TAN (solar ETF) and FSLR charts:
If you include the huge 2008 collapse in your chart, and don't use a log vertical axis, then everything since late 2008 just looks like a squiggle at the bottom of the chart. Solars participated in the bull market that began in March 2009, but only for 3 months. Since then, it's been a relentless decline (masked sometimes by huge volatility). Last week, TAN came close to the 2009 lows.
FSLR, the largest cap solar by far, shows the same pattern. Mostly, the stock has been in a $110-150 range, with little volume above and below that range, since late 2008. The large short position in many solars, is very confident, since they've been right for a long time. I won't be confident we've seen anything but a ST bottom, till those shorts start covering, and we see weekly volume over 30M (like at the 2008 and 2009 lows). A successful retest of the recent lows would also give me more confidence.
If I use 8/19/11 as my starting point (instead of your mid-2008), then FSLR and TAN have outperformed the S&P500. This shows I can find numbers and charts, to support being bullish (or bearish, or anything else I want to believe), if I carefully (very selectively) choose what to look at. :-) |
