not shocked so far, then read this article about phase change memory. Let me quote from page 2:

A person using a computer with PRAM could turn it off and back on and pick up right where he left off -- and he could do so immediately or 10 years later. Such computers would not lose critical data in a system crash or when the power went out unexpectedly. 'Instant-on' would become a reality, and users would no longer have to wait for a system to boot up and load DRAM. PRAM memory could also significantly increase battery life for portable devices.

How wonderful it would be!

Needless to say, this whole new chalcogenide based electronic industry will consume a lot of tellurium, probably all the global tellurium production and then some more. It will drive the price of tellurium to a crazily high level, maybe at gold price, maybe at platinum price, and in doing so, it will kill a lot of trivial, low added value industry users of tellurium.

The kill of this tellurium supernova will probably include FSLR. This company is most vulnerable because it uses a lot of tellurium in its solar panels, any dramatic tellurium price will increase its cost to the level that it can no longer have a profit margin. When a business no longer has a profit margin, it cannot survive. But the tellurium kill probably will go behind that. Tellurium as an alloying agent will probably have to end, as will tellurium used in portable electronic beverage coolers.

My advice to people would be to buy and hoard some tellurium metal ingots if you can still find anything at decent price. If you have FSLR long positions, I recommend that you sell them before it is too late. Tellurium, such a scarce and precious natural resource, is one of nature's best gifts to human kind, and it was never meant to be used on trivial things like generating a few watts of solar electricity; rather, it should only be used in high value added and far more useful things like advanced computer memory chips.

FSLR started on the wrong technology using the wrong material, the extremely toxic cadmium plus the extremely rare tellurium, a deadly combination leading this otherwise aggressively growing company onto a death march. It's a tragedy of nature's making, not the management's fault. But the FSLR management really need to wise up and realize that their sole CdTe product will lead them to nowhere. They must diversify into other technologies, or they may have to shut down business just a few years down the road.

[meinolf67]

The aluminum-foil business has to worry about marketing, competition, technical obsolescence, and economic downturn. First Solar (FSLR) does not. If there has ever been a high-growth company that follows a reliable exponential trend, this is it.

History of Growth

2002: 1.5 MW
2003: 2.5 MW
2004: 6 MW
2005: 22 MW
2006: 50 MW ?
2007: 200 MW
2008: 380 MW projected by FSLR

This is an "APR" of 152% (2.52 factor per year). It has yearly swings up and down, but the overall correlation is high. The second half of the trend is slightly higher. To project from here, Ray Kurzweil would take the trend and run with it. Even if FSLR were to say "We just can't do what the trend is predicting" he would reply "Don't worry, you can't stop it if you tried." It's hard to believe it can continue, but the history, stability, simplicity, and marketplace are there. Except for tellurium, I can't think of any kinks.

Starting with 2008's 380 MW, the future "MW" below are per quarter. The "PE" is based on the current market cap of $18.5 Billion and expected $1.3/W profit. "Te" is the percentage of world's 2006 quarterly supply of tellurium (350 tonnes/4) that will be required with a 3 micron process.

2009 1Q: 164 MW, PE=102, Te=19%
2010 1Q: 413 MW, PE=33, Te=47%
2011 1Q: 1040 MW, PE=14, Te=119%
2012 1Q: 2620 MW, PE=6, Te=300%
2013 1Q: 6600 MW, PE=2, Te=750%

The Te percentages show how crucial it is for FSLR to hoard Te now, reduce CdTe thickness, and encourage copper producers to increase the 33% Te recovery rate. There are no known circumstances under which there will be enough Te to extend this trend to the end of 2013. Not at least for non-tandem, non-trapping, simple CdTe.

Disclosure: I may make my first purchase of FSLR on December 03, 2007.

Scott Roberts
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[meinolf67]

I've never been a fan of analysts, but their coverage of First Solar (FSLR) has been sub-par even by their own lackluster standards. Every analyst's estimate has been too low every quarter. In other words, every analyst has been wrong every quarter. I understand the game of underpromising and overdelivering, but this has been too extreme.

Just as an example, CIBC initiated coverage with a "sector perform" on FSLR back on Nov 5th and Merriman Curhan Ford initiated with a "sell" on Oct. 23rd. On Nov. 8th upon trading 35% higher upon a stellar earnings report, both tried to save face by upgrading the stock. Does three days really change your entire outlook on a company? Only if your outlook was unjustified to begin with.

Back in Feb 07 the analyst consensus was that FSLR would break even in 08. Now the estimate is $1.90, still way too low. Laughably, many analysts have been upgrading their price targets of 15% year end appreciation by 15% every month to keep pace. Those that lag behind commonly end up doubling their price targets. The truth is the analysts lag way behind the market. Even the market lags somewhat behind reality.

The official earnings estimate for FSLR was 19 cents last quarter. I was looking for 25-30 cents thanks to a favorable exchange rate due to the decline in the dollar. FSLR's costs are in dollars but their entire sales are in Euros, therefore any rally in the Euro dramatically increases margins. Actual earnings were 49 cents due to not only the exchange rate but also faster than expected rampup at the German plant.

Well, the quarter is halfway over and the Euro is at $1.48. Yet First Solar's official estimates are still based of a $1.30 exchange rate. Unless the exchange rate falls to $1.15 by the end of the year in order to meet that $1.30 average target, expect another huge upside surprise. I'm looking for 65 to 70 cents this quarter vs 53 cents.

[careca]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 32.638.128 von Hoerschwelle am 01.12.07 18:01:34

Hallo,
auf die Frage wann die nächsten Produktionslinien gebaut werden, kann ich nur sagen: Der Auslieferungstakt der "Kammern" für die Anlage die aus 10 einzelnen Modulen besteht,wurde von 6 auf 4 Wochen verkürzt.

[meinolf67]

I've been reading repeatedly since First Solar (FSLR) reported their first earnings 9 months ago and traded up to $40 that the stock is "priced to perfection." The truth is there is no such thing as a stock "priced to perfection." Stocks don't trade in the confines of some arbitrary ranges such as $30-40 or a Price Earnings Growth multiple of between one and two. They simply trade between a price of 0 and infinity. A stock priced to perfection would by definition be infinitely valued. Laughably oversimplistic statements such as "what goes up must come down" can easily be refuted by slightly less foolish statements such as "objects in motion tend to stay in motion." Throughout the year I've witnesses numerous shorts who may have less than a week's experience with FSLR appear and disappear. Much like the reinforcements for a losing army, they've joined to battle too late to witness the carnage of their fallen comrades. They cheerfully charge head on into their own demise.

As a former professional high stakes poker player turned investor, I have a unique perspective on the markets. The lessons I've learned as a professional gambler are priceless. Issues such as emotional discipline, money management, risk assessment, prioritizing statistical information, and realizing a perceived advantage are all integral skills required for succeeding in both poker and investing.

Even the most inexperienced gambler spending the weekend in Vegas is probably aware of the various pitfalls to steer clear of. Games designed by the casino to separate you from your money such as "three card poker" or any version of blackjack where blackjack pays less than 3 to 2 are known in the gambling community as "sucker bets." Many of these wagers carry a house advantage as high as 10% or more, whereas even slot machines typically only have an advantage of 2-5%.

The investing "sucker bet" would be shorting a stock for any reason other then as a hedge to minimize risk. Since going long and short a stock in the same industry will minimize risk but also return, this isn't recommended either. I would prefer to buy putts to achieve the same goal. To short a stock, especially without covering your position by the end of the day, is like betting against the house. The fact that equities tend to appreciate with time is due to one of the most fundamental economic laws. Equities appreciate because they are basically a highly leveraged play on inflation. Therefore when you hold a short position through the close, time is not on your side. Just as the odds will catch up with the slot machine player, they will catch up with 99% of your typical shorts. Although I've never shorted a stock in my life, I can imagine situations in which it could prove profitable.

In single deck blackjack, pit bosses have a sure fire way to catch card counters. One of the card counter's most profitable tools is to take "insurance" when the deck is stacked with "face cards" by an otherwise competent player. Under normal circumstances taking "insurance" is a laughably poor bet. Therefore it's only done by the very best and very worst players. Shorting stocks is much the same, reserved for the very best and worst speculative investors with the best usually consisting of those with billions under management.

YTD my portfolio is up over 500% thanks mainly to a heavily margined position in FSLR. As it went up I'd "pyramid up" buying more on my newly earned margin, partly due to my low margin interest of only 5 1/4% (fidelity, tradingdirect). In order for a short to achieve comparable returns he would have had to rotate all of his money from one stock that went to 0, to another, and then to a third. My guess is not a single person has achieved this this year. Yet many have lost several times more money then they would've going long Enron back in the day.
Andrew Ling
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