Oppenheimer’s Lack of Enthusiasm for Ethanol (AVR, PEIX, VSE)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Oppenheimer has initiated coverage of the down and out US-ethanol sector, and the group was given a lackluster "Perform" rating.

"Perform" ratings have been assigned to Aventine Renewable Energy (NYSE: AVR), Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ: PEIX), and VeraSun Energy (NYSE: VSE).

With most of these stocks down by two-thirds or more from their 52-week highs, this won’t help a beleaguered sector.  If you watch SEC filings, you will have probably seen that Bill Gates’ Cascade fund has been selling more and more of those Pacific Ethanol positions (although he took most funds out long ago).

With the exception of the farmers and businesses that this is helping out, it becomes very difficult to find people who still believe the US-based ethanol program does any good other than helping boost the cost of agriculture. 

As we have maintained: "If Iowa wasn’t the first state on the presidential election circus, ethanol would be handled far differently."

Jon C. Ogg
April 25, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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