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The Smart Grid Surge Hitting Home (ITRI, COMV, ELON, ED, CEG, DUK, FPL, NVE, POM, SO)

247wallst — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:37:50 +0000

We are seeing at least some significant moves from the company’s who have announced that they are grant recipients under part of the $3.4 billion Smart Grid pledge from the Obama administration day. We are seeing the big moves in the companies which traders and investors believe will receive the direct orders from the utilities, and are even seeing gains down in the utilities and power companies who are getting direct grants.

Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI), for smart metering systems, was up 3% at $59.56 with a $2.38 billion market cap. Comverge, Inc. (NASDAQ: COMV), for peaking and base load capacity solutions to electric utilities, operators, and electric markets, is up 10% at $12.95 with a $286 million market cap. Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is up 7% at $14.70 with a $598 million market cap.

In the utility sector we are seeing the following moves:

Consolidated Edison Inc. (NYSE: ED) up 0.3% at $41.47; $136 million grant vs. $11.4 billion market cap.
Constellation Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE: CEG) up 0.4% at $32.03; $200 million grant vs. $6.45 billion market cap.
Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE: DUK) up 0.15% at $15.95; $200 million grant vs. $20.7 billion market cap.wins $200 million smart grid grant
FPL Group Inc. (NYSE: FPL) down 2.2% at $50.95; $200 million grant vs. $21 billion market cap.
NV Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NVE) up 1.3% at $11.52; $138 million grant vs $2.7 billion market cap.
Pepco Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: POM) up 0.4% at $14.51; $168 million grant vs. $3.2 billion market cap.
Southern Company (NYSE: SO) up 0.35% at $32.69; $165 million grant vs. $26 billion market cap.

Many of the beneficiary companies have not reported yet their awards.

Jon C. Ogg
October 27, 2009

Posted in Green Biz, Politics, Utilities Tagged: CEG, COMV, DUK, ED, ELON, FPL, ITRI, NVE, POM, SO

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades/Downgrades (AMGN, CELL, ELON, SATS, KR, QLGC, MBI, PETM, S, YUM)

247wallst — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:58:50 +0000

These are the top 10 pre-market analyst upgrades and downgrades in Wall Street research calls this Tuesday morning:

Amgen (AMGN) Started as Buy at RBC.
Brightpoint (CELL) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Echelon (ELON) Raised to Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
Echostar Holdings (SATS) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Kroger (KR) Started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
QLogic (QLGC) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
MBIA Inc. (MBI) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
PETsMART (PETM) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Sprint Nextel (S) Cut to Underweight at Piper Jaffray.
YUM! Brands (YUM) Cut to Neutral at UBS.

JON C. OGG
AUGUST 11, 2009

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: AMGN, CELL, ELON, KR, MBI, PETM, QLGC, S, SATS, YUM

Rough Week For Smart Grid Players (ITRI, DGII, COMV, ENOC, ELON)

247wallst — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:21:02 +0000

Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) is supposed to be one of the winners in the stimulus package. The advanced metering company is known as the Smart Grid meter reader to many traders. The company is involved in metering, data collection and utility software solutions for electric, water, and gas utilities, and it claims nearly 8,000 utilities worldwide as its customer base. This is one of the companies deemed to be a winner under the Obama stimulus package. Where this gets interesting is that Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII), Comverge, Inc. (NASDAQ: COMV), EnerNOC Inc. (NASDAQ:ENOC), and Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) are all other smart grid plays and not large caps that have had a rough week in stock prices.

But this week has been a rough week for Itron. Last Friday this closed at $63.17 and it closed out 2008 at $63.74. Shares closed at $58.04 yesterday. Despite the market woes this week, the weakness here at Itron appears to be over worries of a delay in the company’s advanced metering infrastructure deployment. We saw that this was due to software issues as a pact with San Diego Gas & Electric has fallen short of initial hopes in numbers of homes. There are some security concerns in the software from what we have seen and been told, although to what extent is still in the air.

Pacific Crest cut earnings targets for 2009 over the last week and UBS downgraded the stock to Neutral earlier this month. The company is set to report earnings next week on Wednesday, February 18. Based upon what we have seen in many infrastructure support companies, it is no shock that traders have been selling this one ahead of earnings as so many are very cautious on even the “good” and “smart” capital expenditures being pushed down the road from utilities.

Just last week, Itron announced a collaboration with Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII) to enable utilities to remotely monitor and control distribution automation devices utilizing the OpenWay advanced metering infrastructure network by Itron. DGII closed yesterday at $7.96, down from $8.65 last week and from a high this week of $8.89.

Comverge, Inc. (NASDAQ: COMV) is another player that is deemed to be a winner in the smart grid. It is in the field of measuring peak and base load capacity for electric utilities and grid operators under the Smart Grid. Its shares were at $5.57 last week and are trading at $5.25 this morning.

EnerNOC Inc. (NASDAQ:ENOC) provides demand response applications and joins up utilities and end users to work around peak load demand for many large customers. This can include automatically shutting down HVAC units, dimming street lighting and the starting of back up generators to smooth out the disturbance. This stock closed out last week at $12.11, and even with a small gain this morning it is at $11.28.

Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is up this morning after the announcement that it joined The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition (DRSG). Echelon is a pure-play for the grid stocks as it provides both an advanced metering system and networking technology to extend energy management applications into individual devices inside homes and businesses. If it weren’t for a 5% gain because of a “Smart Grid” headline boosting it to $6.70 early on, it would have looked worse here too. This was at $6.99 last Friday.

Jon C. Ogg
February 13, 2009

Posted in Cult Stock, Infrastructure, Technology Companies, Utilities Tagged: advanced meter readers, COMV, Digi International DGII, electric grid, ELON, ENOC, ITRI, Itron, Obama, smart grid, smart grid monitors, smart grid stocks, stimulus package

Wachovia Initiates Alternative Energy (CPST, ELON, FCEL, ITRI)

247wallst — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:05:01 +0000

Wachovia has initiated coverage of some alternative energy stocks this morning. There may be other calls so we’ll follow up with more later depending on the length and details. Here are the ones we saw so far this morning:

Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST) Started as Outperform at Wachovia.
Echelon (NASDAQ: ELON) Started as Outperform at Wachovia.
FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) Started as Market Perform at Wachovia.
Itron (NASDAQ: ITRI) Started as Outperform at Wachovia.

Jon C. Ogg
July 10, 2008

Top Analyst Upgrades (AMAT, BP, CPST, EGLT, ELON, ITRI, KLAC, NSC, PQ, PCLN)

247wallst — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:01:44 +0000

These are some of the top UPGRADES we are seeing from Wall Street analysts this Thursday morning:

Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) Started as Buy at Banc of America.
BP plc (NYSE: BP) raised to Overweight from Neutral at HSBC Securities.
Eagle Test Systems (NASDAQ: EGLT) started as Buy at Banc of America.
KLA-Tencor (NASDAQ: KLAC) Started as Buy at Banc of America.
Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
PetroQuest Energy (NYSE: PQ) Raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) started as Buy at Stanford Research.

Jon C. Ogg
July 10, 2008