CSKH - waiting for the sun to shine
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They must have banked all those projects they signed in Q1. Something like $7M worth, that could not be completed by the end of Q2, but the bulk of them should be now as Q3 is closing this week.
Perfect storm brewing imo.
trading barely above a penny, this could very easily do 5M and greater volume on a daily basis. With the right spark this could very easily be a stock in play. Lucky those taking new position at this low pps. Both new and old investors are going to profit on this stock!
500k volume at .012 just 6 grand, lol. We are just listlessly trading lower on small dollar volume. This is not dilution selling bidwhackage, its just old fashion small investors taking losses to parley on another play. The end result is CSKH's stock being way oversold. A big bounce is in the cards here.
$0.0120 8,100 OBB 15:59:58
$0.0140 3,000 OBB 15:58:18
$0.0140 7,000 OBB 15:20:38
$0.0140 8,000 OBB 15:20:34
$0.0140 1,000 OBB 15:06:45
$0.0120 7,100 OBB 15:04:48
$0.0120 16,900 OBB 15:04:47
$0.0120 10,000 OBB 15:04:38
$0.0140 1,000 OBB 14:06:57
$0.0130 8,810 OBB 14:05:35
$0.0140 1,000 OBB 13:27:58
$0.0120 75,000 OBB 13:27:25
$0.0120 10,000 OBB 12:35:41
$0.0120 1,000 OBB 11:52:07
$0.0110 10,000 OBB 11:51:21
$0.0120 104,700 OBB 11:44:06
$0.0140 13,000 OBB 11:43:41
$0.0120 50,000 OBB 11:42:13
$0.0140 1,000 OBB 11:40:27
$0.0120 49,000 OBB 11:40:10
$0.0130 1,000 OBB 11:37:36
$0.0120 4,700 OBB 11:37:22
$0.0120 45,300 OBB 11:37:21
$0.0130 200 OBB 11:35:46
$0.0150 1,000 OBB 09:30:09
$0.0110 6,500 OBB 09:30:08
$0.0130 10,000 OBB 09/26
$0.0150 1,000 OBB 09/26
$0.0130 17,508 OBB 09/26
$0.0130 5,000 OBB 09/26
longs are being taken out to the wood shed
All those .025 options (restated from .35) for management are way under water now.
And Chevra & Kehal that bought restricted shares at .025 and .030 aren't making out too well either.
CSKH has very poor bid support, so all it takes is one trader/investor trying to cash out at the bid - and we're all screwed.
Management needs to pump, plain and simple. If they really have the numbers this time, that's when your suppose to tout, not when your don't!
Q3 ends this week! C'Mon Mr. Green, if you have something good to report on Nov 16, lets hear it now! Silence tells the market your numbers are still poor.
Below is what my CSKH investment ($60+g's averaged at .046) looks like at .013
This stock have become totally illiquid - ZERO interest from the investment community.
IR's job is to help get the word out. If management is riding that horse too they need to get the whip out!
$0.0130 10,000 OBB 15:55:34
$0.0150 1,000 OBB 13:45:05
$0.0130 17,508 OBB 13:37:47
$0.0130 5,000 OBB 13:13:43
$0.0140 20,000 OBB 13:12:07
$0.0140 23,199 OBB 13:12:04
$0.0140 5,000 OBB 13:11:56
$0.0160 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0160 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0160 50,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 5,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0160 1,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0150 1,000 OBB 09/23
$0.0160 1,000 OBB 09/22
$0.0150 2,000 OBB 09/22
$0.0160 1,000 OBB 09/22
$0.0150 1,000 OBB 09/22
$0.0168 7,000 OBB 09/21
$0.0160 5,000 OBB 09/21
$0.0160 5,000 OBB 09/21
$0.0170 50,000 OBB 09/20
$0.0170 32,000 OBB 09/20
$0.0170 5,000 OBB 09/20
$0.0170 51,000 OBB 09/20
$0.0170 1,000 OBB 09/20
$0.0160 15,000 OBB 09/2
Bank lobby rejects reopening of Greek rescue deal
Head of bank lobbying group rejects push for Greece's private investors to take larger losses
Gabriele Steinhauser, AP Business Writer, On Sunday September 25, 2011, 1:24 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The international bank lobbying group that has been leading negotiations on giving debt-ridden Greece easier terms for its bonds on Sunday rejected calls to impose larger losses on private investors.
Forcing private creditors to write down their Greek bond holdings by more than the 21 percent tentatively agreed to in a July deal would quickly cause a "domino effect" that would see the crisis spread to other parts of Europe, warned Josef Ackermann, the outgoing chairman of the Institute of International Finance.
Such a move would ultimately cost taxpayers much more than just bailing out Greece and erode confidence in the euro, said Ackermann, who is also the CEO of Germany's Deutsche Bank, a major lender to Greece.
Germany and other rich eurozone nations have been pushing for a re-negotiation of the July deal, arguing that the economic situation in Greece has significantly deteriorated since then and may require a steeper cut in the country's debt load.
However, Ackermann quickly rejected that push, saying that the agreement was fair and already placed a heavy burden on banks at a time of major market turmoil.
"If we now start reopening this Pandora's box we will lose a lot of time and I'm not sure people would be willing to participate," Ackermann told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund.
Under the July deal, Greece is asking banks and other large private investors to swap their existing Greek bonds for ones with longer repayment deadlines, a lower face value or lower interest rates. The IIF says the deal would save Greece some euro54 billion by 2014 and euro135 billion by 2020.
However, most analysts say that those savings are far too small to make Greece's massive debts -- which amount to some 160 percent of economic output -- sustainable again. At the same time, there have been growing doubts that investors will agree to swap 90 percent of their bond holdings, a minimum threshold that Athens set to make the deal worthwhile.
Getting private creditors to agree to the deal comes at a heavy cost for Greece. Apart from temporarily being rated in "selective default" -- a first for a eurozone nation -- the country has to spend some euro42 billion on setting up a collateral fund that would secure the remaining value of the bonds.
If at some point Athens decides that a steeper cut in its debt was necessary, that money would go to the bondholders.
"If the July deal goes ahead, Greece would be locked into this perpetually," said Sony Kapoor, managing director of Re-Define, a Brussels-based economic think tank.
Greece has been relying on euro110 billion in rescue loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010. In July, when it became clear that Athens needed more help, eurozone leaders agreed on a second, euro109 billion bailout, although several aspects of that deal still need to be finalized.
To make the second aid package acceptable for their taxpayers, several rich countries led by Germany pushed for banks and big insurance companies to share some of the pain of bailing out Greece -- despite opposition from the European Union and the European Central Bank, the central bank for the 17 nations that use the euro as a common currency.
But since July, the eurozone's debt crisis has significantly worsened, partly because investors now fear that they may also face losses on bonds from already bailed-out Portugal and Ireland as well as struggling Italy and Spain. The Greek economy is now set to shrink 5.3 percent this year, up from a June estimate of a 3.8 percent decline, followed by a further contraction in 2012.
Obama lost about $15,000 on Skyterra and earned a profit of about $2,000 on AVI. Skyterra stocks continued to drop after Obama divested.
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Thursday, April 1, 2010
Hedge Fund Harbinger Capital Consummates Skyterra Communications Merger
Just a few days ago we touched on how Philip Falcone's hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners announced plans for a 4G wireless network as spectrum is apparently the hottest new asset class out there. They are doing so via their stakes in TerreStar (TSTR) and Skyterra Communications (SKYT) and yesterday after the market close we see that they filed an amended 13D and a Form 4 with the SEC, providing us an update as to what's going on behind the scenes. Simply put, Harbinger acquired 45,147,477 shares of stock and paid $5.00 in cash per share for each totaling $225,737,385. Upon the completion of this transaction, the stock was canceled and ceased to exist (i.e. merger complete). As such, the company is now privately held with no public market for stock.
Before we dive into the legal jargon, we'll just preface this in layman's terms by saying that all you really need to know is that the merger between SKYT and Harbinger was consummated. On March 29th, Harbinger acquired 23,042,077 shares of voting common stock at $5 per share and 22,105,400 non-voting shares at the same price. This transaction was part of Harbinger's acquisition of Skyterra through a merger and all shares of common stock not previously held by Falcone's hedge fund firm were "converted into a right to receive $5.00 in cash, subsequently canceled and ceased to exist." Additionally, all warrants were canceled and ceased to exist as well. So, this appears to be one of the first major steps towards their play on spectrum and make sure you head to their plans for a 4G wireless network.
Other recent activity out of hedge fund Harbinger includes selling some New York Times (NYT) shares and you can view the rest of Falcone's equity portfolio here.
http://www.marketfolly.com/2010/04/hedge-fund-harbinger-capital.html#ixzz1YXvs32u4
.03 this week!
There, I said it, lol. This is so undervalued it isn't even funny.
holding for the gold
That's because at 6am in New York it's high noon in Europe
It has to be the 6am PR's
Today's news is very good and tells us this will move (huge) at some point when the fundamentals will it.
Right now revenues are about 4 times the market cap, lol. Someday the market cap will be 4x's revenues, and then some!
The astute investor will accumulate the weakness here.
Today's largest print was less than 40k on a news day. This company is so under the radar!
says to me solar is getting a big push!
c'mon CSKH, it's time to make the donuts!
"People who will never turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest...but here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution, pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charge at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan." -Thomas A. Edison
all set
The Clear Coil will be made available to all industries where electrical sensing is required.
The XTRAX® monitoring device was specifically designed to reliably and accurately calculate the energy production of renewable electrical energy systems while maintaining a very low cost profile. XTRAX® in most cases can be installed in under 15 minutes and is the lowest cost solution that we are aware of in the market today. With the Clear-Coil, we feel this will put Carbon 612's XTRAX® even further ahead of the pack in cost and reliability.
couldn't hurt
Some timely follow through from management could help get the needle moving here!
thanks for buzzing me.
Interesting reads here. Not good hearing existing customers are having connectivity issues. I still find it hard to believe word of mouth alone didn't add new customers.
$1.5M spent and no GUI interface. Its the GUI interface that would make this a no brainer to operate.
Jim could have hired an army of Russian programers for cheap money, gheesh!
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How to find & hire top Russian programmers
April
18th, 2011
Remote Teams
Is is possible to hire developers in Russia for less than half the price of someone in the USA with the same skills or better?
Our experience is that you can but it’s not easy. You need to know exactly how to find the right people, and where to spend the time recruiting and selecting candidates. With the right know how, you can find programmers with the equivalent skills to someone earning $80 USD an hour for as little as $15 an hour.
Typical rates for developers in Russia and the former Soviet Union
It depends to some degree on the region and country. Salaries in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus for example are significantly lower than Moscow (in Russia). In fact you will find salaries in Moscow are not that much lower than the west, so the comparative advantage of hiring a programmer in this city is not great. If you are hiring in the Russian Federation, you’ll have more luck elsewhere.
Rates that you can expect for programmers in most of the former Soviet Union vary depending on a number of factors. Keep in mind that local companies can hire with salaries 10-40% lower than this range (generally, but not always, there’s are a different set of rules for foreign businesses). Typical salaries for a full staff member are around:
Php programmers $1500-$2500 USD per month
C++ programmers $2000 – $3000 USD per month
J2E programmer $2000 – $3000 USD per month
Web developer $1200 – $2200 USD per month
As a general rule it’s better to find talent from the top of the pool, rather than hiring people who are willing to accept lower salaries.
http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/04/18/how-hire-russian-programmers
http://www.guru.com/find-freelancers/Freelance-Programmers/1Q0ND0-JG24X0/Russian-Federation/Moscow?gclid=CJvTuIzKiasCFUF75Qodryby0A
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DOW futures down 245
The market will probably lose another 500 when Obama speaks...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-prasch/obama-jobs-speech_b_948705.html
With Labor Day here, football season is upon us and the baseball playoffs are around the corner. Yet the buzz in Washington D.C. is all about the President's forthcoming speech on unemployment. Undoubtedly, sports coverage will be detailed and in-depth. History, fact, and causal statements will feature prominently in the discussion. By contrast, coverage of the speech and any ensuing legislation will be devoted exclusively to personalities, party rivalries, and the conflicts between them. The unwritten rule will be "he said - she said." But for those of us not living in the District, a serious question remains -- why this issue and why now? After all, it has been evident for some time that we are experiencing a jobless recovery and neither the administration nor Congress has demonstrated a sustained interest in unemployment. But to grasp the full severity of the problem, we should closely examine an important statistic -- the unemployment rate.
As I type this essay, I am sitting next to a bowl of fruit. The quantity can be readily counted as we all share an understanding of the term "fruit." By contrast, who is or is not unemployed is more complicated as it is mediated by two important considerations. The first is politics. Incumbent politicians, the wealthy, and "free market" oriented economists generally push for a narrower definition and smaller number. The second problem is associated with agency or intention. Who is, or is not, working? Of those not working, who really desires to find work?
Consider a laid off young woman who, after months of futile and frustrating search, has decided to "make lemons out of lemonade" by reducing her expenditures, spending more "quality time" with her children, and taking some night classes. Is she "unemployed"? What of the young college graduate who can find only a few hours of clerical work through a "temp" agency while searching for a more suitable position? Or what of the recently discharged Army veteran living with her parents and helping out in the family business while continuing to look for a job? Are these persons "unemployed"?
Stated simply, the unemployment rate is the number of those able and willing to work divided by the entire labor force. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) looks to three very specific questions before determining that someone is "unemployed." First, did you work for wages, if for only a single hour, during the previous week? Second, did you perform unpaid work for a family business? Third, are you "actively" seeking work, that is to say have you been contacting employers, sending out resumes, and going to interviews over the previous several weeks? You must be able to answer "no, no, and yes" to these questions to count as part of the labor force yet be "unemployed."
By this standard it is unlikely that the persons described above would be classified as officially unemployed, although all three would likely accept a full-time job if one were available. Indeed, by some estimates over half of all jobs created during the past several economic expansions were taken by persons who -- statistically speaking -- were not part of the labor force. As a "rule of thumb," it is a fair guess that the actual rate of unemployment is three-quarters again (1.75x) as high as the official or "headline" rate (BLS calculates a less-known data series called U-6 that validates this estimate). So, for example, with today's official rate at 9.1%, it is reasonable to guess that 15.9% of the labor force is un- or under-employed (the U-6 number for August 2011 is 16.1%). This, then, is the context that best interprets the current "headline" rate of unemployment. It is, to put it mildly, a narrow definition that leaves out many people who we would usually consider unemployed. Contemplated alongside other numbers, it is evident that many American families are in desperate straights -- and the situation is getting worse. Thirty percent of America mortgagees owe more on their home than its market value. As this percentage is continuing to rise, it is increasingly made up of "prime" borrowers. An amazing fifteen percent of all Americans are on foods stamps, including one-quarter of all children. This number is also rising. With so many families in such precarious condition, can anyone be surprised that wages are stagnating, unionization rates are declining, and the distribution of income is worsening?
This brings us to President Obama's speech. Why now? After all, unemployment has been high since the day he took office. Actually, it rose initially and has remained high since. Early in his administration there was a half-hearted attempt to provide a "stimulus" to the economy, but the program was -- even then -- widely understood to be too small and too-heavily weighted toward tax cuts to be effective (For a criticism of tax cuts for the wealthy as an employment strategy see here). From the start it was evident that the administration's core approach to the economy was to do whatever was necessary to support Wall Street's largest and most irresponsible firms through thick and thin. The idea, if we can call it that, seems to have been that "trickle down" or the "invisible hand" would take care of the unemployed. So again, why now?
At first glimpse, it is reasonable to suppose that the President and his advisors are sufficiently worried about the upcoming election to actually do something for the unemployed. This would be prudent, as a reduced level of unemployment is a good predictor of an incumbent President's reelection prospects, although an important exception was President Reagan in 1984. But, if this were the motivation, one might suppose that the administration would select a plan or plans that could conceivably get the job done (For such a program, see here). Yet, it is evident that the set of programs and policies that early reports suggest are being cobbled together are either symbolic (such as a "workfare" requirement for unemployment insurance that has been pioneered in Georgia), or too small (the proposed infrastructure expenditures), or too long-term (the so-called infrastructure "bank"), to make much of a difference. Worse, their modest effectiveness is certain to be swamped by the negative impact on employment that can be anticipated from the deficit "deal" that the President negotiated earlier this fall (Dean Baker has an astute criticism of the likely content of the proposals). Moreover, we know that a serious effort to address unemployment would require a confrontation with Congress while simultaneously discomforting the President's friends and supporters on Wall Street. As we have seen repeatedly, he instinctually defers to the latter on economic matters. Hence, the idea that he plans to do something sufficiently drastic to tangibly change the unemployment numbers before November 2012 simply fails to tell us "Why now"?
By process of elimination, we can only infer that the President's agenda is symbolic and hence political. If so, what political ends might be in view? Being on record as "caring" about unemployment is always good, but President Obama and his advisors have often spoken of their "concern." A need to reiterate it does not, on its own, explain this new political initiative. It stands to reason that there must be another explanation. Perhaps it is designed to be a distraction. If so, from what are we being distracted? The answer, while admittedly speculative, is most likely "Free Trade."
It is common knowledge that the White House plans to submit three completed "Free Trade" agreements to the Senate this September -- South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. (As always, these treaties are primarily about guarantees and protections for financial and investment flows, restrictions on intellectual property, and related issues. But exploring their content will have to await another post.) With a remarkable sense of timing, the administration also plans to mark Labor Day 2011 by opening multi-party talks on a Trans-Pacific Free Trade Area. (Trade negotiators, lawyers, lobbyists, and hundreds of corporate honchos are invited to these talks -- critical economists, civil society groups, and the public are not.) The President's "voter base" is firmly opposed to these secretive and largely detrimental deals, as is the bulk of the American public. This opposition would most likely intensify if the public were fully briefed on their contents. Simultaneously, there is no question that the President's "donor base" is highly enthusiastic about these deals -- after all, they were in the room when the details were hammered out. Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers are beside themselves with excitement. The treaties promise extraordinary protection of financial and investment flows, innumerable exemptions from regulation, new and lucrative opportunities for off-shoring jobs, and political recognition and validation of the absence of labor protections and union rights that is a characteristic of most of these nations and regions. K-Street lobbyists can look forward to high fees and lavish banquets during and after the Senate vote. Big agricultural intermediaries look forward to crushing South Korean farmers with their heavily subsidized produce. This year, Colombia is on track to outperform its 2010 record of murdered unionists. If you're a plutocrat or one of their paid representatives, what's not to like?
My conjecture is that the forthcoming speech and any accompanying legislation was and is intended to provide political cover and a welcome distraction throughout the passage of these "Free Trade" treaties. As during the Clinton years, the treaties will be presented -- with meticulous dishonesty -- as jobs programs (For a glimpse of the scale of this dishonesty, consider that Panama would have to multiply its consumption of American-made goods twenty-fold to import as much as it currently exports to the United States. Even then, their total imports would have no discernible effect on our economy). Handled properly, the Washington press corps and the public could be induced to blur the distinction between a set of largely ineffective jobs programs and the proposed trade agreements. After all, the reporting is certain to downplay analysis while highlighting rancor and noise. My best guess of the end result is that the Republicans will succeed in stripping away what little is of value in the jobs programs while allowing the trade agreements to remain standing as part of some sort of "grand bargain." President Obama will then -- alas -- be "forced" to sign both. This would allow the trade agreements to become law, while minimizing the administration's "footprint." For the White House, this would be a highly desirable outcome as all early signs suggest that this is shaping up to be an election that will marked by a deafening lack of enthusiasm from rank-and-file Democrats.
President Obama's apologists will, of course, woefully complain that those crafty Republicans -- once again -- out-foxed him. Those of us who suspect otherwise will be chastened publicly. Who, the taunts will proclaim, are you going to vote for in 2012? Consider what would happen if the Republicans were to win. They would continue the Middle East wars, pursue drone attacks across the globe, expand and entrench the surveillance state, pander to the failed bankers of Wall Street, coddle Too Big To Fail financial institutions, run cover for gigantic and irresponsible polluters such as BP, pass unpopular and detrimental trade legislation, or continue to neglect the environment and the unemployed. And I agree, it would be disastrous if the Republicans were to pursue such an agenda. Happy Labor Day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-prasch/obama-jobs-speech_b_948705.html
Solar firms face tough competition as prices fall
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The solar industry stands at a point that renewable energy advocates have yearned for - and feared.
Solar cell prices have plunged, making the technology affordable to a growing number of homeowners and businesses. Sales are soaring as a result.
But as last week's surprise bankruptcy announcement from Solyndra showed, fast-falling prices mean that some solar companies are going to die.
"This is what we were hoping for," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. "You have more competition, that leads to lower prices, and it's great for the consumer. But it's hard for some companies to compete."
The Fremont firm abruptly announced Wednesday that it would lay off its 1,100 employees, file for bankruptcy and close its factory, built with a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government. The news shook the Bay Area's clean-tech industry and quickly became a political embarrassment for the Obama administration, which had touted Solyndra as a symbol of the United States' economic future.
Solyndra offered a unique product - tube-shaped solar modules that could absorb sunlight from any angle. But the company, created in 2005, found itself undercut by low-priced panels churned out by new factories in China, built with substantial backing by the Chinese government. Other U.S. solar-panel companies face the same pressure. Solyndra was the third domestic solar company to announce bankruptcy last month, joining Evergreen Solar and SpectraWatt.
"The U.S. solar panel industry is in horrible shape, and that's likely to continue as long as China continues to flood the market," said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley. "At the current (price) levels, most U.S. companies can't survive."
Consumers benefit
Borenstein was referring specifically to companies that make solar cells and panels. But the solar industry also includes companies that focus on selling or installing systems, or developing large solar projects for utilities. Some of them thrive when panel prices are low.
"When you have prices going down, it's really good for downstream solar companies," said Sheeraz Haji, chief executive officer of the Cleantech Group consulting firm. "It's really, really good for consumers."
Growing demand
Last year, enough photovoltaic panels were installed throughout the United States to generate 887 megawatts of electricity - more than twice the number installed the year before. Five years ago, according to data from the industry association, solar panels generating just 105 megawatts were installed across the entire country. A megawatt is a snapshot figure, roughly equal to the amount of electricity needed to power 750 typical homes at any given moment.
California set a record last month for the number of homeowners seeking state rebates for installing solar systems on their rooftops. The California Solar Initiative received 3,544 rebate applications from homeowners, up from 1,648 applications in August 2010. The average price California homeowners pay to install solar has dropped about 12 to 17 percent in the past four years, according to data from the California Public Utilities Commission.
Exports lead imports
A study this spring from Clean Edge Inc., a market research firm, found that worldwide sales of photovoltaic solar equipment almost doubled last year, from $36.1 billion in 2009 to $71.2 billion in 2010.
Much of that money still flows to the United States. The Solar Energy Industries Association published a report last week - before Solyndra's implosion - showing that the United States is still a net exporter of solar energy products, with exports surpassing imports by $1.9 billion last year. The country's solar industry even had a trade surplus with China.
The group reached that conclusion by examining sales data for elements of the solar industry that often get overlooked, such as companies that produce polysilicon or create the machinery that makes solar cells.
Frugal consumers
"That strongly suggests that U.S. companies are not only competitive but are winning some of the competitions," said Ralph Cavanagh, head of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "It's the performance of the entire sector and the U.S. trade balance that matters, not the fate of one individual company."
Still, solar-panel companies will continue to face a difficult market. The flood of inexpensive modules from China has turned the solar cell - once considered a high-tech product - into a commodity. Analysts say there will still be room for innovation - for newer, more efficient cells. But the companies making them will have a hard time charging a premium.
"You're in a tough place if you think you have an opportunity to differentiate and have pricing power but your customers think it's just a commodity and they're going to go find whatever's cheap," Haji said.
E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/03/BUOH1KV6PG.DTL
'hmm I'll have to do some recruiting, lol.
The residential-solar market is growing explosively
FORBES 9/02/2011
Can Clean Power Finance Be the eBay of Residential Solar?
For homeowners who want to put solar power on their roofs, a scarcity of financing has long been one of the biggest roadblocks. Many consumers simply don’t have the upfront cash to shell out some $30,000 for solar on their roof, even if it reduces – or eliminates – their electricity bills for decades.
A new player, Clean Power Finance, hopes to help eliminate the financing bottleneck for residential solar and give many more installers the chance to offer financing to their customers. The 4-year-old company, founded by Match.com founder Gary Kremen, has raised $25 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Claremont Creek Ventures, Clean Pacific Ventures and Sand Hill Angels.
“The residential-solar market is growing explosively,” said Ben Kortlang, a partner at Kleiner Perkins. “We discovered [Clean Power Finance is] delivering the most powerful set of tools and the most efficient financing in the solar-installer community and enabling the installers to grow. We felt this was a critical pain point for the residential solar industry that Clean Power Finance was solving with its technology and platform.”
How It Works
Clean Power Finance, based in San Francisco, provides software to help installers design and propose residential and commercial solar projects. Its software now gives qualified installers options for financing their specific projects. CPF is partnering with a variety of different lenders to try to get its customers the best deals, according to Nat Kreamer, the company’s chief executive. It gets a fee for each deal.
The idea is to make solar buying more like car buying. Instead of expecting buyers to pay everything outright, installers can review the options for financing then and there and can help customers apply on the spot.
CPF is hardly the first to offer financing for the residential U.S. solar market. Kreamer himself previously also co-founded Sun Run, a competitor. SolarCity and Sungevity also offer financing. These companies finance the upfront costs of an installation in exchange for an agreement from the resident to buy the power that the system produces, usually at a monthly rate that’s lower than customers’ current electricity bills.
But SolarCity does its own installations, shutting out other installers from its financing. And while Sungevity and Sun Run contract and partner with installers to do the work, they set the terms and limit the number of installers that they work with.
The model could help make many more installers competitive and give the U.S. residential solar market a boost, Kreamer claims. “Right now, very few of the people who install solar have viable financing – only 2 to 5 percent of all solar installers,” he said. “This is a huge opportunity underserved by the market.” The new tool also gives homeowners who want to finance their solar-power systems more installer choices.
Unlike leases from Sungevity or Sun Run, CPF’s financing is “white labeled,” meaning that installers don’t have to market CPF as part of the deal. Customer SolarWorld, for example, simply markets its financing program as SolarWorld Financial Solutions.
CPF’s tool gives installers more flexibility to choose from different types of financing and to alter the project specifications, including the margins, according to the company. And the relationships with Clean Power Finance also are nonexclusive, meaning that installers can go elsewhere if they find a better deal – and still keep using CPF’s financing.
EBay for Solar?
Joe Kraus, a partner at Google Ventures, compared CPF to online marketplace eBay, saying that it will create a larger marketplace for lenders and installers that will aggregate a large chunk of demand in one place. He called it an important tool at a time when many new installers are entering the residential-solar market and most of them need financing. “In the past, most of the installers had to negotiate their own financing, but that doesn’t scale very well,” he said.
Barry Wardak, president and owner of installer California Solar Systems, said his company’s monthly installations have nearly tripled since it began using CPF’s financing tool three months ago. “That growth is solely based on financing,” he said. California Solar Systems is a small installer that completed roughly 140 to 150 projects per year in 2009 and 2010.
Previously, his company had to rely on customers who could get their own loans. With the low housing values, fewer homeowners have the equity to get loans based on their homes, making sales a challenge. The availability of financing has relieved the bottleneck on California Solar Systems’ business. Now the company is hiring and trying to catch up with its two-month backlog of sales.
While CPF didn’t disclose its finance partners, the company has enough initial funding to financing “thousands” of residential installations, Kreamer said. The company plans to announce its funding for the solar projects in the next few months.
Late to the Game?
Still, the company faces plenty of challenges. For one thing, its competitors have already been making major headway. SolarCity, the largest U.S. residential-solar provider, accounted for 22 percent of the residential solar installations in California in the last quarter, with Sungevity making up 3 percent.
Jonathan Bass, a spokesperson for SolarCity, said CPF’s model sounds very similar to the one that Sun Run and Sungevity have pursued: They essentially act as middle men for installers. ”The more of them there are, the better for the small installers so that no single financing company can dictate their terms.”
SolarCity’s not concerned about the increased competition, he said. The company provides both installation and financing, which could make it easier for customers if something goes wrong with their systems, and will match any offer on a cost-per-kilowatt basis, he adds. With more than $1 billion in financing with a wide range of partners, including Google, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, and its large scale, “it would be very difficult for anyone to match that,” he claims.
Also, Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that more financing could raise prices for solar-power systems. “Because installers are providing financing, if they can push up the price of the systems, they have an incentive to do so.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferkho/2011/09/02/can-clean-power-finance-be-the-ebay-of-residential-solar/2/
U.S. Solar Installations Rose 66% in Q1
By Energy Interns on Jun 16, 2011 at 12:45 pm
U.S. Solar Installations Rose 66% in First Quarter
Developers installed 252 megawatts of photovoltaic power systems in the first quarter, compared with 152 megawatts a year earlier, according to a report released today by the Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association.
“Strong demand continues to make solar one of the fastest- growing industries in the United States,” Rhone Resch, SEIA’s president, said in a statement.
Commercial and government projects accounted for 59 percent of the installations, compared with 44 percent a year earlier. Residential projects were 28 percent and the remaining 13 percent came from utility-scale plants.
The cost of installing solar power is falling, driven by lower costs for components, greater economies of scale and streamlined development and installation, the report said. Prices of solar panels in the first quarter fell about 7 percent from a year earlier.
nice find Diva!
I hope the bidwhackers today enjoy their money this weekend.
Maybe next week they'll be lamenting, lol.
Hard to believe all the .015 prints today. This could very well be "the" cleansing washout we need to turn this around.
This is not dilution selling creaming the pps, Its scared retail investors selling into the weak bid.
China Benefits as U.S. Solar Industry Withers
Workers install solar panels at a power station in Hami in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: September 1, 2011
HONG KONG — The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs.
Solar panel inspection at a factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Chinese companies' cost advantages overwhelm any lags in technology, analysts say.
Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.
Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.
“The top-tier Chinese firms are kind of the benchmark now,” said Shayle Kann, a managing director of solar power studies at GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm based in Boston. Pricing of solar equipment is determined by the Chinese industry, he said, “and everyone else prices at a premium or discount to them.”
Besides Solyndra, the other two American manufacturers that filed for bankruptcy in August were Evergreen Solar, of Massachusetts, and SpectraWatt, a New York company. Another company, BP Solar, halted manufacturing at its complex in Frederick, Md., last spring.
Those bankruptcies and closings represent almost one-fifth of the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the United States, according to GTM Research.
Solyndra and Evergreen in particular suffered because they pursued unusual technologies whose competitiveness depended on their using less polysilicon, the main material for solar panels. That has become less important because polysilicon prices have tumbled more than 80 percent in the last three years as output has caught up with demand.
Analysts say that two American companies remain strongly placed. One is First Solar, the largest American manufacturer, which uses a different technology but has its biggest factory in Malaysia. The other, SunPower, is much smaller but is an industry leader in the efficiency with which its panels convert sunlight into electricity, so that they sell at a premium to Chinese panels.
But with Beijing heavily supporting its industry, the Chinese companies are forging ahead.
“There is no question that renewable energy companies in the United States feel pressure from China,” said David B. Sandalow, the assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the United States Energy Department. “Many of them say it is cheap capital, not cheap labor, that gives Chinese companies the main competitive advantage.”
China’s three biggest solar power companies — Suntech Power, Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar — have all in the last two weeks announced second-quarter sales increases of 33 to 63 percent from a year earlier.
Yingli and Trina were also profitable in the quarter. Suntech posted a loss, mostly because it broke a longstanding agreement to buy solar wafers — critical components in the manufacturing process — from a Singapore affiliate of MEMC Electronic Materials of Missouri. Suntech aims to make more wafers itself.
Shares in large and small Chinese solar power companies have mostly rallied in the last two weeks on the New York and Hong Kong stock markets, as investors have welcomed their strong quarterly results and the prospect of dwindling competition from Western rivals. Besides the bankruptcies in the United States, solar power companies in Germany, another big producer, have been laying off workers and retrenching.
The recent strength of Chinese stocks “truly reflects the low cost base of the Chinese solar manufacturers, and it is great to see their positioning, particularly relative to their American and European counterparts,” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a Chinese clean energy investment company based in Beijing.
He attributed the Chinese industry’s low costs not to inexpensive labor in China — high-technology solar panel manufacturing is not labor-intensive — but rather to free or subsidized land from local governments, extensive tax breaks and other state assistance.
Solar panel prices have plunged by 30 to 42 percent per kilowatt-hour in the last year as manufacturers have sharply increased capacity, particularly in China. Meanwhile, demand has been somewhat weak in the main markets in the United States and Europe.
Costs for electricity generated by utility-scale solar installations now approach costs for natural gas in some markets, like California’s, when subsidies of as much as 30 percent of the price are included. However, costs remain well above the cost of electricity from coal.
The United States and the European Union have tried to build demand for solar power by subsidizing the buyers of solar panels. But increasingly those subsidies are being used to buy solar panels from China.
The Chinese government has pursued a different policy course. Instead of subsidizing the purchase and use of solar power, China has focused on building the competitiveness of the country’s manufacturers. As a result, China exports 95 percent of the solar panels it produces. The United Steelworkers union filed a legal complaint a year ago with the United States government, asking the Obama administration to investigate China’s clean energy subsidies and other policies and to bring cases against them at the World Trade Organization. The organization’s rules strictly prohibit export subsidies, to prevent countries from buying market share in foreign markets for their producers.
The administration did challenge one Chinese government practice: giving subsidy grants of $6.7 million and $22.5 million to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that agreed not to buy imported components.
China agreed in June to discontinue the practice, but by then it had already built the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturing industry over the last five years and now has highly competitive Chinese producers for almost every component.
Nkenge L. Harmon, a spokeswoman for the United States trade representative’s office, said on Thursday that the agency’s investigation continued into whether other Chinese green energy policies might violate W.T.O. rules.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/business/global/us-solar-company-bankruptcies-a-boon-for-china.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
goodluck. Cutting losses is prudent move. Some of us however are in too deep.
Good numbers are in the works here and dilution in under control so I feel patience will be rewarded.
The market keeps hating solar so I know its an uphill battle.
Looking at these charts CSKH is not showing the collective down slope...
Unlike big board stocks, explosive upside moves happen in pennyland, and one day CSKH will do just that!
The OS is stable at 29.8M
So I'll venture to say lack of bid support as peeps loose interest and begin to look for better plays.
I moved NITE, lol.
Its a loooooong way to Nov 15th
egads... what will the pps be trading another 2+ months like it's now doing? The spread could 100% by then.
Too bad swearing is against the TOS
I could really let it rip!
no changes here either...
http://www.clearskiessolar.com/projects.html
Isn't there anything management has that's worth telling us (AT 9:15AM and not 6am) before we longs are totally wiped out?
well stated
The end result of all the good news since Mid July (pps .20) to today (pps .08) was financiers over selling.
Something needs to change. Can't Matt find anyone to invest in his company (ie restricted share private placements)?
08/29/2011 5:02AM Cord Blood America Enters Agreement With BancoVida, a Cord Blood
Collection Company in San Juan, Puerto Rico
08/18/2011 5:02AM Cord Blood America Enters Agreement With Premera Blue Cross to Offer
Member Discount on Stem Cell Collection Services
08/16/2011 5:02AM Cord Blood America Announces Agreement for New Stem Cell Collection
Company in Jordan
08/11/2011 8:16AM NeoStem and Cord Blood America Look to Make Splash in Stem Cell Market
07/17/2011 12:38PM Cord Blood America CEO Matthew Schissler Interviewed on International
Successes
ibox updated with current SEC filings, press releases, share structure, and revenues.
(Just got my power back, 1/2 of Rhode Island is still without power!)
only 6k volume today, No one is forcing shares down our throats!
This stock is so ready to go!
I loved the "Mendoza line" story. A perfect analogy to CSKH's pps.
Now what we need is for Mendoza to start belting a few and knocking in some runs so CSKH can see how its done! lol.
------
Mendoza remained with the Pirates as a defensive replacement through 1978, playing some second and third base as well. In five seasons with the Pirates, Mendoza batted .221, .180, .185, .198 and .218, respectively. Following the 1978 season, Mendoza's request for a trade was granted as he, Odell Jones and Rafael Vasquez were sent to the Seattle Mariners for Rick Jones, Tom McMillan and Enrique Romo on December 5, 1978.
In his first season in Seattle, Mendoza made a career high 401 plate appearances in a career high 148 games and 132 starts at shortstop. While providing the Mariners with a steady glove, he ended the season with a .198 batting average—making him only the fourth major leaguer ever to play as many as 148 games in a season and fail to break .200. The following year, however, Mendoza fared better at the plate, batting .245 in 277 at-bats.
Mendoza was inducted into the Mexican League Hall of Fame in 2000.[6]
In an interview in 1980, during his pursuit of a .400 season batting average, George Brett reportedly stated, “The first thing I look for in the Sunday papers is who is below the Mendoza line.” The reference caught the attention of ESPN announcer Chris Berman, and the "Mendoza Line" became part of popular culture. Brett also praised the defensive abilities of Mendoza, claiming Mendoza robbed him of sure base hits on several occasions with exceptional defensive plays.[7]
An alternate explanation for the term refers to the concept of a player failing to "hit his weight." (Now that's CSKH!) Pirates announcer Bob Prince used this meaning in the 1970s while Mendoza played for Pittsburgh. During his playing career, Mendoza weighed 187 pounds, and literally batted less than his own weight quite a bit of the time as his career batting average was .204 at the time of his trade to Seattle. Since then, the Mendoza Line has been arbitrarily set at values ranging from .180 to .215. Mariner teammates Bruce Bochte and Tom Paciorek have also been credited as creators of the expression.[8]
good one! lol.
The Mendoza Line is an expression in baseball in the United States, deriving from the name of shortstop Mario Mendoza, whose lifetime batting average is taken to define the threshold of incompetent hitting. Even though Mendoza's career batting average over nine seasons was .215, most often the cutoff point is said to be .200, and, when a position player's batting average falls below that level, the player is said to be below the Mendoza Line. This is often thought of as the offensive threshold below which a player's presence in Major League Baseball cannot be justified, regardless of his defensive abilities.
In CSKH's case, the Mendoza line is definitely .02
Any thing below that is pure INCOMPETENCE!
$0.0210 1,000 OBB 11:55:36
$0.0190 5,200 OBB 11:26:12
$0.0190 10,800 OBB 11:26:11
$0.0200 10,900 OBB 11:25:47
$0.0200 5,000 OBB 11:25:44
$0.0210 100 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 13,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0210 1,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 10,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0210 1,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 20,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0210 64,500 OBB 08/22
$0.0210 1,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 3,800 OBB 08/22
$0.0205 1,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 15,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0200 50,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0198 47,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0198 1,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0190 2,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0190 10,000 OBB 08/22
$0.0180 3,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0190 25,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0190 190,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0185 5,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0190 5,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0188 5,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0180 49,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0188 25,000 OBB 08/19
$0.0180 26,000 OBB 08/19