# Canadian Solar?



## investforlife (Dec 8, 2017)

Hello everyone. I'm looking at buying some stocks in the company "Canadian Solar." In November Thomson Reuters published a "Top Top 100 Global Energy Leaders," and a list of "Top 25 Energy Subsector Honorees." Canadian Solar is in that second list. 

I'm a newbie to investing, and have decided I want to buy some stocks, instead of going with index funds. If I do enough research to feel confident, I'm hoping to purchase a couple thousand dollars worth of stock before the end of the year.

Renewable energy appeals to me a great deal, and I'm interested to go with a Canadian company. Canadian Solar looks good on the surface, but obviously I need to do more research.

Any insights into Canadian Solar would be most appreciated.


----------



## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

If you take a close look at the past chart you will observe that this stock and most of the other solar stocks, have been incredibly volatile. The price swings are enormous. There are many reasons for it but it tends to follow the ebbs and flows of the political will of the various developed countries. One day the politicians think they can garner a lot of votes by catering to the environmentalists and proceed to enact programs to fund more use of solar power. The solar stocks consequently rally and produce massive profits from these programs. A little later, after the budget deficits come in larger then expected (as they usually do), they tend to discontinue this poor use of taxpayer money, since most democratic countries cannot really afford to sink large amounts of taxpayer dollars into an energy source, when fossil fuels are abundant, and don't need to be directly funded by the taxpayer. During these times the solar stocks crash and burn. 

This political debate has been going on for the last couple of decades and you need to ask yourself if you want to participate in it or not. If you do, you need to be as ready to sell the stocks as you are ready to buy them. Until solar becomes efficient enough to not need subsidies from government, these swings will continue.

That is my opinion. Oh and keep in mind that Canadian solar currently has a takeover bid on it by one of its founders, if I recall correctly. I would review that carefully before you make any decisions on that particular stock.

Good luck to you.


----------



## investforlife (Dec 8, 2017)

Thanks for this, I appreciate the insights on how the stock prices fluctuate with the political situation. This is the type of factor I need to learn more about, as I'm just beginning my reading on renewables. 

On your second point about the cost of renewables, from everything I've read, solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuel based energy production. It's cheaper to produce, and that doesn't even factor in the cost of up-keeping fossil fuel plants, which is much greater cost than that of solar and wind. i've been following renewables for over ten years. Obviously there are a lot of factors, but my observation from all the reading I've done (including reading on "why investing in renewables is a bad idea," the tables have turned, and fossil fuels are on the way out, faster than even the most optimistic renewable enthusiasts had predicted.


----------

