Solar Notes – Dow Jones Investment, First Solar Upgrade
Solar energy in the U.S. is getting a shot in the arm by none other than Dow Jones, the owner of Barron’s and this Web site. The newspaper publisher today announced it’s “about to make a major investment in solar energy.” In a statement to employees, Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton said the company plans to install solar panels at its South Brunswick, N.J. campus, in an area that will total nearly 230,000 square feet. The installation will generate 4.1 megawatts of electricity and be “the largest solar power installation at a single commercial site in the U.S.,” Hinton said. The project is expected to take a year to complete. In total, over the course of the year, the panels will provide 15% of the South Brunswick campus’ electric needs. Meanwhile, earlier this morning Battle Road Research upgraded shares of First Solar (FSLR) to Buy from Hold and set a $150 price target. In its [...]
Playing The Housing Recovery With Home Depot
From some perspectives, the best play on a recovering housing market isn
10 Highly Profitable And Undervalued Stocks Reporting Earnings Next Week
Do you like to follow earnings season to try and find stocks that may announce an earnings surprise? For a look at interesting companies reporting next week, we ran a screen. We began with stocks reporting their first-quarter earnings next week for those that appear undervalued relative to earnings growth, with PEG below 1. We then screened these names for those with strong profitability as indicated by DuPont analysis. DuPont breaks down return on equity (ROE) profitability into three sources: ROE = (Net Profit/Equity) = (Net profit/Sales)*(Sales/Assets)*(Assets/Equity) = (Net Profit margin)*(Asset turnover)*(Leverage ratio) Because increases in net margin and asset turnover are considered positive things, DuPont focuses on companies with these characteristics: Increasing ROE along with, Decreasing leverage, (i.e. decreasing Asset/Equity ratio) Improving asset use efficiency (i.e. i ncreasing Sales/Assets ratio) and improving net profit margin (i.e. increasing Net Income/Sales ratio) Those companies that pass DuPont are seeing positive trends in the sources of their [...]
BofA Makes Retirement Services Push for Merrill
Bank of America (BAC) is rolling out a defined-contribution consulting service for institutions at Merrill Lynch and a 401(k) service for small businesses at Merrill Edge. “We are leveraging our investment management education and guidance group to be a screener for advisors to utilize, which is a significant advantage for our financial advisors,” said Kevin Crain (left), head of Institutional Retirement & Benefit Services for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, in an interview with AdvisorOne. “They can tailor these services for individual-plan sponsors.” Some rivals have an individual RIA or advisor put such solutions together, whereas Merrill FAs can “leverage the largest investment management guidance capacity available,” Crain said. “This should be exciting to plan sponsors as they look at this service.” The DC services, announced Friday, will be introduced during the rest of 2012 and in 2013 to institutional clients with $25 million or more in assets. The DC services could be offered to plans [...]
FPA
Bob Rodriguez at his office in Lake Tahoe, Calif. In a wide-ranging keynote address to investors, famed money manager Bob Rodriguez warned that the U.S. has a narrow window ahead to escape the kind of sovereign debt crisis that Europe is now experiencing. Rodriguez, FPA Capital’s managing partner and CEO, said next year would be the most crucial in the past 80 to right our fiscal path before “budgetary financial pressures will explode” starting in 2018. Speaking to an Institute for Private Investors audience in New York last week, Rodriguez said that every year beyond 2013 without structural reform would “increase the size and scope of the necessary fiscal response” amid likely negative capital market reaction of the kind we’re now seeing in Europe. Rodriguez, a rare money manager who has outperformed in both equity and fixed-income spaces, has in recent years developed a reputation for issuing stark warnings about the direction of the economy. [...]
