Minutes
AAII Orange County Chapter
Monthly Meeting, October 10, 2009
Balearic Community Center
1975 Balearic Dr.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
President Bob Welge brought the meeting to order at 9 am. Beginning with
preliminary announcements, Bob drew members’ attention to the availability of
Chapter contact information and handouts for today’s talk on the back table,
and of coffee at the 10 o’clock break. Bob acknowledged the efforts of the
Chapter’s leaders: Facilities Chair Craig Stoddard, Vice President Ed Castleman, Treasurer Dave McMillin,
and Bill Phillips, Hospitality Chair, for putting up signs and setting up the
room.
Bob next announced the
schedule of future chapter meetings. The
next meeting will be on November 7th, when Carl Birkelbach
will discuss Three Pillars of Recovery in a Volatile Market. Since there will be no December meeting, the
next presentation following Carl's will be the ever-popular annual investment
recap by Jonathan Lansner, the Orange County
Register's Business Columnist, on January 9th, 2010. Although regular chapter meetings are held
at the Balearic Community Center on Saturdays at 8:45am, Bob emphasized that
the February and March meetings will still be held at Balearic but at a
different time - Friday evenings at 6:30pm. On Friday February 12th, Jim Trippon will discuss Chinese stock investing, and on Friday
March 12th, Mark Skousen will present Forecasts
and Strategies for 2010: Opportunities and Dangers Ahead. Further details
on these future events and other Orange County Chapter information can be
viewed on Bob’s website www.robertsgeneral.com.
Bob then introduced today’s
speaker, Brett Conrad, Managing Partner of Longboard
Capital Advisors and his presentation Clean Energy Technologies: Off the Launchpad – So Where are the Great Investments Now? Brett is a Petroleum Engineer and MBA with
extensive experience in trading and venture capital investing. Longboard invests in all aspects of clean energy
opportunities – early stage companies, mergers, publicly traded companies, long/short, domestic and foreign.
Brett defined clean tech and
identified its drivers: energy demand, global warming, pollution,
petro-dictators, and changes in social attitudes. He discussed the
attractiveness of various clean technology sectors: best investments are in
efficiency improvement, wind and solar power generation, and power storage;
areas with potential, but high capital costs are waste-to-energy-conversion,
transportation and pollution control; and areas to avoid include algae-derived
fuels, corn-derived ethanol, nuclear power, and hydrogen-as-fuel.
Solar power companies today
use one of two technologies: polysilicon or cadmium
telluride. First Solar uses the latter, which is currently the lowest cost, but
is limited to at most 12% efficiency and has toxicity issues. Polysilicon is the technology used by such companies as
Trina Solar and Sun Power; costs of polysilicon are decreasing, and potentially could attain efficiencies as
high as 22%. Other companies to watch are Nano Solar,
Ascent Solar and Solyndra, as well as Dow Chemical,
which will be making photovoltaic roof shingles.
Brett discussed a number of
other energy opportunities. These include the LED light manufacturer CREE, and
electric vehicle manufacturers Aptera, Nissan and
Tesla. A related area is lithium ion batteries. Improving electrical energy
distribution (Smart Grid technologies) is important; companies involved
include ITRON (smart meters), Echelon (monitors) and Enernoc
(grid balance).
Brett also discussed the areas
of wind energy, ethanol for energy, and pollution control. He seemed proudest
of his investment in the Chinese pollution control company RINO, which he
purchased for around $2 and which recently traded for more than $22 a share.
His most
important investment advice? “Get direct experience … a desk is a
dangerous place from which to view the world.”
For those with questions or
seeking further information, Bretts’ website is www.longboardcapital.com
or one can contact him at 310-450-2151 or bconrad@longboardcapital.com. Longboard’s literature indicates it has produced an annual
return of 33%, or a cumulative return of +92.6% compared to the S&P500’s
return of -19.8% during the same time period.
Following the conclusion of
Wade’s talk, Bob adjourned the meeting at 11am.
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Minutes taken by Ed Sharman