Straight down but still going strong October 23, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Little Green Portfolio,Miscellany , add a commentIn the last year shares in Straight plc, Leeds based manufacturer of plastic bins for recycling and other purposes, have dropped from a high of 285.80 in November to a sorry low of 128p today. The only news has been disappointing half year results issued at the end of September which sparked a steepening in a downward trend which was already well underway.
It seems to me that at least part of this is explained by the unusual highly price of this stock last summer. With Britain in the grip of the worst drought on record, sales of water butts soared propelling the share price to a dizzy 314p. Straight struggled to meet deliveries, and moved their distribution to DHL in February to deal with future growth. The costs of these changes in the early part of the year meant that profits were down.
In August, the company acquired Gummy Bins Limited, manufacturer of bins for collecting chewing gum ‘for a nominal sum’. The share price reacted well to this, and it allowed Straight more control over the product line.
I haven’t sold my shares in this company, although they are now sitting at a loss. It doesn’t look like anyone’s selling at these prices, as trading volumes are very low. Lower than expected profits are a concern, but the company still has solid cashflows and at this price is probably now a bargain. It’s suffered some growing pains, and a little irrational hype, but I’m betting it will be a solid performer now. And if you’ve googled this after the annual results are announced in March, you’ll know if I’m right, or not.
The ups and downs of wave power May 24, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , add a commentMy holdings in Renewable Energy Holdings plc have been causing perplexity this week. I topped up on this share early in February, and its been in the doldrums ever since. However, a rather odd market announcement caused it to shoot up briefly, and I sold the shares I bought a couple of months ago for a nice wee 10% profit. Now, its sunk back down again, and I notice that it oscillates in this way fairly regularly.
I normally operate a buy and hold strategy for the shares, but I think for this, I’ll try something new. I’ve put in a buy order at 36p, and when I get it, I think I’ll put in a sell order at 48p and see what happens. It seems to fluctuate wildly on news which leads nowhere, although the underlying wave power technology for which I originally bought the stock still looks good. I’m keeping a basic holding throughout, so if it does ever do what its supposed to do and the stock takes off, I’ll still have an intereste.
One of the nice people over at the Interactive Investors discussion board pointed out this site, which is the subsidiary of REH that owns the CETO technology, and explains it rather well, with a rather relaxing video of the power-generating buoys floating up and down in the water. Go and have a look.
Which Fuel Cell companies? February 12, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , 2 commentsRight. My pension contribution is sitting in the stockbroker account, and I really need to decide what to do. Looking through the list I found a couple of weeks ago, I quickly realise that there are not many to choose from.
Voller Energy considers the military as one of its major markets, so they are hardly going to fit in with the ethical criteria I use.
Proton Power Systems may or may not be interesting, but without even having an investor relations section on their website, its impossible to tell.
Polyfuel also see the military as a major market.
Oxford Catalysts has just been shortlisted for the ministry of Defense’s Portable Power Systems research project. This is getting difficult.
This leaves three, all of which are worth a little more effort. Ceramic Fuel Cells, Ceres Power and CMR Fuel Cells are targeting rather different areas of the fuel cell market, and all are at least a year from having any sales revenue, so will be fairly speculative. It may be that buying smaller holdings in these three (and perhaps Acta, which is no more speculative than the others) is a better bet. A little more research is needed, so more blog entries to come.
Technorati Tags: fuel cell
Acta Nano-Tech January 29, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , 1 comment so farAnalysing these fuel-cell related companies is proving to be harder than expected. For one thing, its a fairly technical area so I’ve been having to read quite widely to understand what they’re talking about. The book Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Emerging Technologies and Applications (Sustainable World)
The first of the companies I identified as a possible investment in a posting a couple of weeks ago, Acta Nanotech SpA is an Italian company based in Pisa and specialising in the development of catalysts which aid reactions within the fuel cells. One of the stumbling blocks to cheaper fuel cells is that the most effective catalyst available today is platinum, which is rare and expensive. Acta have just gained a European patent for their ‘Hypermec’ catalyst, which uses base metals rather than platinum. It can also be used with ethanol or ethylene glycol as the fuel, widening the range of uses of the fuel cell.
All this sounds like a good idea, and an interesting one to watch, but it is, as the Investors Chronicle said in their 22 December 2006 edition, ‘too speculative to call’. The companies fortunes rest entirely on this technology, and there is a lot of work taking place in this area. For instance, in a rather earlier stage of development, a recent report in Science suggests that a platinum-nickel alloy may be 90 times more effective than current platinum-carbon alloys.
From a commercial and financial point of view, the company’s long term relationship with Sumitomo Corp suggests at least that someone else has faith in them. At the time of their last interim report, six months ago, they had two years cash cover, so will need to go for further funding fairly soon I suspect.
I rather like the fact that Toby Woolrych, their Chief Operating Officer, will shortly be speaking at a conference on how AIM companies can differentiate themselves by better governance, which at least demonstrates an interest in such matters.
While I can see the potential of technology which enables ethanol-based fuel cells, using fuel that is easier to produce and store than hydrogen or methanol, this stock is too speculative for me. I’ll keep it on the watchlist, and observe with interest.
Technorati Tags: Acta SpA, fuel cells
Straight down again January 27, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Little Green Portfolio , add a commentThe star of the Little Green Portfolio, Straight plc (STT), has dropped again, down to 231 at close of business yesterday, from a high last June of 314. It’s not obvious to me why this is, except that its on very low volumes so it may just be that there’s not much happening.
Full year results were announced about a week ago, as broadly in line with expectations and another new deal to provide the Waste Resources Action Group with about £2.6M work of home composting bins. It doesn’t look like a company facing any trouble, so I’m thinking about topping up.
Technorati Tags: straight plc
Renewable Energy Holdings news January 15, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , add a commentBuried deep in a trade journal, there is a little more detail of the success of the CETO trial carried out in Australia. The CETO device, which is one of Renewable Energy Holdings main strands of potential business, sits on the ocean floor and forces water through a narrow pipe to drive a turbine on shore.
Its not clear what impact this would have on the seabed environment, but there would certainly be no greenhouse gas emissions from operation (though probably some during production). Any power installation has some impact on the surrounding area so, provided care was taken, this seems a good, low-impact idea.
Trials continue this year, with likely commercialisation in 2010, making this a long term play. It is tempting to buy more now, at about 35p, given that the technology is increasingly proven but the price is almost at an alltime low.
Technorati Tags: Renewable Energy Holdings, CETO, wave power
Fuel Cell Companies January 10, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , add a commentI found a list of LSE-listed companies with an interest in Fuel Cells on Fuel Cell Today website, so took a quick look through to see what would be worth reviewing in more depth.
Bear in mind that I’m looking at investing in environmentally-friendly, small green stocks, so I’ve eliminated bigger engineering firms, and also those which have an obvious bent towards the military. As with any technology, there are always likely to be military applications, and military funding, but its not something I’m interested in.
Next step is to have a good look at the ones in green below.
| Company Name | Symbol | Investment Candidate? |
| Acta | ACTA | Yes |
| BP | BP | No, too big |
| Ceramic Fuel Cells | CFU | Yes |
| Ceres | CWR | Yes |
| CMR Fuel Cells | CMR | Yes |
| DaimlerChrysler | DCX | No, too big |
| Johnson Matthey | JMAT | No, too big |
| ITM | ITM | No – clearly marketing to the military. If you’ve got the bandwidth though, check out the video – its amazing how much the guy can bend and twist their fuel cell stack |
| Oxford Catalysts | OCG | Yes |
Polyfuel |
PYF | Yes |
Proton Power |
PPS | Yes – though website very uninformative |
| Protonex | PTX | No – clearly marketing to the military |
| Rolls Royce | RR | No, too big |
| Samsung | SMSN | No, too big |
| Shell | RDSA | No, too big |
| Siemens | SIE | No, too big |
| United Technologies | UTC | No, too big |
| Voller | VLR | Yes |
Pension time again January 8, 2007
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , add a commentIts about time I put some more money into my pension scheme, I think. Over the last year, my SIPP hasn’t really made any money, mostly due to one bad share, Renewable Energy Holdings, which I clearly should have ditched when it first started to slide. Having said that, the other shares in the little green portfolio have been very up and down, and are now about neutral, so I am going to hang onto it.
The start of the portfolio is Straight PLC, which took advantage of the water restrictions last summer to go as high as 314p in July, although its fallen to about 260p now. I’m still well in profit there.
Novera Energy hovers around 60p, which is the breakeven mark for me, and has just acquired the stake held by Macquarie Bank in a joint venture between itself and Macquarie. A good 2007 looks hopeful. The other stock, TEG Environmental, is also about breakeven at 82p, and has had some good orders over the last year.
With the exception of Straight, all these companies suffered quite badly from the correction last May, and its likely that falling oil prices will make REH and Novera look at little less attractive.
I’ve learned a couple of things. When I bought it, REH was heading into a clear high. That probably wasn’t a smart time to buy. These small shares can be very volatile, and sink into the doldrums when there’s no news, so waiting until times are quieter would be a good idea. I’m still happy with the buy and hold strategy though, and am sure that there’s a long term future for alternative energy and environmentally friendly stocks.
This time, I’m looking to buy 3 stocks in equal-value batches. I’m going to look at the fuel cells market, particularly Ceres and Ceramic Fuel Cells. Ceres share price has just gone through the roof, from 30p to 47p since the beginning of December, so I might give that one time to stabilise.
So, a few tasks:
General review of the fuel cells market
Are there any other companies in this area that are listed on the LSE
Research the companies
Go back to my original criteria, and select
I’m also reading Volker Quaschning’s book, Understanding Renewable Energy Systems
Alternative Energy Shares July 21, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio , add a commentThere’s a useful article on how alternative energy companies might develop over the next few years here, making the points that their values are tied to the price of oil, and that they are all fairly long term plays.
Although the alternative energy companies have done well over the last year, they’ve been badly affected by the recent market falls.
The oil price has gone up again in the last few days, presumably because of the war in Lebanon (and it is a war, not just a ‘crisis’ as the BBC insists), though hopefully that will calm down soon. Certainly the rise in the oil price in the last year or so owes at least as much to problems in the Middle East than any real consideration of oil reserves dropping.
In many ways, the move to alternative energy seems likely to be driven far more by geopolitical concerns, and the desire of nations to make their energy supply secure than by concerns about global warming and carbon emissions. Frankly, I don’t care how we get there, so long as we move away from our dependence on fossil fuels, and don’t take the dark road to nuclear.
Straight on up July 5, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing,Little Green Portfolio,Miscellany , add a commentStraight PLC has barely noticed the recent market correction, and it’s shares went over the 300p mark for the first time this week. Of course, they’re doing very well out of the drought in the south east of England, with water butt sales at an all time high. They’ve also recently got themselves onto the preferred supplier list of to supply wheelie bins and similar items to the Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Leicestershire) which has already won them significant business.
I wonder if these shares will peak soon, and perhaps fall as sales of water butts drop off. They’ve now risen by 25% since the start of a year in which most shares have barely held their value. I took a little profit at the 275p mark, having bought them at 205p, but although they may fall off this current high, it seems a very solid company with a number of profitable areas.
