Posts Tagged ‘Investing’

Top three ways to invest in alternative energy

October 9th, 2009

When investing in alternative energy, there are primarily three different ways to go about it. 

The first and easiest way is to do your homework in the stock/equity world of publicly traded entities.  Having invested myself in some of the largest public companies, and experiencing the wild fluctuations in today’s stock market, this approach certainly is not for the faint of heart.  As an example, the largest solar power company, first solar (FSLR), has moved over a hundred percent several times in the last couple of years, and others like sunpower (SPWR) have experienced the same.  If interested, be careful as there will be winners and losers in this market. Big risks and big rewards come together. For a list of these email us.

The second way to invest is to look at locally owned privately held companies.  As many of these are cash strapped startups, most of them will welcome your financial investment.  Of course the challenge here is to find a management team that you feel comfortable with and are willing to establish a long term relationship with in order to realize substantial return on your investment money.  

The third option is to look at your passion and interests in the field and pursue them as a company yourself and partner with others that share the same approach to the field and philosophies.  The greatest benefit to this is that you control your own destiny.  If you fire yourself you will more than likely know about it, hence you will have increased job security. 

All of the above involve tradeoffs between risk and reward.  View each approach carefully.  As always make sure that you are entering the investment for the right reason.  Rarely is it to make a bunch of money and more often than not the best investment is the one that you enter into to make a positive impact on the greater good, and thus you will also be part of the growth in your investment. 

Good luck and have fun!

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Before Investing In Alternative Energy, Eliminate Credit Cards And Other Debt

September 28th, 2009

mastercard

Lately I have been touting one of the best alternative investment opportunities of the decade, namely service stations.  Before you invest in anything, however, you need to make sure that your current financial house is in order.  Talk show hosts like Dave Ramsey (daveramsey.com) and others continuously stress the need to eliminate debt first. Get rid of ALL credit card debt and follow this sound advice, as we are currently going into another round of financial challenges which may last several years.

My concern is that there will be zero public support to have the taxpayers again bail out the companies that were in trouble and remain problematic.  I would not invest in domestic stocks, and especially those that cannot support or do not pay out dividends.  If you still feel compelled to do so, however, I would look at some equities such as the high yield monthly dividend payers (see http://www.monthly-dividend-stocks.com) which will at least return some cash to you along the way down. 

The above stated, watch foreign currencies and look to buy and store your own petroleum in your own gas station tanks. 

In future posts here, there will be more to come on converting your station to bio diesel and solar plug-ins.  After all, if the government will invest in these technologies why not you too?

Contributed by Peter Grimes on September 28, 2009

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