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Monthly Archives: June 2011

When Will the Sun Rise for Solars?

June 17, 2011
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When Will the Sun Rise for Solars?

I’m fascinated by solar power on any number of levels, only one of which has anything to do with investing. First and foremost, the science geek part of me just loves the idea that you can put a chip of silicon out in the sun and get electricity out of it. And you can keep getting that electricity as long as the sun shines. When I was growing up in the 1950s, the good people at Bell Labs (anyone else remember Our Mister Sun?) were the science equivalent of Walt Disney: benevolent, competent and full of surprises. (Work at...

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Coiled Spring Stocks

June 16, 2011
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It’s always interesting to be in my shoes during market downturns. As editor of the Dick Davis Digests, I spend the majority of my day reading what our hundreds of contributors are writing. As corrections begin to develop, they exhibit a variety of responses. The perma-bears say, “I told you so.” Advisors who were already wary, and largely in cash, may immediately sell everything and stick their heads in the sand to wait out the pain. But most of the experts will own at least a handful of stocks at the beginning of any correction, and most of them...

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An Attractice Beer Stock

June 15, 2011
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An Attractice Beer Stock

Ranking ninth by volume on the list of American brewers is Craft Brewers Alliance (HOOK), which trades on the Nasdaq. The company’s roots go back to 1984, when Kurt and Robert Widmer founded Widmer Brothers Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon. Today Widmer produces at least a half-dozen classic American and European brews, from the light “Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen” to the dark “Pitch Black IPA.” Revenues last year were $146 million. And the company is growing by acquiring. In 2008, Widmer merged with Redhook Ale Brewery of Seattle, adopting the name Craft Brewers Alliance.  Redhook makes a half-dozen beers. And...

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Big Beer Brewers are Shrinking

June 14, 2011
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Big Beer Brewers are Shrinking

Last week I was sitting at a sidewalk table at Brasserie Beck in Washington, D.C., enjoying a plate of mussels, the company of my wife and a “Lost and Found Abbey Ale” when I said to myself, “It’s high time I got around to writing that piece on beer distribution that’s been sitting in the back of my head for a while.” So, with the stock market in correction mode, and (hopefully) some of your investable assets sitting on the sidelines waiting for better opportunities, here it is. Nearly a century ago, before Prohibition was enacted in 1919, beer...

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Some Truths About Short Selling

June 13, 2011
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Some Truths About Short Selling

Switching gears entirely, I want to touch upon the topic of short selling, whether via individual stocks, or by inverse exchanged traded funds that track an index or sector. There’s nothing wrong with playing the short side, but remember a few key points if you do. First, write this down on a sticky note and tape it to your computer monitor:  “Stocks take the stairs on the way up and the elevator on the way down”–i.e., stocks fall a lot faster than they rise. That means that your timing has to be very precise on the short side; if...

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