Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (YGE) reported better-than-expected second-quarter results, aided by reduced costs for manufacturing silicon-based solar modules. Quarterly earnings per ADS, excluding one-time charges, came in at RMB 0.91 (14 cents), significantly above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 4 cents.

However, on a year-over-year basis, Yingli Green’s adjusted earnings per share fell 46%, while revenue declined 25% to RMB 1.5 billion ($219.5 million), hurt by lower average selling price.

Healthy Growth in Shipments & Margins

Highlight of the quarter was a 72% sequential rise in shipments, buoyed by better project financing and demand, with Germany being the chief driver. Gross margin of 18.3% was down from 25.8% in the year-ago quarter. However, it increased from 15.3% in the first quarter on lower blended cost of polysilicon.

European Market Expansion

Yingli Green’s European sales rose about 73% from the previous quarter and about 46% from the

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GRMN, Garmin Ltd.

WRI, Weingarten Realty Investors

DrStockPick Watch List!

 

DrStockPick Watch List! for Friday July 31, 2009

 

My Picks for Friday July 31, 2009 are:

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GRMN, Garmin Ltd.

Garmin International Inc. is a subsidiary of GRMN, the global leader in satellite navigation. Since 1989, this group of companies has designed, manufactured, marketed and sold navigation, communication and information devices and applications – most of which are enabled by GPS technology. Garmin’s products serve automotive, mobile, wireless, outdoor recreation, marine, aviation and OEM applications.

GRMN is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and its principal subsidiaries are located in the United States, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

**Today after Closing Bell, Garmin International Inc.

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I don't typically like spending a lot of time on stories that have more coverage by blogs than actual news outlets, but this one is really too juicy to pass up and it also continues our ongoing conversation about the dollar's prominence as a global reserve currency. Two men were recently stopped by Italian authorities while trying to cross the border into Switzerland with a fake-bottomed suitcase containing $134.5 billion worth of US Treasury bonds. That's right - billion with a B. Let's take just a moment to review which of the United States' various creditors even hold that much US debt. According to the latest data from the US Treasury Department, this is what we have to work through April of this year:

China ~ $763.5 billion Japan ~ $685.9 billion Caribbean Banking Centers ~ $204.7 billion OPEC ~

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Following the energy companies through their earnings for a number of years now it as become apparent to me that while it is extremely difficult to predict earnings going into the future, nobody even does a mediocre job at this for a number of energy companies.  This is very understandable for small capitalization companies as well as refiners as well as exploration and production companies because their mid-quarter transparency is not very high for the most part.  This shouldn’t be true many of the majors integrated companies, and it definitely is not true for companies such as Noble Corp. [NE: 30.21, 0.00 (0.00%)], one of the three largest deepwater drilling companies.  The actions of analysts before and after the earnings release and conference call continue to confuse me, especially when you consider that Noble’s revenues come from

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For weeks now the liberal world media dutifully has been repeating dire threats against so-called “tax havens” from the big spending, high taxing, anti-tax competition likes of Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkosy.

Even President Obama allowed his less than impressive Secretary of the Treasury to make some noise against tax havens.

The orchestrated battle of words hurled at offshore financial centers got so heated that British PM Gordon Brown felt obliged to demand for “the end of tax havens.”

This belated anti-tax haven baloney comes from Her Majesty’s first minister whose government is in charge (and has been for a decade) of the United Kingdom’s many tax havens in its overseas territories (Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, the Turks & Caicos) and its Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man), plus Gibraltar.

Does the Rt. Hon. Gordon believe that the

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Offshore Investing: Smart Ways to Keep Your Money Safe

by Alexander Green, Oxford Club Investment Director

According to the World Bank, more than half of the world’s personal wealth - over $50 trillion - is stashed in about 60 or so asset and tax havens worldwide. 

More than a third of it is in Switzerland, comfortably secure in that nation’s bank vaults.  The rest is stashed away in Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Panama, Bermuda, the Isle of Man and other protected havens.

What do all these rich people know that you don’t?

Plenty. But their secrets are finally revealed in a fascinating new book by Erika Nolen and Shannon Crouch of The Sovereign Society. It’s called “Offshore Investments That Safeguard Your Cash: Learn How Savvy Investors Grow and Protect Their Wealth.” 

Reasons for Offshore Investing 

Why would you even consider going offshore with your investments?  Let me count the ways:

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O.K., so the headline isn’t exactly accurate, but it did catch your eye. And if one David Cay Johnston has his perverse way, it would be a statement of fact. Indeed, Johnston seriously calls for a U.S. declaration of war not only on the Cayman Islands, but also Bermuda and other offshore tax havens. His lengthy radical views are set out in an article (”Fiscal Therapy”) in the Jan-Feb 2009 issue of the left-leaning magazine Mother Jones, known for investigative reporting with a decidedly radical slant.

Ordinarily a nutty proposal such as Johnston’s could be laughed off as evidence of a sick sense of humor or an advanced mental problem, but Johnston is not your run of the mill left-wing nut.

Prize Winning Radical

In 2001 Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize “for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code.”

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h1 style="text-align: center;"bInternational Hedge Funds/b/h1h2 style="text-align: center;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"International Hedge Fund Inquiry | Tips amp; Tools?/span/b/h2br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" alt="International Hedge Fund" title="International Hedge Funds" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/12/international-hedge-fund-inquiry-tips.html"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wM_OZdOMR_Y/ST6wK4Qa7dI/AAAAAAAACow/f9qLeuiwGH8/s200/International-Hedge-Funds.jpg" alt="International Hedge Fund Inquiry" title="International Hedge Fund" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277849514271239634" border="0" //aI just got this email in this morning:br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Question/span: I am conducting research on hedge funds from here in New York but my focus is on Europe and international hedge funds in general. Do you know of a book or thorough white paper on this subject or any online resources which you could point me towards?br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Answer/span: I am not aware of any solid books on this topic but our team has compiled a series of international hedge fund guides, these may be a good starting point for ...

Citadel GroupCitadel Investment GroupJust a quick note to let you know we have updated the Hedge Fund Tracker Tool for Citadel Investment Group. You may view this updated manager profile here: Citadel Investment Group LLC.Geographical Hedge Fund Guides Include:New YorkConnecticutSwitzerlandCayman IslandsBermudaTags: Citadel Investment Group, Citadel, Citadel Hedge Fund, Citadel Hedge Funds, Citadel hedge Fund Manager

Hedge Fund CommunicationsHedge Fund Crisis Statements(http://HedgeFundBlogger.com) Below are a series of excerpts from hedge fund manager communications over the past several months. I've posted some of these to my site before in the past here but below are some excerpts again:TOSCATHE events of September have had a profound negative effect on our performance. On behalf of the team, we apologise for this outcome. It is emotionally and financially draining that after eight solid years the fund should be so damaged by the failed global monetary system. The speed of regulatory intervention, the mania of negative business coverage and panic have clearly hurt our mid-term investment plans.OAKTREEWE never claim to be able to invest at the bottom. So we always consider it inevitable that we’ll buy on ...