My Little GT Solar

In other “selling picks to goldminers” story, GT Solar is now a public company. The much celebrated IPO failed miserably in its first day of trading by dropping 15%--not an auspicious start. It has since stabilized at around $12.

Some claim that this IPO was actually a success. They’re wrong. Any IPO investor is going to look at this event as a harbinger of things to come in the new energy space, which means there will be fewer IPO’s in the next three years than there would have been had GT Solar gone up by 15%. Fewer IPO’s means less venture capital funds flowing into the arena, which means fewer startups.

GT Solar did get one piece of booty from their IPO: a great ticker symbol. SOLR should have gone to one of the upcoming solar public market births (NanoSolar, Miasole, Heliovolt, etc.). Instead the boring equipment-maker gets a snazzy name. Maybe they can sell it to one of the newcomers next year and make back that 15% for shareholders.