The rally on February 15 sure looked like a speculative blowout of the kind that often signals a market top. For me, it was the last straw and I’m selling into the rally. This post tells you what I’m selling and how I arrived at these decisions. But first, a few words on Wednesday’s move.
Wednesday, September 14, President Joe Biden used a visit to the Detroit Auto Show to announce the release of the first $900 million in funding for the buildout of a national network of charging stations for electric vehicles. The funding, part of $7.5 billion in the Infrastructure bill to build out a network of 500,000 charging stations, would go to 35 stations to build charging networks along 53,000 miles of highways. Today, the sector is moving up rapidly with ChargePoint up 8.60% and EVgo up 12.16% as of 2:30 p.m. New York time.
Friday, June 17, was a modestly up day for most of the indexes. The Standard & Poor’s 500, for example, gained 0.22% and the NASDAQ was up a stronger 1.43%. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.13% on the day.) But you’d never know that the indexes were up only modestly if you checked the gains on the most speculative stocks in the market. Meme favorites GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) were up 7.48% and 6.28%, respectively. But the speculative gains didn’t stop there.
New registrations for electric vehicles jumped 60% in the first quarter of 2022 from the first quarter of 2021. according to Experian Automotive. Electric vehicles made up an all-time record 4.6% of the total market. The news was even more positive given that overall new vehicle registrations were down 18% in the quarter from the first quarter of 2021.
The United States will ban imports of oil and natural gas from Russia, President Biden announced Tuesday. U.S. allies in Europe also announced action on the energy front with a plan to cut natural gas imports from Russia by two-thirds in 2022. Even though the White House has said that the long-lead time on the ban would give importers and consumers time to find other sources by the end of 2022, oil futures soared today with the price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, climbing to $126.98 a barrel, up 6.35%, for April delivery as of 12:30 p.m. in New York. International benchmark Brent creek rose 6.52%to $131.24 a barrel for April delivery.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My one-hundredth-and fourth YouTube video “Trend of the Week: Electric Vehicle Charging Stocks” went up today. This week I’m talking about electric vehicle charging stocks. You may have heard me talk about these in the past. However, these stocks have been hammered so far in 2022, so right now they are cheap. Why are they worth buying? Because we know that the U.S. government has already allocated $5 billion to build charging stations around the country. We haven’t seen the upside of that yet! I currently own EVGO and CHPT in my portfolios.
Yes, we want to buy on the dip. Whenever we get a significant dip. (And significant to me is 5% or more in the major indexes–and 10% or more in specific sectors.) But, we need new strategies for buying on the dip that take into account the market’s valuation problem, the central bank tightening that looks to be in the cards, and the real possibility of a dip in growth below forecasts in 2022. I’ve got fouir strategies to suggest for buying in this market on these dips. And 14 picks to use to execute those strategies.
Today President Joe Biden unveiled a plan that would speed up the transition to electric vehicles in the United States. Included was an executive order (in this case a goal) calling for half of new passenger car sales to be of electric vehicles powered by batteries and fuel cells or plug-in electric hybrids by the end of the decade. And new proposed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks through model year 2026. The proposed regulations would reverse a Trump administration freeze on fuel-deficiency standards that was itself a reversal of the Obama administration regulations that would have ramped up average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025.
On July 15, General Motors announced that Brightdrop, its new unit for recharging electric vehicles, would expand to the recharging of commercial fleet vehicles (such as FedEx.) GM named EVgo (EVgo), already partnering with GM to expand its network of fast charging stations, as a preferred partner in the fleet effort. Yesterday shares of EVgo jumped 14.18% on the news. Today, Friday, July 16, the stock gave back 2.57%. EVgo is already a member of my Volatility Portfolio where it is up 4.81% since I added it on May 19, 2021 through a purchase of shares in the the SPAC that would take the company public via a reverse merger. I’ll be adding EVgo shares to my “Millennial Portfolio (for investors with more time than money)” on Monday
