10/22/2007

Sector Snap: Solar-Power Stocks Drop

After reading this article I was reminded of when fellow classmates would ask our teacher back in middle and high school, "When will we ever use this in real life"? Well, here is a real life case I can now say has helped to save me some money in the stock market.

It turns out that surging demand has bid up the price of polysilicon which is used in the solar wafers, which are in turn used in semiconductors. This in turn has caused the solar panel producing companies (which have been a good investment recently) to report bad quarters and to estimate poor quarters in the future. This in turn has caused the demand of solar stocks to fall, because the stock price has fallen.

It is good to finally be able to find a real life scenario for those topics that I learn in class. It makes me want to listen better so that I don't miss out on other opportunities and/or events that will have an effect not only on my life, but on my wallet as well.

3 comments:

Dr. Tufte said...

This is a good time for me to point out that the whole reason I include blogging - which can be a little frivolous - in my classes is that it does help make the connections between what we do in the class and what happens in the "real world".

FWIW: that's also why I have easy but unusual Aplia assignments for my MBA classes.

Matthew said...

Dr. Tufte said that he includes blogging and unusual Aplia assignments for the purpose of more application to the “real world.” Thank you! I love learning things that I can apply in real life. Now, whenever I read a newspaper or watch the news or view any other type of media, I am thinking, “How can I apply this to economics?” This “real world” learning is the kind of learning that will stick with a student for life.

Dr. Tufte said...

Coool.