Gene,
Thanks for your reply. You’re right. ENPH doesn’t sell solar panels, just hardware that’s connected to them. But that doesn’t invalidate my investment thesis, namely, that as silver becomes increasingly expensive and scarce , the solar industry is going to take a hit. Silver was the bet I was making, and it has done well for me.
Below is cribbed from Simply Wall Street, a fundie website I like.
“Enphase Energy, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, and sells home energy solutions for the solar photovoltaic industry in the United States and internationally. The company offers semiconductor-based microinverter that converts energy at the individual solar module level and combines with its proprietary networking and software technologies to provide energy monitoring and control. It also provides microinverter units and related accessories; IQ Battery and related accessories; IQ Gateway and IQ Energy Router; cloud-based Enlighten monitoring service; and electric vehicle charging solutions, as well as design, proposal, permitting, and lead generation services.”
My thoughts on ENPH (and similar) are this. There is nothing “green” about “green energy” due to its multiple and very negative environmental impacts. But wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear are alternatives to oil and gas that need to be explored, and in some situations, they are appropriate. But rather than bet on individual companies, it makes better sense to bet on the broad industry through an ETF that tracks the industry, such as TAN, FAN, NLR, etc. (IMHO, ‘natch.)
That was my original quarrel with the person who was pitching ENPH and bragging how he was going to become a millionaire from owning the stock. Well, that didn’t work out too well for him, did it? Had he made a limited and prudent bet on ENPH, rather than backing up the truck, he would have fared far better. And if he had paid the least bit of attention to how the other stocks in the industry were doing at the time, he could have avoided the loss he suffered.
Yes, it’s all very pious to call oneself an “investor” and to disparage “traders”. But when every stock in an industry is being sold down, it makes no sense to play Custer and to make a stand.
As for silver, how much farther up does it have to go? Who knows? But the fundamentals are decent, both for the commodity and for its producers, That’s why I began edging in a couple years back. I knew I wasn’t “doing a trade”. I was deliberately making “an investment”. But I also knew that if it didn’t work out, I’d trade out of it. Call that approach “investerly trading” or “traderly investing” as you choose. But that, to me, is what makes sense, not “Buy-and-Hold”.
