Monday, June 28, 2010

UPDATED: Goldman Sachs Starts First Solar at Buy, SunPower at Neutral, MEMC at Sell (FSLR; SPWRA; WFR)

Premarket FSLR is up 1.9%, WFR is down 3.38%.
From StreetInsider:
Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the following Solar stocks:

First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) with a Buy rating and $150 pricetarget. The firm believes that increased exposure to the US utility scale installations should strengthen visibility and create even more competitive space for First Solar....MORE
Some more detail via Tech Trader Daily:
Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes this morning launched coverage of the solar sector with a Neutral rating on the group; among U.S.-based companies, his best Buy idea is First Solar (FSLR), while he cites MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR) as his best Sell idea.

“We initiate coverage of the U.S. solar industry with a Neutral coverage view,” he writes. “We see benefits from large-scale projects ultimately overwhelming near-term challenges and accelerating the transition from subsidized markets towards parity.”
Wienkes contends that utility projects in the U.S. and China will drive the industry toward pricing parity with other forms of power generation int he 2012-2015 period, “sooner than the Street expects.”

The analyst writes that the firm’s global solar research team sees demand reaching 13 GW in 2010 and 17 GW in 2017, about 20% ahead of consensus, driven by stable project returns despite lower subsidies. “We believe higher-than-expected demand and price declines will accelerate the profit share shift from high-cost European manufacturers to First Solar and low-cost producers in China.”>>>MORE