For those who believe in alternative energy and expect big things from the industry may have to hold on a little longer. Throughout this week T. Boone Pickens has been going around speaking at events as well as being interviewed on CNBC on Wednesday saying that because of the credit crunch, his big plans for huge wind farms will be delayed.
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The financing just isn’t there and with falling prices natural gas that are used in power plants as well as oil prices hitting levels that haven’t been seen in over a year and a half are making his projects less economical.
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As I’ve writen before here on this blog, Pickens started a campaign to help the U.S. reduce their need for foreign oil. The plan is for major investment in the wind energy and the conversion of natural gas for vehicles
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He has said that this is just a temporary setback due to the financing of the project. When he spoke with the New York Times he was quoted in saying. “When we were looking at the project, we felt like we could do it with 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt.” The 70 percent debt is where we’re having a little slowdown.”
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Mesa Power, a company that he founded was given the job to oversee the massive wind farm in Texas that would be able to power over 1.3 million homes. The company has placed the orders for the first phase of the project. A total of 667 turbines from General Electric will be able to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity that will power more than 300,000 average homes.
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Originally that part of the project was to go online in early 2011.
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This is just part of what we’ll see for the next several months with the condition of the credit crisis. So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

photo by petrick2008
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As we see with the way the stock market performed today, the sell-off kicks back into high gear. Investors are still concerned about the condition of the economy no matter who won the election.
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The rally that took place over the last week in alternative energy was erased today with the sell off. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) which was up $70 in the past week gave back $24 (-13%) in today’s trading.
The rest of the sector did just as bad with Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) taking the biggest hit of almost 21%. Suntech was trading last week at $11 and gained almost 90% before today’s beat-down. The one stock in the sector that escaped the abuse of today was Biofuel Energy Corp (NASDAQ:BIOF) which gained just over 28%, take in mind though that this stock is a penny stock and gains like that are quite common.
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In the financial area of the stock market, the sector was another wash-out with nearly if not all of the stocks lost ground. Out of the ones that I really keep an eye on, the best performers still lost over 5%.
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), a stock that I’ve talked about before here on this blog took the biggest hit, losing over 25%. Last week the stock traded as low as $2.85 (where I picked up 200 shares) and yesterday hit an intraday high of $8.40, a gain of almost 200% in just a few days.
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I’ve been saying it for some time now, but you need to be ready for when the stock market will turn (good or bad). If I didn’t sell out of AGM when I did, I would have lost some great gains. Don’t get me wrong, I did keep some shares (since I’m now trading with their money). When you get big gains like the one I just spoke about, you need to remember not to be greedy and SELL.
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*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post Billy is long AGM and has no position in FSLR, BIOF and STP

Now that the election is over we can get back to what is really important, getting the economy back on track. From the looks of things that went on in the first half hour, it doesn’t look like the markets took the news very well.
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As it turned out in California yesterday, the clean energy bill didn’t get the support it needed to get passed. Which in my eyes doesn’t look too good since California is usually the leading state when it comes to clean and green type technologies for their environment. The alternative energy sector is getting driven downward in the morning trading hours. As I stated yesterday in my post, It does look good for wind, solar, and other alternative/renewable energies with Obama winning the Presidency, but for right now the sector is taking a little dip. This just be the time to get into the stocks of you choice in this sector. Buy your positions in increments and on the dips.
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As for nuclear power, McCain was for it, but at the moment Obama stated that he would have alot to look at in regards to nuclear power being used in the U.S.
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What does the future for the financial sector? It’s believe that stability will be brought back to the financial industry, but remember that could be just a false sense of security. It was announced today that the Federal Reserve has appointed a new risk manager and if their choice doesn’t put a little worry in your head, then I don’t know what would. Their choice is Michael Alix, the former chief risk officer from Bear Stearns, that’s right the man who made the decision to have Bear Stearns take on all that risk that eventually destroyed them. The only thing that I could think of is that they hired him to tell them what not to do.
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Hnag in there and take profits where you can. Happy trading.