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Stocks for New-Energy Investors

November 22, 2011
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Back before Memorial Day this year, gas prices appeared primed to churn ever higher and provide a hard hit to Americans’ wallets. At the start of May, the national average price of regular self-serve gasoline was $3.94 a gallon, according to AAA. But instead of climbing higher, gas prices eased to $3.60 a gallon in the height of summer–unexpected because normally that’s when we drive the most and a lot of refinery maintenance occurs, nudging up prices. Today the average per-gallon cost of gas is even lower, at $3.40 a gallon. It’s not cheap, but if you’re like me,...

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Buying the Mouse

November 17, 2011
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My stock pick today is Walt Disney Company (DIS), a media giant that has its fingers in every corner of the entertainment business. Disney owns ABC TV, ESPN, A&E, theme parks and resorts, produces movies through its Disney Studios and Pixar divisions, owns comicbook giant Marvel and licenses its products for toys, clothing and every other product that can have a picture of a princess affixed to it. Disney is a formidable presence in the media business, generally growing revenue in the single digits (revenue growth was positive in eight of the last nine years) and paying a small...

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Toyota Prius, Tata Nano, Tesla Roadster and More

November 14, 2011
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Toyota Prius, Tata Nano, Tesla Roadster and More

These are exciting times for observers of the automobile industry … and for a small percentage of investors in it. The Toyota Prius has become the poster child of the hybrid car movement, leading a growing range of hybrid offerings–including the massive Cadillac Escalade– from nearly every manufacturer. Pure electric cars are just beginning to emerge, with the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf targeting the mass market and Tesla aiming higher. And as these technologies improve and gasoline and diesel-burning engines are gradually displaced from our roads, the result will be lower pollution, better health and lower oil prices,...

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Silicon Laboratories (SLAB): A Hot Stock

November 9, 2011
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One of my favorite stocks today–for aggressive investors only–is Silicon Laboratories (SLAB), a key player in the highly cyclical semiconductor industry.  The stocks in this industry act like rockets; they zoom to the sky, and then they fall to the ground, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can get hurt.  But if you do know, you can make big money fast in this group, especially if you know when to walk away. Silicon Laboratories has been recommended in Cabot Top Ten Trader in 2003 and 2006 and 2009, and investors who stayed on their toes made...

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What Happened to Solar?

October 7, 2011
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You’ve probably heard something about three well-known solar firms that declared bankruptcy this year. Here in Massachusetts, where I live, Evergreen Solar declared bankruptcy in August after finding itself nearly half a billion dollars in debt, less than three years after its stock traded over 100 a share. In Oregon and New York, recent Intel spin-off SpectraWatt also went under and its assets were auctioned off last week. Most infamously, California’s Solyndra shut down two years after receiving $528 million in Department of Energy loans for its California manufacturing facilities. So what happened to solar? In short: China. In...

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