A true representation of health in any industry is said industry’s standing in the stock market. That sounds painfully simple, and it is, but sometimes we can get so lost in the weeds between policy, emerging technology, legal battles and system failures that we forget what makes the world go round: money.
And, while we can sit here for hours analyzing every single publicly-traded solar company, there is a better way: the Invesco Solar ETF (TAN:NYSE Arca). For anyone new to this terminology, an exchange traded fund (ETF) is essentially a traded product that is tied to a basket of underlying individual stocks. These are popular for getting a diversified holding in a low-cost way, because as stocks they are liquid and have low management fees, as they are tied to an index or a sector.
- Solaredge currently sits at $87.22, up from $36.15 to start the year, a growth of 141%
- Enphase is at $24.25, up from $4.92 at the start of the year, though down from the company’s $34.83 peak in August, good for a YTD growth of 393%
- Sunrun comes in at $16.55, up from the year’s 10.98 start, though down from its 20.39 July peak, good for 51% growth
- First Solar is at $56.96, up from a $42.56 start and down from a $67.31 peak, good for 34% growth
- Sunpower is at $10.12, up from a $5.07 start and down from a $15.10 peak, good for just under 100% growth
The success of the Invesco Solar ETF is reassuring for an industry that has taken off exponentially in the past decade. What’s more is that the companies listed above appear to be going through more than quick booms. Nearly all of those companies reached their peaks earlier in the year and have since fallen. And, while falling is not a good thing, it can be interpreted as one, as each stock has recovered in turn, building a base of consistent week-to-week and month-to-month growth.
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I’ve been in TAN for over 10 years – still way down from it’s all time high and I’m still underwater.
Not a concern, I’m in it for the long haul. I knew when I got in it wasn’t for the faint of heard.
As Joseph noted in a way, this is typically misleading. Great news if you invested in that big December massacre in the market but for those of us who have been invested in solar for several years, we’re substantially underwater in our investments and staring profitless prosperity straight in the face tooo. A similar story to this was on CNBC recently. These stories always seem to pop up after a major selloff which we just had/are in the process of having. Wall Street does not in fact like the solars and I feel pretty foolish for having invested so much. Fortunately I also invested in rooftop solar for our home which will likely get me greater ROI than the FSLR/TAN/CSIQ shares that I hold. Nobody buys and holds solars and the longer term stock performance is sickening.