An Edgy Bet Straight From Sin City

I came back from Las Vegas last week with something potentially more earthshaking than some casual blackjack winnings. I came back with a cold stock tip.

The annual Investing Daily summit (which, trust me, is almost more fun than should be legal) traditionally kicks off with an analysts’ dinner, giving colleagues scattered all over North America a welcome opportunity to socialize in person.

Which is how I found myself sitting next to the whip-smart Linda McDonough of Growth Stock Strategist and Profit Catalyst Alert and ID Editorial Director Robert Frick, my boss, a prince among men and another investing maven. And in between servings of tapas, Linda and Bob were chewing on some very sour news.

A solar company they really like had just come through with quarterly results that fully justified their admiration. Only instead of a victory parade the stock got sent straight to the woodshed, emerging down more than 50% from last summer’s record highs.

It happens to all of us: even being right on the facts doesn’t always produce the expected market reaction. There are a million reasons why the often less-than-rational markets can frustrate an investor for a long time, if not permanently.

What made this instance especially galling is that the story here was especially good. The company is a supplier not of the ruthlessly commoditized photovoltaic panels or of the also widely available project development expertise, but rather of solar inverters, a high-tech component that turns collected solar energy into a usable electric current and is a key determinant of a system’s efficiency.

In other words, the model here is supplying shovels to the miners taking part in a gold rush (or, in this case, the rush to install money-saving solar panels.)

Moreover, at a time when so many speculative tech companies remain deeply unprofitable, this one is already converting the growing popularity of its gizmos into cold hard cash, while continuing to deliver gangbuster growth.

It’s time to stop being coy and start naming names: the company in question is SolarEdge Technologies (NASDAQ: SEDG).

Its drop this month, which briefly took it below its initial public offering price, doesn’t reflect its own prospects but rather concerns about the distress signals broadcast of late by the more prominent solar industry beacons. The once high-flying project developer SunEdison is bankrupt. Elon Musk’s SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY) has warned of a steep slowdown in residential rooftop installation orders as regulatory pushback from utilities in a number of states causes potential customers to hesitate.

SolarEdge has dramatically reduced its reliance on Solar City over the last year, from nearly 25% of revenue in fiscal 2015 to under 10% in the most recent quarter. Instead, it’s selling more inverters to distributors and to the no-name installers of the many large commercial projects.

But the association and the trading correlation remain, which is why SolarEdge remains such a bargain despite this week’s modest rebound from a six-month low.

I will have more on the company’s financials, technology and prospects in the next Energy Strategist. But we’re not waiting to add this likely long-term winner to our Growth Portfolio. Buy SEDG below $25.

 

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