One day people will start realizing that revenues are much less important than profits, and that all the revenues in the world do not matter to the stock price if the company hands out well over 100% of the profits to their management as they did this year. Despite promising profitability this year, it's now all but certain they will end with a steep loss after barely making a profit in 2015.
For instance, if I started a company that sold $100 bills for $99, I could surely earn a huge amount of revenue with a $1M investment. But the business model is obviously flawed, and my shareholders would be bound to lose out. Revenues are only one piece of the puzzle, and a narrow focus on them as the key metric for the stock has been the source for much frustration for longs. I put the blame on the company for this as the stock promoters they hired to pump this stock, for instance this one, have pushed that narrative.
Another key development, which Nelson has attempted to spin as a positive, is the industry move from a leasing model to a sales model. Nelson will say that this is a positive, because SUNW has always been focused on the sales model. What he won't say is that the leasing model, because financing is a zero sum game, is fundamentally better for the solar installer precisely because it is worse for the customer. As time has passed customers are realizing this and the sales model is becoming more the norm. The only reason SUNW wasn't doing leasing before, is because it requires access to capital at low rates of interest, something that SUNW cannot get.
This is not a positive, at all, for SUNW. Nelson implies there is some kind of first mover advantage for SUNW as a result of this shift. He is saying that since SUNW has been focused on direct sales already they will be able to perform better than their competitors. What is actually happening is that huge, well funded competitors with experienced management teams are now focusing on competing directly with SUNW whereas before they have not been as much. The result so far is that SUNW has missed their guidance, abandoned their M&A strategy (the whole reason that Nelson is the CEO since they abandoned the cell), and has completely changed their entire marketing strategy. If you look closely it's obvious the company is now hoping the lower-margin commercial (especially ag) side of the business is going to somehow save it. In addition, by appointing the former top solar lobbyist to the BoD as well as GreedyShark, they likely hoped to take advantage of the solar plan proposed by Hillary Clinton (which would have sent huge amounts of money directly from taxpayers to solar companies), which is now obviously off the table.
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