Ballard Power Systems

BLDP-T

This burned a lot of people who thought fuel cells tech were the future. Toyota has announced--and is bucking the trend--that it's embracing fuel cells. That said, he's concerned about Ballard which is involved in one specific technology, which can be hit or miss because technology changes so quickly. It's a safer bet under the GEX ETF.

A play on hydrogen fuel cells. Went heavy toward autos, and explosive growth just hasn’t come through. Sector has consolidated around lithium ion. Market is going with the best technology, and the cheapest, and that’s lithium ion. Worries about Ballard. Bigger opportunities for hydrogen are in larger transportation, like ships.

This stock rises like a phoenix out of the ashes every now and again. There is always the promise of hydrogen fuel cells but it is never realized. From a quantitative perspective, it has negative price momentum, poor stability and currently, poor valuation because it has no meaningful earnings. If the stock was less illiquid, he would short it. (Analysts’ price target is $6.28)

Historically there was a boatload of optimism in terms of the fuel cell technology. Over the long-term, the stock has really done not very much. BYD out of China, and others, have developed an electric bus. This is certainly worth keeping an eye on, given the recent strength.

This came down from 8X BV to almost a discount to Book, and then roared all the way back to 8X BV again and then fell back to 2X. It is all over the map. He still doesn’t see any earnings coming through, which makes the calculation of FMV very problematic. He would call this speculative, and wouldn’t be the kind of stock he would buy or recommend.

The chart shows a pretty nice return from July to now, with a nice base being built from early 2015. It is going to find resistance at around $4. This name is going to be really impacted by announcements/news. If you own and have a gain, he would consider taking half your gain off the table. Then if it got above $4 with momentum, then maybe you buy some more.

In almost 20 years they have not developed as a company. You get spikes and then disappointments. You could buy at pullbacks, but chasing breakouts has been bad in terms of returns. If you like the technology you buy into the pullbacks.

A very speculative stock in the fuel-cell business. Earlier in the year, a lot of companies in this space had a huge run up in share prices. He tries to avoid these speculative stocks. For the average investor, it is extremely difficult unless you have a strong belief in theme or have done a lot of work in the area. It is difficult to value these companies.

This used to be on his watch list. It’s a question of having revenues which they now have. This is not on his Watch List any more because it has moved up quite handily.

Extremely volatile. From a valuation aspect, he can’t really comment on it because they don’t really trade on valuation. At the end of the day they are going to benefit from the ability to use and integrate these fuel cells. The problem is trying to tell what the market is really going to look like 5 years from now. Wouldn’t chase it. Would let it normalize and see what the real business plans show and what cash flows are going to look like.

This company has participated in this unbelievable “hockey stick” run that we’ve seen in a lot of the alternative power plays. Has languished for years and years and has finally started to show some life. There is a little bit of expectational hope that has been built into the battery-powered business, kind of stemming off what Tesla (TSLA-Q) has done. He is a little bit dubious. It has taken and years and years to get their core products to somewhere where customers will actually buy.

Long long base, then huge break out. The type of stock he looks at. Some profit taking happend today. (From $9 to $5, up from below $5 earlier in the week).