Tag: ACPW

John Petersen While I jumped the gun last week and published my third quarter outlook for the energy storage and vehicle electrification sectors early, it's worthwhile to take a look back and see how my tracking list of companies performed over the last quarter and examine the past to see what the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup portend for the coming quarter. So without further delay I'll present my price performance table for the second quarter that ended on Friday. Q-2 was a dreadful quarter for Maxwell Technologies (MXWL) and ZBB Energy...

John Petersen I usually write a quarterly recap to summarize what happened in the energy storage and vehicle electrification sectors, but Q2 was a tough enough period that I don't see much sense in dwelling on the bloodletting. So instead of focusing on the past, I'll offer a quick summary table with lots of red ink and turn my attention to Q3, which is shaping up as a time of bright opportunity for some companies and profound risk for others. I expect three companies in my tracking group to perform very well in Q3 –...

John Petersen On December 16th I wrote "My favorites for a strong 2012 include AONE, MXWL, AXPW.OB, ZBB, JCI, ENS, ACPW and XIDE. They all merit serious attention from investors who want exposure to the energy storage sector." Since then four of my favorites have bottomed and turned sharply higher while the Pride of Palo Alto endures a short circuit. The following table compares today's closing prices with the December 16th closing prices for those five companies. Exide Technologies (XIDE) has been a roller coaster over the last two years. In January 2010 its 10-day...

John Petersen In "An Elephant Hunter Explains Market Dynamics" I discussed the two basic types of public companies; earnings-driven companies that are “bought” in top-tier weighing machine markets and event-driven companies that are “sold” in lower-tier voting machine markets. Today I'll get a bit more granular and show how "sold" companies usually fall into one of two discrete sub-classes that have a major impact on their stock market valuations. As a starting point, I'll ignore the China-based companies that are listed in the US because their quirky metrics would only confuse the analysis. Then I'll break...

John Petersen Epic is the only word I can use to describe an evolving tragedy that killed tens of thousands of people, inflicted hundreds of billions in property damage, destroyed 3.5% of Japan's base-load power generating capacity in a heartbeat and will cause recurring aftershocks in the global electric power, transportation and energy storage sectors for decades. While I'd love to believe the worst is behind us, I fear the times of trouble have just begun. Since it's clear that Japan will have to turn inward and serve the urgent needs of its own population first, the...

John Petersen Quarterly updates are among my least favorite tasks because they focus on where the energy storage sector has been instead of where it's going. I still haven't developed a presentation format I like, but it feels like things are heading in the right direction. Reader comments and suggestions on how I can make these updates more useful are always appreciated. The 12-month performance for the energy storage sector was dismal and the only companies that currently trade above their September 30, 2009 closing prices are Active Power (ACPW) and Enersys (ENS). Most other companies in...

John Petersen Baron Rothschild, an 18th century British nobleman, is credited with saying, "Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own." Later this week I expect a blood in the streets buying opportunity in the stock of C&D Technologies (CHP) and intend to take advantage of it. It's unquestionably a contrarian investment, but one that could pay off handsomely. I want to thank Ben S, a regular reader, for bringing this opportunity to my attention in an e-mail last weekend. Most investors know that the addition of a company's stock...

10.08.09 ACPW John Petersen This morning I awoke to a comment from Seeking Alpha contributor Michael Eisenberg who asked me to lay out my core thesis on why Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) merits attention from investors who are interested in the energy storage sector. While Altenergystocks and Seeking Alpha don't generally like to publish articles about companies that trade for under a dollar, I believe Active Power merits an exception to the general policies. As regular readers know, I've been a small company securities lawyer for almost...

Last Tuesday a reader who works as a consultant in the energy storage and hybrid electric vehicles industries and sent me an unpublished "pre-decisional draft" of a DOE report titled National Battery Collaborative (NBC) Roadmap, December 9, 2009, a high-level policy analysis that discusses the merits, risks and expected costs of an aggressive eight-year initiative to foster the development and facilitate the commercialization of Li-ion batteries. The draft roadmap was written during the last days of the Bush administration, has since been partially implemented in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 and has never been officially released...