The following is a list of stocks in an uptrend, i.e. trading above their 20-day, 50-day and 200-day moving averages. These are all quality companies, defined by the following screen:

• All stocks have market caps above $2.0B
• Each company reported trailing twelve month ROE and ROA above 10%
• All of these companies have sufficient liquidity, i.e. current ratios above 1.0
• Analyst project EPS growth above 10% over the next 5 years for all of these companies

In addition, these stocks are all undervalued relative to their industries (based on trailing twelve month P/E and P/S ratios).

The solar sector has became one of the hottest sectors in the US stock market the last few months. This is especially true for most of the Chinese ADRs.

Several stocks are making new year highs, several are nearing their year highs, and several are breaking out of their recent resistance. Even the recent market meltdown cannot bring them down.

Recently, the State of California proposed a decision to adopt to a renewable auction mechanism (RAM) which enables rates to be set my market-pricing, which could lead to a new avenue of growth for ETFs like the Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy Index (TAN), the Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (KWT) and the Market Vectors Glb Alternative Energy ETF (GEX).

This proposed subsidy is expected to work as a feed-in-tariff, which will use market-rate pricing that is being set and driven by a bidding process, as opposed to utilizing rates that are being set and driven by the California Public Utilities Commission. A major goal of this new subsidy is to enable developers of solar power to furnish adequate returns and to soften the blow to rate payers which are being overburdened by excessive subsidies. If this can be achieved, it is expected that the solar industry will see a massive expansion.

by Jigar Shah

I just read a very interesting article from Motley Fool on the oversupply of solar in the marketplace that is predicted in 2011. The article went on to try to compare the competitive position of the thin-film manufacturing and the crystalline manufacturing based on $/Wdc. Of course, for those of us in the industry we know that this has no meaning given the widening efficiency gaps, but like Moore's law the $/Wdc is followed by investors like a hawk. The more important metrics are:

As to the market, which is very good about following the rules of supply and demand, these are very interesting times. Demand is down, in part because of lousy economic news (which I’m not going to go into today). Bond yields are at record lows … a clear sign of the market’s “flight to safety.” And it’s extremely difficult to find an optimistic economist these days. (You know in your heart that they’re often wrong, but you listen to them anyway.)

Ben Bernanke commented a month ago that “the economic outlook remains unusually uncertain,” and the President of Cisco (CSCO), John Chambers, repeated that outlook after his company’s earnings report last week, saying, “We think the words “unusual uncertainty” are an accurate description of what’s occurring.”