Another Chance To Buy Power REIT On The Cheap
Tom Konrad CFA An earlier version of this article appeared on the author's Forbes blog on June 3rd. An article about Power REIT (NYSE:PW) that came out on Seeking Alpha on May 30th has sent some investors running for the hills. The article has since been removed from Seeking Alpha. According to PW's CEO, David Lesser, Seeking Alpha’s editorial staff concluded that it had reached unsupported and erroneous conclusions after discussions with him and Ryan Griffin, the article’s author. Ryan Griffin told me that he did not have time to respond to the...
Time to Buy One of the Best Peak Oil Investments
Tom Konrad CFA The Euro crisis rolls out a bargain in the stock of a leading e-bike manufacturer. A little over a year ago, I concluded a 27 part series looking into non-oil stocks that might benefit from rising oil prices by picking what I thought were the four best stocks I had found in the process. I had not yet bought any of the stocks picked because, as I said at the time, I personally do not...
A Green Peak Oil Company Expanding in North America: Stagecoach Group
Tom Konrad CFA What’s the budget-conscious way to travel in the US? If you buy in advance, flying is still reasonably priced, but increased security and wait times mean that it’s quicker to drive for shorter trips. With current high gas prices, driving is increasingly expensive. Except on a few routes, Amtrak is slow, has very limited service, and costs a bundle. In our new peak oil world of $4 gas and, more and more people are opting for bus travel. The young like it: My girlfriend’s daughter travels by bus almost exclusively, even though she owns a car....
Less Well Known Autonomous Car Stocks
Car manufacturers have fully embraced self-driving or autonomous cars. It is not because they have heard a loud clamor for such technology from consumers. No, automakers are keen on the idea because manufacture of self-driving cars could help them overcome the short comings of highly cyclical sales pattern associated with its car dependent upon a single driver. In other words, they are in it for themselves whether consumers benefit or not.
If consumers are not so important, at least investors should benefit. Besides the car manufacturers there are a few smaller companies that can give investors a taste of the self-driving car phenomenon.
LiDar and...
Where Electric Vehicles Make Sense
Tom Konrad CFA Electric Transit Buses Coming to North America Quayside electric bus in Newcastle. Photo credit: LHOON On June first, New Flyer Industries (TSX:NFI, OTC:NFYEF) unveiled its first all-electric bus prototype. New Flyer is far from the first manufacturer to launch an electric bus. The first deployment of electric buses on a commercial route was at the end of 2010 in Seoul, using buses developed by Hyundai and Hankuk Fiber. Wikipedia lists twenty manufacturers of electric buses worldwide. Even in North America, Balqon Corporation (OTC:BLQN), a...
The Four Best Peak Oil Investments
Tom Konrad CFA The best four stocks I've found in my six month quest to find the best peak oil investments. I apologize for being a tease. Since March, I've been writing this series I've called "The Best Peak Oil Investments," but in many cases what I've actually done is to warn readers to stay away from particular sectors. This bait-and-switch was compounded for my syndicated readers at Seeking Alpha when their editors decided to re-title the early articles in this series "Peak Oil Investments I'm Putting My Money On." If you've stuck...
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock (GLDD), An Oil Spill Cleanup Stock
Tom Konrad, CFA Great Lakes Dredge and Dock is curiously in the center of a many emerging trends, some of which are not yet being talked about. I've been watching Great Lakes Dredge and Dock (GLDD) for a few months as a possible alternative transportation stock to talk about for my Best Peak Oil Investments series. My thinking goes like this: barge and river transport are two of the most fuel efficient ways to move bulk cargo. Barges are even more energy efficient than rail freight for most uses, according to the Congressional Budget Office. One...
Will Electric Bicycles Get Americans to Start Pedaling?
by Marc Gunther. First Published on Yale Environment 360 Electric bicycles are already popular in Europe and in China, which has more e-bikes than cars on its roads. Now, manufacturers are marketing e-bikes in the U.S., promoting them as a "green" alternative to driving. Most Americans know about Tesla , the Chevy Volt, and the Nissan Leaf. But what about Evelo, the eZip Trailz, and the Faraday Porteur? The first three are, of course, electric cars. They benefit from a lot of media attention and generous government subsidies, including a...
Why the Sell-off at New Flyer?
Tom Konrad CFA Heavy duty transit bus manufacturer New Flyer Industries (NFI.TO/NFYEF.PK) released its fourth quarter earnings and annual report on March 21, quickly followed by analyst downgrades from CIBC and Canacord Genuity. Too far, too fast Over the next few days, the stock fell from over $8 to below $7, although it is still well above the level where followers of my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2012 would have purchased ($5.65) even after dividend payments worth $0.22. After a rise like New Flyer has had over the last three months, some investors took the...
Buying Opportunity at Renewable Energy REIT, Courtesy of Disgruntled Shareholder
Tom Konrad CFA Power REIT (AMEX:PW) aims to be the first renewable energy infrastructure Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). The Renewable Energy REIT Renewable energy advocates have been calling for a change in the tax laws to allow renewable energy within the REIT structure. A REIT is allowed to pass profits directly through to investors. These profits are not subject to double-taxation like most corporate profits. Owning shares of a renewable REIT would be much like owning a slice of a wind or solar farm. This would open up the renewable energy investment opportunity to everyone, not just...
The Best Peak Oil Investments: Bicycle and Scooter Stocks
Tom Konrad CFA When gas prices rise, more people turn to bicycles for transportation. Will these bike and scooter stocks ride in the oil price's slipstream? UPDATE: Here is an article on one more bicycle stock that should have been on this list: Shimano (SHMDF.PK). A 2008 survey of bicycle retailers found that the vast majority of bike store owners felt that their sales had increased because many people were turning to bicycles for some of their transportation needs because of high gas prices. 95% of store owners reported that they had new customers because of...
Manufacturers Going All Out for Self-driving Car Tech
There is a clutch of self-driving cars and cars with autonomous driving features on the market today. Drivers just cannot seem to get enough of them. Apparently, the idea of zooming down the highway with little to no responsibility holds considerable appeal. Then again, maybe it is the novelty of the idea that will eventually give way to the next fad.
In August 2018, Cox Automotive revealed the results of a survey that found fewer Americans are embracing self-driving technology than previously thought. A surprising 49% of respondents said they would NEVER own a fully-autonomous car. This is up from 30% naysayers two years ago. Views...
The Best Peak Oil Investments: Nine Mass Transit Stocks
Tom Konrad CFA In 2007 and 2008, high gasoline prices gave a large boost to mass transit ridership. Here are the stocks that might benefit if that scenario repeats itself. Americans are notoriously attached to their cars, but high oil prices in 2007 and 2008 led many to get on a bus or train. According to a 2009 paper Transit Ridership Models: Present Status and Future Needs by Grace Galluci and John D Allen, Ph.D. from Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority, current published transit ridership models do not yet incorporate changes in gasoline prices. The authors consider...
Questions About Dividend Spook New Flyer Investors. Why I’m Buying
Tom Konrad CFA If I could only own one stock, it would not be a stock. It would be a Canadian "income deposit security:" New Flyer Industries which trades in Toronto as NFI-UN.TO and on the Pink sheets as NFYIF.PK. Cyclical industry New Flyer is the largest of the five suppliers of heavy duty transit buses in North America. Unlike its competitors, New Flyer is focused solely on transit bus sales, parts, and service. The company has industry leading technology, offering a full range of bus styles and propulsion systems, including diesel, liquid or compressed natural...
The Best Peak Oil Investments: Accell and Six Other Bicycle Stocks
Tom Konrad CFA This article gathers all the bicycle and e-bike stocks I've found in one place, and takes a look at a recent find: Accell Group (ACCEL.AS). When I first became interested in alternative transportation as a peak-oil investing theme in late 2007, I was frustrated at my inability to find very many good alternative transportation stocks: The list of bike stocks I found was already very out-of date, and the lists of rail transit and bus companies I found did not distinguish between publicly traded companies I could invest in, and private companies I could...
The Best Peak Oil Investments: Shimano
Tom Konrad CFA I missed Shimano (SHMDF.PK) in my recent list of bicycle and scooter stocks, but in many ways, Shimano is the best of the lot. Shimano Inc. manufactures bicycle components and fishing and rowing gear, with the bike segment accounting for about four-fifths of sales, but I had not realized that they were public until I received a note from a reader in response to my recent article on bike and moped stocks. In that article, I noted that, while bike sales rose in response to rising oil prices in 2008, bicycle repairs surged...
