By Paul Goodwin, Editor of
Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report
From Cabot Wealth Advisory 6/16/11 Sign up for free Cabot Wealth Advisory e-newsletter
My stock pick today is
GT Solar (SOLR), a New Hampshire-based company that actually has a supportive chart to go along with its good story and supportive fundamentals. Despite the name, it's only partly a solar story, which may be helping it along.
GT Solar sits back a step from the volatile world of retail and wholesale sales of completed solar cells, panels and arrays. It does this by supplying the specialized equipment that's used to produce photovoltaic cells and arrays. Whether a solar company is in China, the U.S. or anywhere else, there's a good chance that the equipment it uses to grow its polysilicon and multicrystalline ingots came from GT.
The company doesn't have all its eggs in the solar basket, however, as the company's product line also includes furnaces that produce industrial sapphire, which feeds the surging LED lighting industry.
Annual results have been growing rapidly, with revenue up 65% in 2011, and earnings more than doubling from 60 cents per share to $1.24 a share. Q1 results revealed a 78% rise in earnings on a 40% gain in revenue. And the company just reiterated its fiscal year guidance and raised its orders backlog for the year.
The trailing P/E ratio on SOLR is just 10 and with a forward P/E of 8, there's not much bloat in the stock. SOLR's price is just appreciating into the low teens, where it will become more attractive to large institutional investors. This is a stock that has rallied from 5 in May 2010 to as high as 14 earlier this month.
It's also worth noting that the videos on GT Solar's website all feature Chinese characters and the company's Asian offices include a headquarters in Hong Kong, with mainland branch offices in Shanghai, Beijing and another in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
There's not a lot of wisdom in either trying to anticipate a market bottom or buying while the broad market is in a downtrend. But GT Solar belongs near the top of your watch list for action when the clouds clear and sellers retake control of the market.
Editor's Note: Click here to learn more about GT Solar and other top stocks recommended by Cabot China & Emerging Markets, which was the #1 ranked newsletter for five-year performance in 2009 and 2010 with a total return of 174%. Don't miss another five years of monster growth! Get started today.
Paul Goodwin
Emerging Markets Specialist, Analyst and Editor of Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report
A researcher and writer for over 30 years, Paul Goodwin has been a member of the Cabot investment team and editor of
Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report since 2005. Under Paul’s stewardship, Hulbert Financial Digest rated Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report the number-one-rated newsletter of 2006 with a 78.6% gain for the year, the number-one-rated newsletter of 2007 with a 74.1% return, and the top-performing investment adivsory for five years with a 17.9% annual return.