Tanfield

Tanfield make Zero-emission vehicles.This is a really clever bit of marketing,as electric vehicles have been associated with milk floats for way too long.This innovative Company now makes 3.5 Ton Delivery trucks which do 80 Km/50 mph, which is more than enough to cope with urban speed limits.This has won them orders from M&S and other urban fresh food deliverers. There is little negative to say about Tanfield except I worry it may be overvalued. I'm very happy that it has gained a lot since I bought it at 105 last March as it now stands at 173,and even hit 200 briefly.Perfectly poised to deal with a rapidly expanding market for clean air urban vehicles. The partnership with Ford and the huge prospects that environmental concerns will increasingly offer enormous opportunities for profit. Running all city service vehicles on electric vehicles would also help drive the market. The potential problem could lie in demand outstripping production. And at 30 vehicles a week it won't save the world,but is a good start. The supply chain could prove interesting.Who supplies the batteies and power train ? And this prompts the thought that checking out the battery makers might prove profitable Tanfield is a stock I'm holding for the long term. The real problem is that this may be accused of simply transferring pollution generated here, pollution caused by the electricity generated. Tanfield picks up speed | Comment Archive | News | Hemscott I wrote this some time ago and since then the shareprice has been what the analysts call 'volatile' Or in Simple English all over the place.I still own shares in Tanfield. I still believe in Tanfield and perhaps foolishly didn't sell and take profit when they were at the top of the market,and then buy the same or more shares when the price gets lower. For those of you glued to multiple screens,trading profitably or not: good luck to you.

LEDs to lead to energy-saving profits

What a hectic month it has been,and what happened to my promise to post every day? Well,we all know what has happened in the markets in August. And the media here managed to terrify people,too. I don't think the sum of human knowledge is added to,either,by having news anchors ask economists questions read off a Teleprompter, when it is quite clear they have no idea what the words mean. Today I bought shares in a company I have been watching for a while,and which I would have bought soner if funds were available. The company is Cree,Inc.(NASDAQ:CREE), which has jumped 25% this week. I'm in them because they are a big maker and developer of LED lights. We're all familiar with these, the little red and green lights on the front of our set-top boxes and other electronic toys. Well, they have come a long way and now can be found in traffic lights,public areas,,anywhere there is a need for low maintenance lighting. We have all been persuaded to use CFL long-life bulbs,as they save energy and last 'up to' 6 times longer than the old incandescent bulbs we grew up on,whilst saving a lot of energy. But we don't hear so often about the drawbacks of CFLs. Top disadvantage is that they contain mercury. The light is not as good as claimed; a 20 watt CFL does not give out as much light as 100W bulbs,and they can't be dimmed,which seriously hampers sales to restaurants etc, places wanting to change atmosphere. Cree lights are found in all sorts of places,even supermarket fridges. These used use strip lighting by fluorescent tube. Cree LEDs have replaced these because their life is counted in years,not months,and they don't break as the tubes do. Now, the LED for home use is coming very soon at a popular price.(They can be bought now, Philips make them,but they are dear) As leader in this technology,and owning the intellectual property rights to much of it,there's a bright future ahead for Cree,Inc. Of course, the shares will drop back from the price I just paid. They always do. It's almost like a law of nature, as soon as I buy,the price retreats before recovering. Usually. I think the shares can go to $50 over the next 12 months or less. Right now there are rumours,persistent over the last month,that General Electric are going to buy them out,and that the much-loved Hedge Funds are speculating heavily here. Speculators apart, if Cree retains independence,this is one for the long road,with amazing prospects.Chances are this one will grow and grow.

Green Capitalism

Welcome to The Green Capitalist. Here I hope to be pragmatic more than prescriptive,practical rather than preachy. A huge amount of money is going to be spent combatting climate change and the Green Capitalist aims to look at ideas and companies which offer growth and profits. As the combined impacts of the dawning energy crisis really begin to hit home there is a space left for problem-solving technology. This 'crisis' is also a huge opportunity to develop the new energy technologies some of which will force us to change the way we look at the world. Such an idea is distributed generation, which means producing electricity near where it will be used. this,as a model. does not please the folk running the current model of centralised distribution since they lose 10-15% moving electrons around,just as waste heat,uselessly given off to the atmosphere. I'm generally in favour of essential utilities not being at the mercy of the market but here in Ireland the cosiness between the State and Regulator has resulted in the prices rising well above fuel inflation.And the EU competition rules which are designed to lower costs to the consumer uniquely led to an increase rather than a diminution of prices. This was encourage the private sector to invest in power gemeration. The State-owned ESB was too efficient Since we waste so much energy so casually nowadays and have had 300,000 + new houses built to an appallingly low insulation standard in the last 5 years, insulation will become an issue, as the ever increasing growth in monthly bills begins to be felt. The Green Investor will feature things which may seem oblique and odd,as takes my fancy. It is aimed at the small investor,people like me who can play with 2k,and for whom 2k is significant but it won't be wrist-slitting time if the share theb 2k is invested in tanks. If you can't afford to lose the 2k, put your money somewhere safe,like Google or Microsoft. Some of the ideas I will put forward here will fail;some because they fail to catch on, or were based on wrong thinking,others because they are ahead of their time.My target would be two choices out of three to produce a profit. But always remember that that smart green investing means risk,and more risk can mean spectacular gains. The first share I bought was Apple in April 05 and I persuaded a friend to share the investment with me if I did all the heavy lifting regarding organising it,and so we bought 71 shares for our 2k. And I checked on it several times a day,marvelling that I was now a voluntary capitalist,and even in profit! Friends tell me I was lucky; on the contrary I was way over-cautious,having followed Apple from $14 all the way to $37 before buying. Even after worst week for years they are $125 at the moment. But a lot of the luck might reflect the work I put in on research. I am willing to take a gamble on a company by buying a share in it; and many people believe that investing is like going to the bookies. The big difference is that you will still own shares which might be worth less they were this morning, whilst if your horse doesn't win you lose all you staked. This idea is not fully worked through and this is the first draft of proposed blog.