Looks pretty good for a growing company to me, and they are profitable. $90 billion in revenue for a company that had less than $10 billion ten years ago is impressive.
Posted on 06/17/2014 11:58:19 AM PDT by PoloSec
We recently explained how Tesla needs to build what it is calling a "gigafactory" for batteries in order to survive. The rest of the world is not building enough lithium ion storage to meet what Tesla thinks will be surging demand, so it has decided it must do it itself by making a very costly factory.
Tuesday, SolarCity (Elon Musk's other company) announced it will have to do the same for solar panels. The firm unveiled plans to build one of the world's largest high-efficiency solar panel plants, using technology from Fremont-based Silevo, which they also said they'd acquired.
"We expect to have to install 10 gigawatts [of high-efficiency panels] a year," Chairman Elon Musk said on a conference call announcing the move. "If you look at the current capacity in the world, we're not able to do that right now."
It's not just a supply question. Solar panel prices have been falling in recent years thanks to a production boom in China. But the panels getting produced, though cheap, aren't terribly efficient and prices have begun bottoming out anyway.
They are likely to begin climbing: Government subsidies for renewables start getting phased out in 2016, and the political environment for rebooting them remains unstable at best.
Plus, in a call with BI, CTO Peter Rive said recent U.S. moves to slap tariffs on Chinese panels served as a "catalyst" for looking into building the Silevo plant.
Will the demand be there? The firm's own polling suggests there is. But if you assume that electricity customers are price agnostic, rooftop solar still has some ways yet to go to become cost competitive with fossil fuels. Musk recognizes this and beating fossil fuels at their own cost game remains his ultimate goal.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Amazon also did pretty well when W was president.
For a company that hasn’t ever made a profit, they certainly do have investor enthusiasm.
For a company that hasn’t ever made a profit,
Are you sure about that?
Maintenance of the current nuclear generating stations is almost a joke. My now deceased neighbor worked at a shop in Idaho Falls. The shop specializes to building replacement instruments for equipment at nuclear power plants. The failed parts have to be replaced with custom built units that meet the old physical and electrical specifications, but using components of current manufacture. The plants have outlived their OEM suppliers.
“TEPCO is/was in competent, corrupt operator.”
Absolutely correct! And I will bet you that the operators here in the US cut corners as well. Nuclear power would be a boon to the world if only the businesses that run them had a modicum of ethics. It is one thing to screw people on the crap they buy so long as no harm become them. But all you have to do is look at how GM responded to known safety issues with some of their vehicles. It’s as though they do a calculus that says “ how many deaths can we afford as opposed to the money it would take to fix the problem.” I believe that the nuclear power companies are likely to be making the same differentiations.
Looks pretty good for a growing company to me, and they are profitable. $90 billion in revenue for a company that had less than $10 billion ten years ago is impressive.
If AMZN has made you wealthy, far be it from me to snark at it. There are a lot of people making big bucks at “non-profit” organizations.
From what I’ve read, Bezos likes to limit profits in order to be competitive and to discourage competitors. Consumers benefit from lower prices. Amazon doesn’t always have the lowest price, but I always check. I’ve found their guarantee and return policy to be top notch and sometimes I’ll pay a bit more for that.
I buy most of my books from Amazon. The nearest bookstore
to my house is 53 miles.
Yeah AND they built it in an area that was always at risk to suffer both large earthquakes AND tsunamis...
Or in engineering terms "stupidity cubed"...
>> watermelon tree-huggers
Don’t stand under the watermelon tree.
From its peak in 1999, it did drop over 90% by September 2001.
Perfect buying opportunity, too.
Sure, much better than before the 90% drop.
A person would have have made a respectable return on the long side either way, one good, one great.
A short seller could have picked several successful tech companies and made money when Amazon was at its late 90’s peak.
Hard to argue it wasn’t a slam dunk short.
“Yeah AND they built it in an area that was always at risk to suffer both large earthquakes AND tsunamis...
Or in engineering terms “stupidity cubed”...”
But remember they have to kowtow to the NRC. The NRC is like the FAA,. Some of the FAA’s ATC equipment is so old that they have to pay a company to stay in business to make vacuum tubes so they can “maintain” their equipment.
Some people were convinced that Amazon was worthless. Had they held on waiting for it to become worthless, they would be cleaned out or faced numerous margin calls by now. Shorting also involves timing. How does one pick the top and the bottom? What if someone had shorted the stock when Blodget made his $400 call? What if someone had added to their short position as the stock fell and kept holding on past the bottom?
Shorting isn't easy. Your maximum gain is 100%, but your potential losses are limitless, just the opposite of going long. Of course, experienced traders can use options, but I don't think the OP I was responding to is one of those.
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