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Coming Week: Alternative Ideas

Aaron Task

Many investors and most media outlets are looking to the next round of corporate earnings as the key to the coming week. The earnings parade does hit full speed in the days ahead (highlights below), and the suddenly less-confident bulls are hoping quarterly results will be better received than in the week just passed.

Traders, meanwhile, are turning their attention to Tuesday's State of the Union address -- specifically, to expectations President Bush will once again highlight America's "oil addiction" and the need for alternative energy solutions.

"Based on all we're hearing, he wants to try to get ahead of this [alternative energy] bandwagon," says Greg Valliere, chief Washington strategist at Stanford Financial Group. "His main goal is to take some attention away from Iraq. Republicans are scared about further losses [in 2008], and they have to change the subject. What better issue than this?"

Unlike Social Security reform or tax credits for private health insurance, alternative energy initiatives have the advantage of enjoying true bipartisan support. There is even talk in Washington circles that the president will sign the House bill passed Thursday aimed at rolling back billions of oil-industry subsidies, provided it clears the Senate.

"Bush will be conciliatory on the subject," Valliere says. "He is starting to soften a bit on the issue of global warming [and] alternative energy."

After Bush's "addicted to oil" comment in his 2006 State of the Union, alternative energy stocks soared en masse, and many traders are looking for a repeat performance from names such as Evergreen Solar (ESLR Quote), SunPower (SPWR Quote), Pacific Ethanol (PEIX Quote) and the often-controversial Xethanol (XNL Quote), which recently got a new CEO. Each was up solidly amid Friday's otherwise lackluster tape.

Meanwhile, alternative energy stocks such as Hoku Scientific (HOKU Quote), the beneficiary of a polysilicon contract with Sanyo Electric, and DayStar Technologies (DSTI Quote), which restructured its debt Friday, were big winners last week, an otherwise difficult period.

Other winners last week included Terra Industries (TRA Quote) and Terra Nitrogen (TNH Quote).

However, one money manager sees these agricultural chemical plays declining in the coming week because they had previously benefited from weakness in natural gas, which he believes will resume Friday's bounce of 57 cents to $6.89 per million British thermal units.

Crude also rebounded Friday, as did energy stocks such as Schlumberger (SLB Quote) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC Quote). Whether the traditional energy sector continues to rebound will be another key theme of the coming week -- and another factor in whether alternative energy stocks can rally, since falling energy prices had previously damaged their appeal.

Indeed, "the big story going into next week is alternative energy -- solar, wind power, ethanol, carbon energy," says the fund manager, who requested anonymity. "People are going to start writing about it on Monday and Tuesday going into the speech, and you'll see nothing but strength going into that."

The fund manager is wary of corn-based ethanol plays such as VeraSun Energy (VSE Quote) because of rising corn prices, but is bullish and long Environmental Power Group (EPG Quote), which owns and operates renewable energy production facilities; he believes the stock will benefit if President Bush does return to the alternative energy theme.

Another option for those seeking exposure is the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy (PBW Quote) ETF, whose largest holdings can be found here.

Whatever alt-energy vehicle you prefer, don't wait until after Bush's speech Tuesday night if you want to make a bet on the SOU. The folks on Wall Street are already lining up their proverbial ducks.

One final thought on energy investing comes from Ken Fisher, CEO of Fisher Investments, a $35 billion investment management firm.

"You want right now to look at energy and say to yourself: What would not do badly if energy prices go down but do well if energy prices go up, and what would not do badly if energy prices went up but do really well if energy prices go down, and put those two together," Fisher said in an interview on TheStreet.com TV Friday.

Saying "the set is stronger than the individual pieces," he prefers StatOil (STO Quote) in the former category and Agrium (AGU Quote) in the latter, calling it a "reverse energy play" and citing the "negative correlations" between the two. Fisher's firm is currently long both stocks.

Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider Environmental Power Group, DayStar Technologies and Hoku Scientific to be small-cap stocks. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

Earnings Onslaught

Corporate earnings will dominate attention in the coming week, but a few key economic releases concerning the housing sector could steal a headline or two.

On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors will announce December existing-home sales data. The consensus estimate is for a rate of 6.3 million sales on an annualized basis, up slightly from the rate of 6.28 million in November.

New-home sales figures for December are set for release on Friday, along with the durable goods orders for the month. Economists are looking for new-home sales to have climbed to 1.053 million from 1.047 million the prior month. Durable orders are expected to show a rise of 1% vs. growth of 1.9% in November.

The earnings cascade resumes Monday with reports from Eaton(ETN Quote), Pfizer(PFE Quote) and American Express(AXP Quote).

Chipmaker Texas Instruments(TXN Quote) also will report Monday amid a rough spell for the semis. The company has already warned that sales were below its original expectations.

Tuesday's highlights include reports from Bank of America(BAC Quote), DuPont(DD Quote), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ Quote) and Advanced Micro Devices(AMD Quote).

Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) is on tap to report earnings after the bell Tuesday. Analysts are looking for the Internet giant to post earnings of 13 cents a share, down from 16 cents last year, on sales of $1.22 billion.

Among some of the notable names on Wednesday's earnings docket are Corning(GLW Quote), ConocoPhillips(COP Quote), eBay(EBAY Quote), McDonald's(MCD Quote) and General Dynamics(GD Quote).

The action remains hot and heavy on Thursday with reports from AT&T(T Quote), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY Quote), Ford Motor (F Quote) and Lockheed Martin(LMT Quote).

Microsoft(MSFT Quote) will also be reporting its second-quarter earnings on Thursday. Wall Street expects the software giant to post earnings of 23 cents a share, down a dime from a year ago, on revenue of $12.06 billion.

The frenetic pace cools off a bit on Friday, but there will still be some big hitters stepping up to the plate, including Dow components Caterpillar(CAT Quote) and Honeywell(HON Quote).

Staff reporter Gregg Greenberg contributed to this story.

1 What would best describe your stance heading into the coming week of trading? Bullish Bearish Neutral 2 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move up in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities 3 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move down in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities View the results without voting