Monday, November 12, 2007

Wild markets, tech companies and solar tax credits

The last few days have seen wild gyrations in the stock market. While there was no single day with 1000 point drops, a few successive days of heavy selling especially in tech stocks have left most Valley companies with significantly reduced market caps. Here's an assessment on day 4 of the tech wreck. Within the 15 miles from Mountain View to Milpitas we lost a market cap of at least $100B in the space of four days. Just Apple, Google and Cisco lost $30B each and there are many other big names on that stretch. Of course, there is a lot more market cap left in these tech titans and I am sure they will come roaring back. But, exactly when remains unclear at this time.

The emerging clean tech hot companies like First Solar and SunPower were hit big time losing over 14% each just today. First Solar went up over $50 on Thursday, Nov. 8th and has almost given up all the gains by today. These and other clean tech related stocks were particularly hard hit because of the rumor that Solar investment tax credits would expire in 2008 because of a pending energy bill without provision for these. Of course, these could bounce back just as rapidly should the reports prove false. But for now, the bad news just keeps piling up on an already jittery market. It would be interesting to see when all this hits bottom and starts climbing back.

Madan

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