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Sold half of those short term SCTY puts. I'm even now and playing with house money  Still also sitting on some Jan 18 $5 puts
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May 2, 2016 16:12
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Josh Lyman posted:Their reply to the Bloomberg article is solid gold. It's sad and gross
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May 2, 2016 20:13
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Link please?
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May 3, 2016 02:18
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Painful day so far. Bought more WNR. Dropped 7.5% pre Earnings report
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May 3, 2016 16:13
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Everything on my watch list is red except appl and glbl. Carnival just went one cent green, yes! Go Cuba. Elephanthead fucked around with this message at 17:09 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 16:35
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I suspect GLBL is releasing something after hours. Too much rise after yesterday with such a lovely day for markets (especially solar)
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May 3, 2016 18:15
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Elephanthead posted:Everything on my watch list is red except appl and glbl. Everything is red for me except AAPL and my 401k's mutual fund. Go mutual funds.
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May 3, 2016 19:51
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I'm bearish on SHLD so I guess that's theoretically green too but otherwise there's two bright spots in a sea of turds today.
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May 3, 2016 20:12
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Why did SUNE's ticker change to SUNEQ?
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May 4, 2016 02:32
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Cory Parsnipson posted:Why did SUNE's ticker change to SUNEQ? That Q means "bankrupt."
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May 4, 2016 02:34
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The Stock Trading Megathread: That Q means "bankrupt."
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May 4, 2016 02:38
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call me oxsnardq
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May 4, 2016 02:53
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Bankrupt? my dad's Fidelity account apparently contains 1.5 million shares of Phantom Entertainment at a cost basis of $20 total
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May 4, 2016 03:00
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Solar stocks are getting super cheap due to who knows what reason, OIL i guess, they don't seem to behave in any manner relating to their actual financial performance
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May 4, 2016 04:36
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Is there a free website comparable to Finviz? I love it but the ads make it run like dogshit regardless of browser or machine
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May 4, 2016 04:54
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I mean there's a huge part of that that's just speculation on the future. When will subsidies get gutted? What does the next president do with it? Is continually deploying more and more megawatts profitable or viable on the grid? What about net metering or the price of natural gas? Will the fading el nino decrease summertime temperatures? It kind of makes sense when the future of the business going forward is potentially cloudy (he he) The levered DevCo model seems mostly broken though. SUNE crashed spectacularly. RUN and VSLR are on life support. SCTY got absolutely wrecked today after seeking yet more leverage. FSLR is really one of a kind in this sector. Utility scale projects built to suit with promising yield and solid PPAs in place. I think that's where the future ultimately is at. No mucking around with a jillion customer agreements, crazy financing or the like. Just like a boring company that build/installs coal power plants or nat gas gensets and turbines.
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May 4, 2016 04:54
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Whistling rear end in a top hat posted:Is there a free website comparable to Finviz? I love it but the ads make it run like dogshit regardless of browser or machine stock rover is decent
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May 4, 2016 04:59
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quote:FSLR is really one of a kind in this sector. Utility scale projects built to suit with promising yield and solid PPAs in place. I think that's where the future ultimately is at. No mucking around with a jillion customer agreements, crazy financing or the like. Just like a boring company that build/installs coal power plants or nat gas gensets and turbines. I got into CSIQ just before the current pain, and I'm tempted to double down. Any thoughts on their prospects?
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May 4, 2016 05:03
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I think there is a pretty good chance solar's struggles have less to do with what their last few Qs have looked like and what their balance sheets currently look like and more to do with things like this - http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det.../#axzz47fR6ksUU Everyone is still reeling from and working to understand SUNE (you can joke about it if you want, but they were the largest installer in the world), and they were notorious for their low bidding so to continue to see other guys do these low bids is probably making people scared that solar is an eventual race to the bottom. In the end, utility scale projects are relatively low barrier to entry. You literally just take a panel and point it at the sun then hook it to the grid- not exactly rocket science. It's not really comparable to traditional power plants and traditional power plant operators. The only differentiating factor is of course panel tech, but once panels get 'good enough' a rapid commoditization takes place across the whole industry and the high margin, differentiated guys might get left in the dust. FSLR is the easiest example with their CdTe panel tech- yeah it has some advantages, but do those advantages mean much when you can get a 20%+ efficient panel for, say, 1/3 the price installed? I'm in CSIQ and will get into FSLR if it gets mid to high 40s, but I'm worried about it and think their road ahead is a lot harder than the past few Qs indicate. FSLR's CEO change is a big question mark for me too. Cory Parsnipson posted:Why did SUNE's ticker change to SUNEQ? I dunno, but I think there's been a mistake- someone moved a decimal place around on my account balance. greasyhands fucked around with this message at 09:22 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 07:56
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greasyhands posted:I. In the end, utility scale projects are relatively low barrier to entry. You literally just take a panel and point it at the sun then hook it to the grid- not exactly rocket science. It's not really comparable to traditional power plants and traditional power plant operators. That's a pretty broad statement. There's quite a bit more than that on the design and planning side. Operating it though? You're right on there. All you need to know is how to operate a hose
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May 4, 2016 11:51
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oxsnard posted:That's a pretty broad statement. There's quite a bit more than that on the design and planning side. There really isn't though. You pick some lovely desert land in a state friendly to your industry, drive some steel racks into the ground and cover them with solar panels. They used to do sun tracking and all that poo poo, but they figured out that, in almost all cases, its way better to spend that money on more panels and the maintenance is way lower too, so thats a dead end. All you have to do is figure out where the sun is, and point your panel in that direction. Not hard. The hardest part is seriously just knowing the right people and getting the grid arrangement right. Here's a pretty good guide to just how simple it is - http://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/f05d3e00498e0841bb6fbbe54d141794/IFC+Solar+Report_Web+_08+05.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
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May 4, 2016 12:17
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I'll have to read that. Guess I'm a few years behind on those developments. Thanks!
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May 4, 2016 14:01
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Yeah it's getting so cheap and simple now, and if you do a lot of traveling in developing countries you can see these projects happening everywhere at all scales. You can get some simple 100Ah setup with a couple panels for under $500 on amazon now that is easy to scale out and up whenever. Nobody cares about one technology vs the other and they certainly don't care about the environment much, it's just becoming cheaper and easier than the alternatives.
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May 4, 2016 14:06
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A slightly different read on the current state of the online advertising market and how it's basically fraud and fiction:quote:We estimate that the online advertising market has been artificially inflated since the end of 2013, and is much more mature than its pundits are claiming. 90% of Google's revenues come from advertising. We expect Alphabet’s share price to go down by 75%. We get this number by revising its earnings down by 30%, stripping its 30x PE off its "growth premium" down to 15x, and factoring in the reputational damage. Other, nimbler "ad tech" players will be wiped out (Rocket Fuel, Millennial Media, Tremor Video, The Rubicon Project). https://kalkis-research.com/google-end-of-the-online-advertising-bubble
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May 4, 2016 15:02
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greasyhands posted:There really isn't though. You pick some lovely desert land in a state friendly to your industry, drive some steel racks into the ground and cover them with solar panels. They used to do sun tracking and all that poo poo, but they figured out that, in almost all cases, its way better to spend that money on more panels and the maintenance is way lower too, so thats a dead end. All you have to do is figure out where the sun is, and point your panel in that direction. Not hard. The hardest part is seriously just knowing the right people and getting the grid arrangement right. Saying you can buy land and steel and solar panels is like saying that my Sanderson Farms investment is in trouble because you can start a chicken company by buying a bunch of chickens and some land. What you have said is technically true, but misleading. Just because something is commoditized does not mean that these companies will start to face debilitating competition. Where First Solar and Canadian Solar have advantages is in scale, financing, and experience, among other areas. Economies of scale drives down cost to a level that your example could never compete with (barring technological advantages). Financing allows for a large project to be built at minimal interest costs, again an area where your example could not compete. Experience allows for the buyer to trust that this array won't start coming apart in 2 years and they'd have no relief in your example because the company would probably be bankrupt. So for example, in that bidding process you linked to, there are multiple facets at play, with the topline price being just one. Can that project actually be delivered for that cost in that time-frame from that company and not face challenges down the line? I'm guessing a lot of people who had SUNE projects built or in the process of being built are facing a lot of uncomfortable and potentially costly uncertainties. The problem with SUNE was massive over-leverage, a problem not even remotely faced by First Solar & Canadian Solar. SUNE was not the largest installer in the world, like it's not even close. FSLR & CSIQ are massively larger in installed capacity & revenue. But perhaps the collapse of SUNE is the reason why these stocks are so cheap, maybe it's oil, maybe it's a combination of a lot of things. All I know is that the companies are among the cheapest on the entire market. My 12 month long-term capital gains window for Sanderson is arriving in a few days. Hopefully CSIQ & FSLR are still trading at these levels when that happens.
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May 4, 2016 16:27
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Pryor on Fire posted:A slightly different read on the current state of the online advertising market and how it's basically fraud and fiction: This article is pretty lovely. It starts off with two flawed assumptions and just gets worse from there. 1) He assumes that more ad clicks means more ads being shown per user. 2) He assumes that CPCs dropping is a bad thing. He completely misses the most major change in the industry, which is the explosion of mobile. That change is the cause of both of the above. The increase in clicks is due to the giant influx of new internet users, and the decrease in CPCs is because many of those ad clicks are from the developing world. In such a high margin industry, these new, cheap clicks are just icing on the cake - it's actually a great trend to be seeing, not a bad one. He goes on to bring up ad fraud, and how it's not being addressed completely without doing any research into the very real work that has been done to address it. There's more terrible stuff in there, but I've already spent longer on this than I wanted to. (long Google)
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May 4, 2016 17:30
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Arkane posted:Saying you can buy land and steel and solar panels is like saying that my Sanderson Farms investment is in trouble because you can start a chicken company by buying a bunch of chickens and some land. No it isn't. Chicken are differentiated by genetic stock and there are a million tricks of the trade for maximizing growth/breeding/egg production or whatever niche you are focused on. Literally hundreds of years of trade knowledge about raising chickens. Utility solar is having the capital (this is hard, I'm not arguing that), digging the hole, and pointing the panels at the sun. Anyone with an electrical background could install a solar array and tie it in to the grid, ignoring regulatory hurdles. It's not the same at all. And, I would add that SAFM trades at a pretty low valuation- even after a huge rally its EV/EBITDA is like 5? Why do you think it trades like that? Because chickens are boring? Thats right around where CSIQ and FSLR are trading now. Even David Crane of NRG talked about how solar is going to be a very tough industry because its so simple. Yes, it requires capital (less and less every day, by a rather startling rate of decline.) Yes, obviously being a known player is an advantage. And yes, delivering on time and on budget is obviously important (as it is in literally every single industry on earth.. not sure why you would consider that a "moat") I think you are going to end up disappointed if you think showing up to work on time and on budget is going to keep FSLR and CSIQ safe. I'm not trying to say anyone can just wander out and start a solar company, I'm saying there is increasingly less specialization and know-how required. It is more and more about just getting the paperwork in order, which isn't easy to do but also isn't an impenetrable moat. Solar is pricing funky for a reason, and it sure as poo poo isnt oil (which doesn't even have anything to do with utilities)- they are cheap because there is a big concern that all these companies racing to the narrowest margins possible on bids (because they can all actually complete a project on time and on budget, for the most part) is not going to be good going forward. Yup there's going to be wipeouts and spectacular fuckups, but that's all part of the normal process of racing to minimizing costs. I mean, I'm long CSIQ so I'm not totally bearish on this and all these concerns aren't certainties, but your post reads like you've got your head in the sand a little and don't want to explore why solar is acting the way it is. You just want to assume the lookback numbers are good so its gonna be good going forward, ignoring how fast these bids have been dropping over the last 6 months. I'll remind you FSLR just declined to give 2017 guidance as their CEO stepped down. That's hard to read much in to with any certainty, but it is definitely a piece of the puzzle.
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May 4, 2016 17:30
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greasyhands posted:No it isn't. Chicken are differentiated by genetic stock and there are a million tricks of the trade for maximizing growth/breeding/egg production or whatever niche you are focused on. Literally hundreds of years of trade knowledge about raising chickens. Utility solar is having the capital (this is hard, I'm not arguing that), digging the hole, and pointing the panels at the sun. Anyone with an electrical background could install a solar array and tie it in to the grid, ignoring regulatory hurdles. It's not the same at all. And, I would add that SAFM trades at a pretty low valuation- even after a huge rally its EV/EBITDA is like 5? Why do you think it trades like that? Because chickens are boring? Thats right around where CSIQ and FSLR are trading now. First Solar & Canadian Solar design and manufacture solar panels from (pretty much) scratch. Not sure what exactly you are talking about here where you're buying already made solar panels and then installing them. You'd pay wholesale I guess, which would already make you completely noncompetitive. SAFM's EV/EBITDA can be misleading (both in terms of underestimating and overestimating its earnings potential), because its business is very cyclical. FSLR and CSIQ both also have misleading EV/EBITDA because of the amount of projects on their books which will be converted to cash. greasyhands posted:Even David Crane of NRG talked about how solar is going to be a very tough industry because its so simple. Yes, it requires capital (less and less every day, by a rather startling rate of decline.) Yes, obviously being a known player is an advantage. And yes, delivering on time and on budget is obviously important (as it is in literally every single industry on earth.. not sure why you would consider that a "moat") I think you are going to end up disappointed if you think showing up to work on time and on budget is going to keep FSLR and CSIQ safe. I'm not trying to say anyone can just wander out and start a solar company, I'm saying there is increasingly less specialization and know-how required. It is more and more about just getting the paperwork in order, which isn't easy to do but also isn't an impenetrable moat. Solar is pricing funky for a reason, and it sure as poo poo isnt oil (which doesn't even have anything to do with utilities)- they are cheap because there is a big concern that all these companies racing to the narrowest margins possible on bids (because they can all actually complete a project on time and on budget, for the most part) is not going to be good going forward. Yup there's going to be wipeouts and spectacular fuckups, but that's all part of the normal process of racing to minimizing costs. I mean, I'm long CSIQ so I'm not totally bearish on this and all these concerns aren't certainties, but your post reads like you've got your head in the sand a little and don't want to explore why solar is acting the way it is. You just want to assume the lookback numbers are good so its gonna be good going forward, ignoring how fast these bids have been dropping over the last 6 months. I'll remind you FSLR just declined to give 2017 guidance as their CEO stepped down. That's hard to read much in to with any certainty, but it is definitely a piece of the puzzle. I'm actively looking to find out any reasons why my bets are wrong, but not finding any that are persuasive. And the companies don't even need to be good going forward at these valuation levels. They're priced to suck. Not sure what 2017 guidance has to do with anything. I've listened to a lot of calls for a lot of different types of companies and I've never heard anyone giving guidance so far out.
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May 4, 2016 17:56
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Chanos just torched the gently caress out of Alibaba, VRX, Tesla, and SolarCity (again). All dropped the second he mentioned them Shouldn't that already be priced in? Its not like these bets were secret before just now. Really enjoying the solar chat you guys. I mean it too
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May 4, 2016 18:10
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I don't want to get into a long drawn out argument, but being vertically integrated is cool but it won't win the day in a highly commoditized industry where Chinese are cranking out perfectly acceptable panels and wholesale installers are doing projects for miniscule margins. We aren't there yet and we may never get there, but "building solar panels from scratch" isn't even that hard to do. The rest of it is piss easy and will get easier as governments and industry figure out a framework for getting deals through. Fslr has a tech advantage, and I'm rooting for them to hold it but there is a real risk for the industry to become a cheap shitheap. I'm not saying you are "wrong" just that you aren't acknowledging real risks to these business models. The rest of the market appears to be acknowledging them.
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May 4, 2016 18:12
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So what's the justification for your SCTY long then? They're going for vertical integration and can't even borrow cheap anymore to pay for CapEx
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May 4, 2016 18:23
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I already sold half of my SCTY long, but the gist of that play was, when David Crane was booted out of NRG, a huge competitor in the *very* forward-looking and speculative market for a decentralized grid basically disappeared. Whether or not the decentralized grid ever happens (I think it might in some form, but when NRG bailed out SCTY was left as one of the only players vocally pushing towards a truly decentralized utility grid). That as well as the fact that SCTY sold off so hard was worth a shot, but I sold half my shares at a near double a week or so ago after it rocketed back up. I posted somewhere a while back about how I was going to play it long term unless it just took off again and I decided a double in a couple of months was good enough. Glad I did given the crazy selloff the sector is seeing now. Anways, most of the people attacking SCTY are correct about the weird financing but they also seem to gloss over what they are trying to build there. It's not just solar panels on people's roofs- they want to decentralize the entire power grid and have houses generate their own electricity with fuel cells, or natural gas generators or batteries as backups. Tesla is considered a sister company for reasons other than Musk being involved with both of them. The reason they have the financing "scheme" the way they do is because they are trying to build it and give people a utility bill like they are used to. They knew customer financing wouldn't reach the installed base necessary to decentralize the grid. It's all actually very clever (and speculative) and not a scam like Chanos tries to say it is. I like Chanos, but he is flat out stupid on his SCTY call. It's a very complicated goal. The vertical integration I don't particularly care about unless they are going to be building something that is significantly better than what is available wholesale. As to the decentralized grid, I am kind of a lazy poster so here is a link that will maybe start you down the rabbit hole if you want to start reading about it. It's all very interesting and potentially extremely disruptive. Utility scale solar, being built to the more traditional centralized utility model, has nothing to do with that particular niche in renewables and not nearly as much has to be done technologically speaking to start building large solar arrays as utility supplements. Musk and Crane were the 2 most vocal proponents (that I know of anyways) for the decentralized dream. I actually think there is a possibility Crane might show up at SCTY, but that may be one too many big dog egos for one company. SCTY really has nothing to do with FSLR or CSIQ. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/david-crane-and-tom-fanning-spar-over-distributed-generation greasyhands fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 18:38
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greasyhands posted:I don't want to get into a long drawn out argument, but being vertically integrated is cool but it won't win the day in a highly commoditized industry where Chinese are cranking out perfectly acceptable panels and wholesale installers are doing projects for miniscule margins. We aren't there yet and we may never get there, but "building solar panels from scratch" isn't even that hard to do. The rest of it is piss easy and will get easier as governments and industry figure out a framework for getting deals through. Fslr has a tech advantage, and I'm rooting for them to hold it but there is a real risk for the industry to become a cheap shitheap. I'm not saying you are "wrong" just that you aren't acknowledging real risks to these business models. The rest of the market appears to be acknowledging them. Alright so China has been pumping out panels for a while, and yet there aren't any companies around that are making large amounts of money doing any of this? And why would anyone finance something with minimal margins? Nothing about what you are saying really makes sense for widescale application, nor has it seemed to impact FSLR and CSIQ, nor does it seem to impact their short term earning potential. I also think you're relying too much on the current market price for your argument. The market is a schizophrenic with sometimes little connection to reality and very large swings in valuations over short periods of time. A stock price going down does not make an argument correct, just like a stock price going up would not either. BTW, at their current prices, if you convert their project assets to cash and convert FSLR's investments to cash, they'd both trading near a 1 hypothetical EV/EBITDA lol.
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May 4, 2016 19:33
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Arkane posted:Alright so China has been pumping out panels for a while, and yet there aren't any companies around that are making large amounts of money doing any of this? And why would anyone finance something with minimal margins? Nothing about what you are saying really makes sense for widescale application, nor has it seemed to impact FSLR and CSIQ, nor does it seem to impact their short term earning potential. As to your China response, pv has been dropping and continues to drop. Obviously the knowledge transfer will take time too so the fact that it hasnt happened yet in now way suggests that it wont happen.
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May 4, 2016 19:46
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greasyhands posted:If you convert any company's assets to cash and subtract it all out their ev/ebitda looks better.... And investments should already be treated as cash when calculating EV?? You've lost me on that one. No, JUST their project assets -- which WILL be converted to cash over time. And no, FSLR's investments in their yieldco and Desert Stateline aren't included in EV. Not by me or others. But it shouldn't be ignored on the balance sheet, which is why the EV is deceiving. As far as your entire line of argument, which is now "oh it'll happen (maybe)," I consider it pretty terrible and unpersuasive.
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May 4, 2016 20:02
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Yo Arkane, when you get a few, can you walk through your process of identifying Sanderson farms last year? In retrospect it looks like an obvious call but finding a stock like that in an unloved and unpublicized industry is tough. tia
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May 4, 2016 20:11
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Any of you oil and gas people have thoughts on Cheniere (LNG)?
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May 4, 2016 20:23
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oxsnard posted:Yo Arkane, when you get a few, can you walk through your process of identifying Sanderson farms last year? In retrospect it looks like an obvious call but finding a stock like that in an unloved and unpublicized industry is tough. tia I just did a screener for heavily shorted companies with low EV/EBITDA and I excluded financials and oil & gas. Researching them, especially compared to their competitor PPC, it seemed like the much better/safer company. Interestingly, part of the bet was that people were possibly overhyping how quickly chicken prices would fall and in some senses that was a bad bet because chicken prices did decrease a bit, but the stock was so cheap/shorted anyway that it didn't end up mattering too much. And it also held up even as the market briefly poo poo the bed, which was nice.
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May 4, 2016 20:26
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 Jesus Christ. This is my first options play after posting paper gains over the past year of practice. Sold the first 3 contacts for $860 in profit so I'm riding house money now. Should I sell? I was so calm and collected with paper trades but I think I need Nome clarity. I could see this sinking to the teens with earnings but who the gently caress knows now
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May 4, 2016 20:31
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Yeah options are super neato, especially when volatility is increasing. The VIX just crossed above it's 50 day EMA, I should really start trading them again.
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May 4, 2016 20:35
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