 (from a GEI thread):
I see two interesting trends:
+ gasoline prices are beginning to rise again, as we head towards the summer driving season
+ ethanol stocks have sold off, and look like they are trying to bottom on low volume
Many of the Ethanol stocks trade in the US, and many have traded options
- so you can play them with limited risk in-the-money calls
- - -
Sym. : Company========= Price. x ShsOS : Mkt.Cap. : PE-fwd/ BkVal. , Pr/Rv, PEGr
AVR. : Aventine Renew.. $15.26 x 41.78 : $637.6mn : 13.5f / $ 7.28 , 0.39 , 0.80
GPRE : Green Plain Ren. $21.22 x 6.004 : $127.4mn : 5.89f / $14.31 , N/A- , N/A-
MGPI : MGP Ingredients. $18.16 x 16.45 : $298.8mn : 12.5f / $ 8.93 , 0.89 , 1.07
PEIX : Pacific Ethanol. $15.21 x 40.28 : $612.7mn : 20.6f / $ 7.41 , 2.70 , 2.66
VSE. : Verasun Energy.. $17.34 x 75.55 : $1,310mn : 15.4f / $ 6.42 , 2.27 , 1.43
XNL. : Xethanol Corp... $ 2.42 x xxx.x : $66.34mn : N/A - / $ 1.92 , 6.27 , N/A-
Funnily enough, (excluding the midget, XNL), they all seem to be trading at just over 2x Book.
When I started to examine this sector, noticed the sharp falls. I expected the stocks to be dirt cheap. That is not the case apparently. The PE ratios look reasonable on average. But it obvious that the stocks were well ahead of themselves at their peaks last year.
What looks cheapest to me on the quick statistical screen are:
+ GPRE: Green Plain Ren.: thanks to its low multiple (5.9) to expected future earnings
+ MGPI : MGP Ingredients : thanks to the low mktcap to sales, and low PEG ratio
+ VSE..: Verasun Energy.. : the biggest (in MktCap), but of some attraction on its 1.43 PEG ratio
Having said this, i dont know much about the assumptions underlying those stats /
@: |
Cheap relative strong Gaso.?
Nice double bottoms on the Ratios to Gaso:
PEIX-to-Gaso
PEIX-to-Gaso
PEIX-to-Gaso |
Ethanol producer China Agri-industries Holdings raised hk$3.2billion
after pricing its shares at hk$3.72, teh top end of an indicated price
range for teh retail portion of its Hong Kong IPO, which was 607 times
oversubscribed.
The stcok will start trading tomorrow |
They were over-hyped and over-owned.
then CORN prices started rising... as oil started to fall
They have been knocked down, and are getting interesting again.
The Wall Street brokers love putting their clienst into "hot" stocks,
and teh clients then watch with horror as the prices fall.
Foolish sheep deserve the sheering they get-long-life stupidity !
Though I would like to help peopel overcome it |
[b]Alternative energy goes after investor dollars[/b]
Executives tell big investors the cost of producing power in the sector is dropping.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer ... February 21 2007:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Executives from some of the world's leading alternative energy companies argued their case to big investors Wednesday, outlining why money thrown into the red-hot sector will pay off.
Much of the rationale centered around costs, which leaders of renewable energy firms contend are dropping at a breakneck clip.
"We need to make sure solar is becoming cost effective compared to other energy sources," Erik Thorsen, president of the Norwegian solar firm Renewable Energy Corporation told the crowd at Piper Jaffray's second annual conference on investor opportunities in alternative energy.
Thorsen said the company planned to cut silicon costs by 70 percent by 2010 by using less silicon in solar energy devices, combined with higher efficiency solar cells.
Silicon costs have been a major hurdle to developing solar power, as the price of the material, which is also used in computer chips, has soared in recent years due to skyrocketing demand.
California-based Applied Materials (Charts), which makes semiconductor production equipment and recently moved into making equipment for manufacturing solar power cells, also outlined strategies to reduce production costs.
Applied Materials presented a solar panel design four times larger than current panels, basically something the size of a large garage door.
The company said the design would save up to four times on costs associated with framing and connecting a solar set-up.
Sunpower Corporation (Charts), also based in California, said it was looking at shaving 30 percent off installation costs, partly by designing solar panels that take the place of normal construction materials, like roofing tiles.
Sunpower's executive, Tom Werner, also pointed to the massive potential of the electricity market, which he said was valued at over $1 trillion annually, and that the company is poised to take an ever larger share of that pie with each corresponding drop in solar's price.
"The upside opportunity here is fantastic," said Werner.
While there may be tremendous opportunity in investing in alternative energy companies, investors should always understand that the companies are often new and small, and can therefore be very volatile.
Take ethanol darling Verasun (Charts), which debuted last summer at over $30 a share, quickly lost half it's value, rose to near $30 again, and now trades at $15.
Among larger companies at Wednesday's conference, DuPont (Charts) outlined its emerging bio program, saying it is nearly ready to introduce a plant-based material that can replace petroleum-based plastics in things like carpet fiber, molded parts and packaging.
John Ranieri, general manager of the company's bio-based materials division, said DuPont is also big in developing organisms that create ethanol or butanol, that later of which he said could be more promising than ethanol for certain fuels because it has a higher energy yield.
In response to a question about when cellulosic ethanol might be cost effective, Ranieri said that "by 2010 we'll be looking at commercial possibilities."
Piper Jaffray, a Minneapolis based investment bank, organized the conference to bring together what a spokeswoman said were top companies and the bank's clients, which include mutual funds, hedge funds, and other institutional investors.
Other publicly traded companies presenting at the conference included MEMC Electronic Materials, Energy Conversion Devices, First Solar, Metabolix, Nova Biosource Fuels, The Andersons, Beacon power Corporation, Akeena Solar, Canadian Solar, Fuel Cell Energy, Active Power, Ormat Technologies, EMCORE Corporation, Medis Technologies, Suntech Power Holdings, Evergreen Solar, Active power, Altair Nanotechnologies, Ultralife Batteries, SatCon Technology Corporation, Power Integrations, Power-One, Spire Corporation and American Superconductor Corporation.
@: |
Energyi - is there any particular reason why Ethanol stock values are so low considering Bush's recent State of the Union speach and commitment to the technology ? |
The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK's Met Office has forecast. |
Power station drops palm oil idea ... |
Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming.
It is said to be the largest break in 25 years, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 sq km (25 square miles).... |
Protonex Technology Corporation - July 2006
Advised US fuel cell company Protonex Technology Corporation on its placing and admission to AIM. Protonex is a leading provider of advanced fuel cell power solutions for sub-kilowatt portable, remote and mobile applications. Canaccord Adams Limited is the nominated adviser to protonex, and was broker to the placing, which raised £8,797,500 |
Ethanol Stocks: Bouncing Back
Posted on Oct 16th, 2006 with stocks: ADM, AVR, GPRE, MGPI, PEIX, VSE, XNL
Konrad Imielinski submits: The current status of the ethanol sector may not be sizzling, but it sure isn't dead. So far, ethanol stocks this week have performed reminiscent of the good old days. The cumulative affect of Pacific Ethanol Inc.'s (PEIX) first plant being complete, and OPEC's decision (though still undecided) to cut output of 1 million barrels a day, have given the ethanol sector a strong push. As a result, the majority of the ethanol stocks are up big, and volume has significantly increased. It is obligatory, though, to carefully track the decline in crude oil prices (sold today near its 2006 low of $58 a barrel), as it can quickly turn ethanol's optimism to pessimism.
There is some reassurance due to OPEC's proposition. As Gordon Kwan of CLSA puts it, "If [crude oil] prices remain at this level, there's still not much motivation to cut, but if prices keep falling rapidly they will want to pre-empt that." OPEC will help investors by essentially price flooring crude oil. So how much will OPEC's reduction raise the price of crude oil? Can ethanol companies systematically publish optimistic news? Both of these questions will be deciding factors in ethanol's sustainability.
@: |
Ethanol IPO Hype is Gone
Posted on Sep 20th, 2006 with stocks: AVR, HWY, USBE, VSE
Evelyn Rubin submits: Excerpt from our One Page Annotated Wall Street Journal Summary (receive it by email every morning by signing up here):
Ethanol Producers Find Tough IPO Environment
Summary: Hawkeye Holdings (HWY), one of this week's eight scheduled IPOs, announced that it has delayed the offering due to market conditions.
According to Dealogic, this is the 33rd potential IPO this year to postpone its offering for this reason. Two additional ethanol producers have recently filed for IPOs: Dallas-based ASAlliances Biofuels filed a preliminary prospectus last Friday, and US BioEnergy (USBE) filed for a $300 million IPO in August. The three companies have very short operating histories: Hawkeye began production in November 2004, and ASAlliances is pre-revenue stage having been formed less than two years ago. Both are owned by private equity firms. US BioEnergy was formed in 2004 as well. The two "successful" ethanol IPOs of the year--VeraSun (VSE) and Aventine (AVR)--are trading below their IPO prices.
Related links:
Seeking Alpha coverage of the ethanol sector:
= =
on Oct 16th, 2006 in Energy Stocks by Konrad Imielinski with stocks: ADM, AVR, GPRE, MGPI, PEIX, VSE, XNL |
for those interested in beer and solar power then here's a story: |
How far can you drive on a bushel of corn?
Crunching the numbers on alternative fuels.
BY MIKE ALLEN ... Popular Mechanics
Ethanol, king of the challengers to petroleum, is already found blended with gasoline at pumps across the country, and production is continuing to ramp up. Ethanol is probably the main fuel President Bush had in mind both in February, when he announced the Advanced Energy Initiative, and last summer, when he signed new energy rules into law. That legislation established a renewable-fuels standard that will require the use of 7.5 billion gal. of ethanol and biodiesel annually by 2012--a nearly 90 percent increase over today's usage--and extended tax benefits that favor both fuels.
In the lab, many gasoline alternatives look good. Out on the road, automotive engineers have a lot of work to do, and energy companies have new infrastructure to build, before very many people can drive off into a petroleum-free future. And, there's the issue of money. Too often, discussions of alternative energy take place in an alternative universe where prices do not matter.
For this special report, PM crunched the numbers on the actual costs and performance of each major alternative fuel. Before we can debate national energy policy--or even decide which petroleum substitutes might make sense for our personal vehicles--we need to know how these things stack up in the real world.
The Great Alt-Fuel Debate: It takes five barrels of crude oil to produce enough gasoline (nearly 97 gal.) to power a Honda Civic from New York to California. So how do the alternative fuels that may gradually reduce America's dependence on foreign oil stack up against the mileage and convenience of the filling-station stalwart? Download our comparison chart and find out.
...MORE: |
Post removed by ADVFN |
the stocks in the Header look as if they may be breaking down.
This is happening as PBW weakens, and the SPX comes off its 1310 high |
OLD ARTICLE - still relevant?
Green energy funds: risky, but here to stay
04.11.2005
Best of the Day Article
Why rising interest rates won't save the US dollar
The US relies on China and Japan to keep interest rates low and the dollar high. But both countries look like they are set to stop buying dollars and start investing in their own economies. That means...
For fund investors, there are now a number of specialist funds to choose from, including Impax Environmental Markets, Jupiter Ecology and the Merrill Lynch New Energy Technology investment trust. Triodos Group, a Dutch ethical bank which has been financing energy projects for 25 years, recently launched Triodos Renewables, a fund for private investors focused on the UK renewables sector, which is highly concentrated on wind technology.
While the ethics of these companies and funds may be appealing, the risk/reward ratio may not be. The small, entrepreneurial companies that populate this sector are by their nature highly vulnerable to setbacks because they are often developing new technologies in untried markets.
Merrill Lynch¡¦s fund, which has risen by more than 86% in the past year, but collapsed in value just two years ago, demonstrates this volatility. Impax Environmental Markets, an investment trust that invests in small and mid-cap firms, has outperformed the FTSE All-Share index since its launch in 2002, but this performance may not last. As Ian Simm, managing director of Impax Asset Management, points out, the investment trust tries to balance alternative energy with more established water and waste management technologies to mitigate the risk.
On a positive note, it looks as though the sector is very much here to stay. The spate of recent Aim listings shows the choice for investors is widening and Government legislation is looking favourable. And, says Charles Batchelor in the FT, even some of the genuinely alternative technologies are becoming more mainstream ¡V such as wind farms.
These can be an excellent investment, says Bernard Lambilliotte, chief investment officer at Ecofin, the financial group that runs Econfin Water and Power Opportunities, an investment trust whose shares have more than doubled over the past 12 months. There are risks when you have bought the land and are seeking a licence to operate, but once it¡¦s built and you are plugged into a grid, it¡¦s low risk, and should provide a rate of return in the low to mid-teens.
@:
Author: Hohler, Emily
More articles by this author... |
Many tipsters positive on this green co.......
and this little beauty. |
as mentioned on financial sense :
Interviews, Information,
example of links:
The Economics of Gas to Liquids Compared to Liquefied Natural Gas
by Michael J. Economides
Professor,Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and gas to liquids (GTL) are two options that help bring to market stranded gas supplies worldwide. Each technology offers its advantages, and the author makes economic comparisons based on such factors as product distribution, capital costs and transportation costs.
...MORE: |
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