ADVFN Logo

We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.

Trending Now

Toplists

It looks like you aren't logged in.
Click the button below to log in and view your recent history.

Hot Features

Registration Strip Icon for default Register for Free to get streaming real-time quotes, interactive charts, live options flow, and more.

2009 Stanbank Nm

0.00
0.00 (0.00%)
Last Updated: -
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Stanbank Nm LSE:2009 London Ordinary Share ZAE000057378 STANDARD BANK GROUP NM
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 0.00 -
Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
  -
Last Trade Time Trade Type Trade Size Trade Price Currency
- 0 ZAC

Stanbank Nm (2009) Latest News

Real-Time news about Stanbank Nm (London Stock Exchange): 0 recent articles

Stanbank Nm (2009) Discussions and Chat

Stanbank Nm Forums and Chat

Date Time Title Posts
07/4/201011:04ESSENTIAL SHAREDEALING BOOKMARKS - 200923
11/12/200916:43Gain thread - for 2009-
14/6/200907:51test-
22/4/200912:32BUDGET THREAD 20097
18/4/200914:17Shares and sectors for 2009 and beyond23

Add a New Thread

Stanbank Nm (2009) Most Recent Trades

No Trades
Trade Time Trade Price Trade Size Trade Value Trade Type

Stanbank Nm (2009) Top Chat Posts

Top Posts
Posted at 03/4/2010 09:38 by pork belly
Buy Tower Resources (TRP) at 1.3p – Take 2


Vatukoula Gold Mines (VGM)* – Second Quarter Operational Update. Speculative Buy with 4p Target Price
02 mar 10
Posted at 07/2/2010 22:32 by pork belly
Business Press email addresses:

stephen.kahn@express.co.uk
news@dailymail.co.uk
news@mailonsunday.co.uk
letters.editor@ft.com
businessdesk@independent.co.uk

action@proactiveinvestors.com
enquiries@techinvest.ie
ic.cs@ft.com (investors chronicle)
charlotte.randall@vitessemedia.co.uk (the wrong price)
rhps@f-s-p.co.uk
editor@pennysleuth.com
admin@t1ps.com
cs@moneyweek.com
cservice@f-s-p.co.uk (www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk)
info@dawntraders.co.uk
stephen.austin@hybridan.com
claire.noyce@hybridan.com

form completion:



https://online.h-l.co.uk/content/email-us
Posted at 11/12/2009 16:43 by energyi
Gain thread - for 2009

CMH.v

MUM.v

NSM.v

SLV.v

WML..v

VGZ.v
Posted at 31/10/2009 18:37 by pork belly
Is this one of the funniest video clips in the history of sharedealing?

It is centred around Provexis plc (PXS) a genuine UK AIM listed company run by CEO Stephen Moon. They develop novel functional & medical foods.
Their website is:

They have 3 products:

1. Fruitflow(TM) – which uses tomato extract to 'thin the blood'. This is used in their "Sirco" range of drinks that are sold in the UK. (

2. NSP#3G - plantain (banana) extract and used for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease
3. Helicobacter Pylori - currently developing a stabilised extract to treat

The share price remained at 0.5p - 1p from Nov 08 all the way to 28 May 09 when they announced that the European Food Safety Authority had accepted a claim that their Fruitflow product did reduce platelet aggregation in humans and that the claim "will go through the final E.U. authorization procedure in the coming weeks." In addition to this they announced "the commencement of a clinical trial for its NSP#3G plantain (banana) medical food for Crohn's disease patients." on 11 Aug 09.

As a result of these two RNS's , the shares flew to an intraday high of around 22.75p at the beginning of September as the E.U. approval was expected to be "Transformational" for the company. Many investors were sucked-in at these high prices however, the long awaited "Transformational" E.U. approval still hasn't come and now the shares have moved back to 6p as of 31 Oct 09. Rubbing salt into the wound is the fact that while PSX's share price has collapsed trapping many investors in at high prices, another UK AIM listed company called Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP), an oil company, has gone from just 11p to a staggering 105p in the same period, Aug - 31 Oct 09.

Now you know the background, watch this videoclip that has recently appeared on Youtube. It is perhaps one of the greatest share related video's ever ! It is the story of one PSX investor who bought into PSX at higher levels awaiting the E.U. approval of Fruitflow.

It is a video that almost every investor in the World can relate and, i'm sure, you could replace "PSX" with the "epic" code of one of your stocks.

ENJOY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


A video diary of a PSX investor (Oct 09):
Posted at 22/4/2009 11:27 by m.t.glass
BUDGET 2009
Budget speech starts at 12:30pm Wednesday 22 April

Come on then -- your comments, observations, analysis of likely impact on particular stocks or sectors
Posted at 18/4/2009 14:17 by ariane
China's Wealth Fund to Consider Investing in Europe (Update2)
Share | Email | Print | A A A

By Eugene Tang

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- China's $200 billion sovereign fund will consider investing in Europe in 2009, after avoiding the continent last year because of trade barriers, said China Investment Corp.'s Chairman Lou Jiwei.

"Europe has started to welcome investments" without attaching conditions, Lou said today at the Boao Forum in southern China's Hainan province. "During the world financial crisis, sovereign wealth funds have become more appealing" and less frightening, he said. Beijing-based CIC, whose investments have included stakes in Blackstone Group LP and Morgan Stanley, didn't invest "a single cent" in European companies or assets last year, because the continent had put up barriers to limit the activities of sovereign wealth funds, he said.

The agency was founded to provide better returns for China's foreign-currency reserves, the world's largest at $1.95 trillion. The fund last year earned $10 billion from its investments, representing a 5 percent return, Radio Television Hong Kong reported on Feb. 24, citing a source it didn't identify.

"There was rising protectionism against China last year, and the European Union had the worst" limits, Lou said today. "They allowed us to invest in no more than 10 percent of a company's stakes and required us to give up our voting power" in management, he said.

"We couldn't accept that because investments should be based on market practices," he said. "With the removal of these conditions, we will seriously consider making decisive and prudent investments overseas this year, including in Europe."

He declined to specify the European industries or companies he's looking at investing in.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eugene Tang at Boao on at eugenetang@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 18, 2009 06:30 EDT
Posted at 07/3/2009 16:19 by ariane
U.K. Profits Will Fall More Than in 1930s, Morgan Stanley Says
Email | Print | A A A

By Adam Haigh

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Profits in the U.K. will plunge more than during the Great Depression amid further losses in the banking industry and sliding oil prices, pushing the benchmark FTSE 100 Index lower over the next year, Morgan Stanley said.

Earnings will fall 60 percent from peak to trough, London- based equity strategists Graham Secker and Charlotte Swing wrote in a report dated yesterday, adding that Morgan Stanley data suggest profits dropped about 57 percent during the early 1930s.

"While this sounds a rather draconian and hyperbolic downgrade, we believe it is realistic and incorporates the big losses that have come to light in the banking sector as well as a sharp drop in commodity prices," the strategists wrote.

The New York-based brokerage lowered its 12-month forecast for the FTSE 100 to 3,500 from 4,300. The gauge closed at 3,529.86 yesterday, having slumped 20 percent in 2009.

A 60 percent decline in profits implies a drop in investors' return on equity to 8 percent from 19 percent currently, according to the report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Haigh in London at ahaigh1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 6, 2009 05:58 EST
Posted at 01/3/2009 11:51 by grupo guitarlumber
European Stocks Cap Longest Monthly Losing Streak Since 2002
Email | Print | A A A

By Adria Cimino

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks dropped for a sixth straight month, the longest losing streak since 2002, on concern the worsening global economic slump will wipe out earnings.

Novartis SA, Switzerland's second-biggest drugmaker, slid 6.4 percent this past week after saying first-quarter profit will be hurt, and Basilea Pharmaceutica AG tumbled 49 percent after reporting a full-year loss. Renault SA, France's second-largest carmaker, fell 9.4 percent as its credit ratings were cut to junk by Moody's Investors Service. Compania Espanola de Petroleos SA sank 44 percent after Banco Santander SA said it may sell its holding in Spain's second-largest oil company.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index slipped 2.3 percent to 172.92 this past week, bringing the February slump to 9.6 percent. The measure has fallen 52 percent since the start of 2008 as credit- related losses at financial firms worldwide reached $1.1 trillion and Europe, the U.S. and Japan fell into the first simultaneous recessions since World War II.

"There is reason to be worried," said Kilian de Kertanguy, a Paris-based fund manager at Cholet-Dupont Gestion, which oversees about $2.3 billion. "Everyone is saying there won't be good news in the market during the first half."

The U.S. economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2008 at a faster pace than previously estimated as consumer spending plunged, companies cut inventories and exports sank. Gross domestic product contracted at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, more than economists anticipated and the most since 1982, according to revised Commerce Department figures Feb. 27.

European Economy

German business confidence declined to a 26-year low in February, a report by the Ifo institute showed this past week. The U.K. economy contracted the most since 1980 in the fourth quarter as the financial crisis prompted spending by consumers and companies to shrivel, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

National benchmark indexes fell in 15 of the 18 western European markets this week. Germany's DAX Index lost 4.3 percent as Deutsche Post AG dropped, while France's CAC 40 retreated 1.8 percent. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 slipped 1.5 percent, with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc limiting the decline.

Health-care shares retreated 7.2 percent as a group, the second-worst performance among 19 industries in the Stoxx 600 after automotive companies.

Novartis decreased 6.4 percent this past week. Operating and net income growth for the three months ending March 31 probably will slow because of "adverse currency movements and the stronger U.S. dollar," the company said.

Basilea, Roche

Basilea plunged 49 percent after the Swiss developer of anti-infection drugs reported a full-year loss and said a regulatory review of its Ceftobiprole treatment was delayed.

Roche Holding AG declined 5.9 percent on concern copies of costly biotechnology medicines made by Roche's American subsidiary Genentech Inc. would be allowed in the U.S. with few delays under a proposal made by President Barack Obama this week.

Renault slid 9.4 percent as Moody's cut its long-term credit rating to Ba1, the first grade into junk, from Baa2, citing "significantly worse operating performance and negative free cash flow" in 2008.

Automotive companies declined 11 percent as a group amid concern the worsening recession will cut demand. Volkswagen AG, Europe's biggest carmaker, slid 16 percent. Daimler AG, the world's largest truckmaker, retreated 12 percent.

Compania Espanola de Petroleos, also known as Cepsa, tumbled 44 percent after Santander said it may sell its holding in the company for as much as 3 billion euros ($3.8 billion).

Earnings Reports

EFG International AG retreated 36 percent as the Swiss private bank, whose largest shareholder is Greece's Latsis family, reported a 69 percent drop in second-half profit.

Deutsche Post lost 13 percent after Europe's biggest mail carrier reported a fourth-quarter net loss, cut its dividend and forecast further volume declines for 2009.

Accor SA slipped 5.1 percent as Europe's largest hotelier posted earnings that missed analysts' estimates, said demand for rooms continued to worsen in January and indicated its debt may rise from buying a stake in a casino business.

Randstad Holding NV slid 21 percent. The world's second- biggest staffing company reported a fourth-quarter loss and canceled its dividend as companies cut back on temporary workers.

Earnings at companies in the Stoxx 600 are expected to rise 14 percent this year following a 37 percent slump in 2008, according to analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

RBS, the largest bank controlled by the U.K. government, surged 20 percent on plans to put 325 billion pounds ($466 billion) of investments into a state insurance program and shift toxic assets to a new unit after posting the biggest loss in British history.

Bank Shares

In the U.S., President Obama's first budget proposal this week asked for as much as $750 billion in new funds to shore up the financial system.

Banks in the Stoxx 600 climbed a combined 2.8 percent. The sub-index, which is down 25 percent so far this year, pared its weekly advance after the U.S. Treasury agreed to a third rescue attempt for Citigroup Inc. that will cut existing shareholders' stake in the company by 74 percent.

"It's a difficult environment for banks," Julien Quistrebert, who helps manage $5.1 billion at KBL Richelieu Gestion in Paris, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We're still very cautious. The industry is like a black box."

To contact the reporter on this story: Adria Cimino in Paris at acimino1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 28, 2009 04:09 EST
Posted at 01/3/2009 10:26 by grupo guitarlumber
Regenerate the U.S. and World Economy "Top Down"
February 24, 2009, 7:25PM


February 19, 2009 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche emphasized in discussions today that we have to correct the mistakes the Obama Administration is making with its stimulus plan. The machine tool part of the former auto sector is the crucial factor in this development. With the collapse of the auto sector now in Europe as well as in the U.S., we have to have the same policy in Europe as in the U.S. We need an international policy, not merely a national policy. We also have to get the Russians in on the same policy. Then you have it. Take the machine tool capacity of the former auto sector as the crucial factor. Save it. Save the employees of the former auto industry. Forget automobiles. Use the machine tool part of the former auto sector as the driver for recovery.

The only way to revive the expiring U.S. and world economies is to take a "top-down, physical science" approach in emergency measures to regenerate basic infrastructure, essential functions, and agro-industrial capacity. The `stimulus' plan must be revised on this principle. Lyndon LaRouche has discussed this in detail in three webcasts since mid-January. In his Jan. 16 webcast, he recounted the history of how the U.S. successfully built river management systems, rail systems, and accomplished other feats of production such as mass aircraft assembly in World War II. He said, "We did it on the top-down approach. We start from science at the top level, physical science! You go down from physical science to machine-tool design, as a by-product of science for production design, of production of the essential components which go into anything..."

The following list reviews in brief, indicative parameters of what is needed in three sectors of the U.S. economy. At present, at least 21 million persons--13 percent, of the total U.S. workforce--are out of work, or very under-employed. Multi-millions of new jobs will be created in the course of carrying out a real, science-based development program.

I. High Speed Rail and Maglev

Today's U.S. rail grid (about 99,250 miles of Class I track) is nearly 60 percent less than in 1929, with freight and passenger services almost non-existent for most parts of the country. The place to start to modernize and expand, is with electrifying 26,000 route-miles of the rail system. In the second stage, another 16,000 route-miles should be electrified, bringing the total up to 42,000 route-miles. This would cover all key passenger and freight rail corridors that transport more than 60 percent of all U.S. rail traffic. Maglev lines can run along strategic continental routes.

The requirements for this are worked out, including for building nuclear power plants, transmission lines, step-up and step-down transformers, and for what is "saved" in eliminated petroleum fuels. The impact would be tremendous in increasing manufacturing and economy-wide productivity.

This program will be re-published in the EIR online Feb. 24, from a 2005 article by Hal Cooper and Richard Freeman (June 10, 2005, Vol. 32, No. 23, "Congress's Mission for Bankrupt Auto: Build USA Electrified Rail Network.")

II. Nuclear Power

The threat and incidence of black-outs and brown-outs in the U.S. electricity system are now a constant feature. Whereas per capita electricity generation grew at a rate of 7 percent a year from FDR's 1930s until the late 1970s, then came the decline to where over the 1995 to 2000 period, overall U.S. capacity grew only 1.5 percent, and thus, it went negative per capita.

What is required is to resume an all-out nuclear power development program, along the lines originally planned for "2000 by 2000" U.S. nuclear plants for the 21st century. Worldwide, there are only some 400 nuclear plants in operation today.

In the U.S., applications have been filed for 28 new power plants, to be constructed on the "brownfield sites" where a generating plant or two may exist, but the full complex of several plants was never completed. This is a start. But additional sites need to be selected, in order to fill out the national "economic map" for the future, where new generation centers are in place to power intended industrial, agriculture, transportation and residential purposes. Accordingly, the transmission grid must be expanded, and employ such technologies as superconducting cable.

There are "off the shelf" designs for power plants, including the Westinghouse AP-600 and AP-1,000; the General Electric Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR); and others. In addition, "fourth generation" nuclear plant designs can be readied for mass production. These are advanced, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.

To go nuclear, requires reconstituting the U.S. capacity for heavy industrial output, to produce the required components, especially pressure vessels; this is in line with the renewed manufacturing capacity needed for refurbishing the entire infrastructure base of the nation.

Some rough parameters of job creation: "Approximately 4,000 workers are needed at each site at the peak of construction, and each new plant requires 400-700 employees. To build about 35 new reactors, about 38,000 jobs will be created in the nuclear manufacturing industry." In addition, another 20,000 are needed over the next five years, to take the place of the estimated 35 percent of the current nuclear workforce who are retiring over this period. (From EIR, Feb. 13, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 6, by Marsha Freeman, "Do You Want to Stimulate the Economy? Then Build New Nuclear Power Plants").

III. Waterways and Ports

Much of the 12,000 mile U.S. waterway system, of inland and coastal channels, is long overdue for improvements in its critical infrastructure of 240 locks and dams, and flood control structures and related. "The average age of all federally owned or operated locks is nearly 60 years, well past their life planned design of 50 years," stated the report released Jan. 28 by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There are locks and dams on the Monongahela/Ohio System that are over 80 years old.

Of the 27 locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi, including the Illinois River, 26 need renovation/repair, due to age. Seven of these rehab projects were approved in the 2007 Water Resources and Development Act, but the just-passed "stimulus" bill excluded these projects from funding, because of a provision inserted by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to prohibit allocations of funding for so-called "new starts," that is, projects that had not previously received construction monies!

What is required is the go-ahead for the across-the-board restoration of the 12,000 mile navigation system. The January ASCA "report card" stated, "The cost to replace the present system of locks is estimated at more than $125 billion."

Technologies exist that can expedite both renovation and new-starts of needed waterway infrastructure. E.g. "Hollow" dam walls can be built off-site and "floated" into place. These kinds of components required for locks, dams, gates, weirs, levees, port infrastructure (traffic tunnels, piers, breakwaters), plus dredging equipment and vessels, creates the necessity for re-establishing heavy industrial capacity to feed the supply lines.

A rough parameter of job-creation is that 35,000 jobs result from every $1 billion of funding for navigation projects, according to the Department of Transportation.
Posted at 28/2/2009 18:51 by waldron
2/28/2009 9:48:00 AM


Barron's: The Smart Way To Play The Green Revolution
On Main Street, Green is the new Black. On Wall Street, however, most green investments generated a sea of red ink last year. When the wheels came off stock markets around the globe in the fourth quarter of 2008, alternative-energy and clean-technology shares were among the hardest hit.

The 88-stock WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation index, a popular green-industry benchmark, ended the year down 61%, versus a 38.5% slide in the Standard & Poor's 500. This year, the NEX -- a mix of mostly small- to mid-capitalization wind, solar, biofuel and energy-conservation leaders from 21 countries -- is off about 22%, lagging the S&P's 17% decline.

Other clean-tech indexes, exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, including the vaunted Winslow Green Growth Fund (ticker: WGGFX), haven't fared much better, and in some cases have done worse, while venture-stage green companies have been starved of capital or blocked on their way to the public markets.

Brian Fan, senior director of research for the Cleantech Group, cites 80 green companies in the latter boat, burning through a collective $2 billion of venture-capital money with little prospect of going public any time soon. "The companies we talk to are trying to stay solvent," says Fan. Indeed, the same might be said of their financial backers, and other green-oriented investors.

A global recession and bear market deserve much of the blame for the carnage in green-tinged shares, as does a $100-a-barrel plunge in oil prices, which suddenly made the drive for sustainable-energy alternatives seem less pressing. Moreover, many clean-tech companies are small and speculative in nature, and serve end markets that depend on government subsidies -- not a particularly attractive investment attribute. Former solar-energy highfliers such as First Solar (FSLR) and LDK Solar (LDK) faced additional challenges last year from sharply escalating prices for polysilicon, the raw material used in solar cells.

In toting up the losses, it is tempting to wonder whether green-themed investing was just a sustainable version of sock puppets -- that is, another Wall Street fad. But such musings couldn't be more misguided. In the U.S., President Barack Obama has just pledged to spend billions on environmentally friendly technologies, while Congress is planning to put more money and muscle behind the search for energy alternatives and pollution controls (see page 28).

Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told Barron's sister publication, The Wall Street Journal, that his agency intends to fast-track billions of dollars in loans for alternative-energy projects already "in the pipeline," and that he will try to get roughly half the $37 billion already set aside for clean-tech capital projects distributed within the year. That is just a down payment on much more ambitious economic initiatives, and is mirrored by similar endeavors abroad.

Greater government funding bodes well for some pure plays in the solar, wind, ethanol and biomass industries. But it bodes even better, near term, for well-established, diversified and financially healthy companies like Switzerland's ABB (ABB), Florida utility FPL Group (FPL), Waste Management (WMI), Jacobs Engineering (JEC) and electrical-products supplier Eaton (ETN). All are visible and increasingly powerful players in areas given spending priority: energy conservation, infrastructure renewal and the build-out of a "smarter" power grid.

To be sure, more public and private spending will benefit alternative-energy giants like General Electric (GE), the biggest U.S. supplier of wind turbines, and United Technologies (UTX), a leader in making buildings more energy-efficient. Johnson Controls (JCI), Honeywell (HON), AES (AES) and others that make sensors and systems needed to optimize HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) also belong on any list of likely green winners.

So do a handful of midsized players in the fast-growing wind-energy-generation supply chain, such as Kaydon (KDN), a maker of ball bearings critical to wind-turbine efficiency; Woodward Governor (WGOV) a specialist in energy-generation and transmission components; MasTec (MTZ), a builder of generation and transmission facilities, and Valmont (VMI), which makes transition towers and other utility structures. "All are profitable, old-line industrials projecting double-digit growth in 2009 and trying to reinvent themselves," says Ed Mitby, an analyst at Van Eck Associates.

But we consider ABB, Waste Management, FPL, Jacobs and Eaton a sort of green dream team, for all the reasons, and then some, explained below. They probably aren't the first names that come to mind when you think "green," but they have the products, technologies and, not least, the financial strength to deliver for investors. Even better, their stocks are bargains.

A provider of power and automation systems, ABB tops most shortlists of companies likely to benefit from large-scale energy projects and conservation initiatives. Among other things, the 125-year-old industrial giant is one of the world's biggest builders of electricity grids.

With credit frozen and demand constrained, ABB faces the same challenges as other industrial outfits. But the company, profiled favorably in Barron's last spring ("The GE of Europe is a Major Power Player," May 19, 2008), is better positioned to benefit from more government and industry spending on infrastructure upgrades around the world, says Van Eck's Mitby.

Headquartered in Zurich, ABB sells large-scale electrical circuitry, robotics and energy-monitoring and automation systems. It seems to land one multimillion-dollar infrastructure contract after another, including a recent $63 million deal to upgrade a power station in Saudi Arabia. Renewable-energy projects will need ABB's products and services, and its technology, including power-management sensors and load-balancing systems, has kept it ahead of most competitors, says Morningstar analyst Daniel Holland.

ABB's shares have been cut by almost two-thirds, to 12, from their high last May, and now trade for nine times 2009 estimated earnings of $1.32 a share, a discount to the S&P 500's price/earnings multiple. Granted, last year's earnings were higher, at $1.74 a share, slightly exceeding expectations. Morningstar puts the company's fair value at 19 a share, some 62% above last week's close. Investors can collect a 46-cent annual dividend (for a current yield of 3.8%) while waiting for the global economy to jump-start.

ABB recently shed some poorly performing assets in an efficiency drive of its own. The company boasts a strong balance sheet, and net cash (cash minus debt) of $5.4 billion, or $2.40 a share, Holland notes. It has used excess cash to boost its payout and buy in shares. Twelve-month return on equity of 28.39% is more than three times that of its peer group, which includes industrial outfits such as Emerson Electric (EMR) and Danaher (DHR).

"We are in the sweet spot of energy efficiency and of climate change," chief financial officer Michel Demare told Barron's last spring. For ABB, it is about to get sweeter.

As the nation's leading producer of energy from wind and solar power, FPL Group is at the forefront of commercialization of these technologies. The Juno Beach, Fla.-based company also is the largest power generator in one of the nation's most populated states. Its regulated utility arm, Florida Power & Light, serves 4.5 million customers and contributes just over half of revenue, which totaled $16 billion last year.

A slightly smaller, but faster-growing revenue stream flows from FPL's recently re-christened NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary. This unregulated clean-energy producer sells power throughout the U.S., using a diverse set of low-cost generation assets strategically situated around the country to balance the load. Last year, 38% of Next- Era's capacity came from wind power, which has benefited from the recent extension of production tax credits. NextEra's net income roughly tripled in 2008.

The credit crisis and weakening consumer demand have led NextEra to slow the pace of expansion in its wind-power operations, but the company "already controls a fourth of this nation's installed wind-energy capacity," notes Morningstar analyst Ryan McLean. "Nationwide, total capacity is somewhere around 25,000MW [megawatts], and NextEra has 6,375MW and growing."

Wind is a relatively low-cost and profitable revenue stream for the company, which expects total profit to grow by double-digits through 2010. FPL reported adjusted earnings of $3.84 a share last year, of which Next- Era contributed $2.04. The company could $4.07 this year, and $4.54 in 2010.

Although its regulated utility has experienced reduced demand, FPL is better-positioned than most. Moreover, Florida's relatively favorable regulatory environment encourages additional investments in capacity that could boost the utility's earnings.

FPL emits less carbon than most other utilities, and will benefit from a "greenhouse gas-constrained regulatory environment," says Ken Stern, a San Diego money manager. But the company stands to profit most from national initiatives to expand wind-energy generation and bolster transmission facilities. "Transmission development had double-digit growth prospects before the credit crunch, and now, favorable legislation is coming in terms of taxes and the fast-tracking of capex [capital-spending] opportunities," says Van Eck's Mitby. The company recently launched a new venture: hybrid hydraulic/electric alternatives for fleet-vehicle propulsion, including one system built with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Designs vary, but basically capture energy from braking and other subsystems to augment or replace the traditional diesel engine. Particularly promising for city buses, delivery trucks and other vehicles that start and stop frequently, the EPA estimates such powertrains could produce fuel savings of 20% to 40%, and cut carbon emissions by as much as 40%.

So far, those vehicles are limited to pilot programs, but the "pilots" include big customers like United Parcel Service, Federal Express and Wal-Mart, as well as school buses used as far away Melbourne, Australia and Guangzhou, China. Eaton has many competitors, but unlike others that dream of replacing the combustion engine, it has been an automotive-technology leader since 1911.

With 2008 sales of $15.4 billion, the Cleveland-based company has the design, manufacturing and financing in place to scale its ideas. Its truck group alone sells $2.3 billion of transmission and hybrid-power and exhaust systems for trucks, buses and agricultural equipment. Eaton knows its customers, and the costs and challenges of operating in 150 different countries. But its strengths also raise concerns.

"I like Eaton, but I'm worried about its earnings [expectations] earnings being overly optimistic due to its heavy exposure to the auto industry," says Ken Stern, the San Diego investment manager.

Morningstar analyst John Kearney is more upbeat, noting an aggressive acquisition strategy has diversified the company's revenue and profits. Draconian cost-cutting measures also have helped. Eaton earned $6.83 a share in 2008. This year, management is guiding profit expectations downward to between $4.20 and $5.20 a share; the wide range reflects economic uncertainties.

Eaton has paid a dividend for 85 years, and yields 5.41%. Its current payout, $2 a share, must have been of some comfort to investors, whose shares have lost about half their value in the past year, and now trade around 36. At least one savvy holder used the opportunity to snap up more stock: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) upped its stake in Eaton in the fourth quarter to 3.2 million shares, from 2.9 million.

Like Buffett, we don't know where Eaton will trade in a month or a year, only that the products, services and ingenuity of Eaton and companies like it are making the world greener and cleaner. When the smoke -- or is it carbon? -- clears, they and their shareholders are likely to rewarded.
Stanbank Nm share price data is direct from the London Stock Exchange

Your Recent History

Delayed Upgrade Clock