Opinion & investing ideas
Shares of First Solar (FSLR) are down $5.42, almost 13%, at $37.15, and were at one point down 20%, after the company this morning cut its revenue outlook for this year, forecast this year’s and next year’s profit way below expectations, announced a restructuring involving layoffs, and said its chief accounting officer will leave the company.
All of that comes as the company tells the Street demand is falling in some large markets for solar energy. Hence, the solar stocks are responding accordingly, with SunPower (SPWR) down 32 cents, or 5%, a5 $5.99, Yingli Green Energy(YGE) down 18 cents, or almost 5%, at $3.70, and Trina Solar (TSL) down 40 cents, or 6%, at $6.73. One of the few gainers in the pre-market is ReneSola(SOL), up 3 cents, or 2%, at $1.58.
First Solar said it sees sales this year in a range of $2.8 billion to $2.9 billion, down from its prior forecast of $3 billion to $3.3 billion, and below the Street consensus of $3.2 billion. Profit per share is expected $5.75 to $6, below the average $6.88 estimate.
For 2012, the company sees revenue of $3.7 billion to $4 billion, and EPS of $3.75 to $4.25. That is below the consensus $4.1 billion and $7.42 per share.
Chairman and interim CEO Mike Ahearn said that the company was “recalibrating our business to focus on building and serving sustainable markets rather than pursuing subsidized markets,” from which he hoped to derive the majority of the company’s revenue by the end of 2014.
| Imagine re-inventing the battery so it powers your laptop for the entire year. 177 million laptops were sold last year. | |
| What about a hybrid car that gets 230 miles per gallon because it now uses super powerful Lithium batteries. CNN/Money magazine calls this incredible development “a game changer.” | |
| Cell phones now have a phenomenal new forever power source. This market is immense. One billion cell phones were sold last year. |
It doesn’t appear Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) has any blockbusters up its sleeve, but the company has successfully added some big-selling medications that could help ease the pain when cheaper generic copies start eating away at the company’s multi-billion dollar seller Lipitor cholesterol drug this November.
The world’s largest drug company is counting on the arthritis pill tofacitinib to join the fold of key offerings. If so, it will link up with Pfizer’s other recent acquisitions in pain and inflammation to ease the sting of losing patent protection for Lipitor. The company’s arthritis drug Enbrel, which it gained in the purchase of Wyeth in 2009, was Pfizer’s second-best seller last year with revenue of more than $3 billion. Last year’s purchase of King Pharmaceuticals brought Pfizer several additional painkillers.
At least one analyst thinks Pfizer has hit a home run with tofacitinib. Catherine Arnold told Bloomberg that the new drug is a “game-changer,” and may bring in more than $2.6 billion a year. She emphasized the estimate could be conservative given the current market for rheumatoid arthritis is $22 billion. The Pfizer treatment offers a dosing advantage because it’s given orally instead of injected like the other drugs on the market.
Les ministres de l'Opep se réunissent mercredi à Vienne pour examiner l'état du marché, alors que la demande mondiale de brut ralentit nettement, et que la production du cartel dépasse de loin les quotas fixés par l'organisation.
Les quotas de production de l'Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole , qui regroupe douze pays et pompe 35% de l'or noir mondial, sont fixés à 24,84 millions de barils par jour (mb/j) depuis janvier 2009, et devraient selon toutes les attentes être reconduits pour la neuvième fois.
Mais l'offre réelle des onze pays soumis aux quotas (l'Irak en est exclu) se situe bien au-delà de ce plafond de production - elle s'élevait en novembre à 27,97 mb/j selon l'Agence internationale de l'Energie (AIE).
La production totale de l'Opep était en novembre de 30,68 mb/j, son plus haut niveau depuis plus de trois ans.
"Il n'y a pas de pénurie ou d'excès dans l'offre (...)???? cet équilibre amènera probablement à ne pas changer le plafond de production actuel", a estimé le ministre koweïtien Mohammed al-Bassiri.
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FuelCell’s systems run on natural gas or biogas, methane produced through wastewater treatment, food processing and other renewable sources.
Des rumeurs iPad il y en a tellement que vous n’avez pas besoin de moi pour les trouver, généralement je vous les épargne ici pour ne pas participer à l’hystérie collective. Ce soir, j’en publie une, parce que la source de cette info est sérieuse et que l’information est bien dans l’air du temps.
C’est le LA Times qui publie l’info, un iPad 3, avec un écran Retina Display soit une excellente définition d’affichage. On parle de 326 points par pouces au lieu des 132 points par pouces de l’écran de l’iPad 2 actuel.
La date avancée par le journal est fixée à Février ce qui coïnciderait avec la première bougie de l’iPad 2 qui a été lancée en Mars 2011. Difficile de savoir si l’info est vraie et, même si elle est probablement tirée de sources sérieuses, dans quelle mesure elle se révélera exacte à 100%. Mais le calendrier correspond bien à ce que pourrait être la politique d’Apple pour faire face notamment à l’arrivée des tablettes concurrentes sous Android qui commencent à poser de sérieux problèmes d’image à la marque. L’arrivée de processeurs plus performants, l’annonce d’écrans de très bonne définition employant des technologies exceptionnelles font qu’Apple doit vraiment réagir.
Pour le seul gisement de Bakken Shale, les ressources s’élèveraient entre trois et 4,3 milliards de barils selon l’U.S. Geological Survey. Hors Alaska, ce gisement deviendrait le plus grand gisement de pétrole des Etats-Unis.
http://www.statoil.com/en/NewsAndMedia/News/2011/Pages/XXX16Oct2011.aspx
Since the 11 March disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear power complex, when an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale was followed by a tsunami that destroyed the facility, the nuclear industry worldwide has been fighting back, arguing that new, improved reactor designs mean that nuclear power is still a valid option.
Surging economic incipient superpowers India and China remain committed to generating electricity with the atom as one of their best options to provide power to their populations’ surging demand.
And now Bill Gates is getting into the act in China, promoting a newer and reportedly safer reactor design, telling an audience at China's Ministry of Science and Technology about a project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste. All these new designs are going to be incredibly safe,” Gates insisted, adding that “they require no human action to remain safe at all times.” In a bow to his hosts Gates added, "China has a lot to contribute because it's solved many of the problems of poverty, not all of them but a lot of them, itself, and many Asian, south Asian and African countries are well behind, whether it's agriculture or health."
So, what’s Microsoft’s aging wonder boy promoting?
A “traveling wave reactor” (TWR) developed by Terrapower, a company he founded.
TerraPower says that its TWR reactor design could run for decades on depleted uranium and produce significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional reactors.
Beijing is on board. State-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) official Sun Qin was quoted in the Chinese media last week saying Gates was working with it on the reactor development, with Gates noting, "TerraPower is having very good discussions with CNNC and various people in the Chinese government."
TWRs are still in the design stage and yet to become actual products, but the designs’ appeal is their low-maintenance nature. TWR nuclear boosters aver that once started they would be powered by self-sustaining nuclear reactions and according to TWR proponents, the facilities could operate for four to six decades without requiring any refueling or removal of spent fuel rods.
http://www.terrapower.com/NewsRoom/PressCoverage/Archive.aspx
La zone euro joue son avenir au cours de la semaine à venir qui pourrait.....si tout va bien, se solder par un accord sur une solution définitive pour une crise de la dette qui fait rage depuis bientôt deux ans.
