Just about every company that beat expectations recently did it by cutting costs and increasing margins. It may boost share price now, but it could create problems down the road.

The earnings figures released over the last month are absolutely hideous, scary really, yet Wall Street hails them as a sign of recovery and safety.

Revenues are at a fraction of where they were this time last year, yet they beat analyst expectations.

Earnings, if a company is lucky enough to find a profitable strategy, are down by figures like 80%, 90%, even 95%, yet shares are moving up. Investors figure even a couple of bucks in free cash flow is better than nothing.

But what so many investors and even analysts are overlooking is where the surprising figures are coming from. According to reports like today’s dismal same-store sales figures, the extra cash is not from spend-happy consumers.

Instead, companies are slashing headcounts,

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Traveling as much as I do, I get to meet a lot of very interesting people. Like Wayne Shipp.

Shipp’s on his third successful career and, at an age when most people have long since retired, he’s building another multimillion-dollar business with a neat little device called a STEMS Energy Management unit.

Always on the lookout for new investment opportunities, I asked him about what it does and how it helps his customers.

Shipp, the president of STEMS Energy Management, cut right to the chase: “My device helps commercial and industrial customers save big on their electrical bills without huge capital investments.”

Then he added, “I can also help residential customers save an average of $25 to $100 a month off their electrical bills and I can prove it.” Needless to say, after that, he had my undivided attention for the duration of the flight.

By way

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Zenergy Power Plc (LON:ZEN) could be onto something big in the energy sector, says Tom Bulford. The small cap firm produces High Temperature Semiconductors (HTS) that are more energy efficient than copper. As it moves closer to cracking large markets in the US, Tom says the stock has serious long-term potential. This from Penny Sleuth: Karen Chandler opened her bag and took out a chunky strip of copper and placed it on the table. Next to it she put a slim ribbon of something else I didn’t recognise at all. The second had been made by depositing layers of substances that I had never heard of – such as Lanthanum Zirconate and Yttrium – onto a base of textured nickel tape.

The finished item is a High Temperature Semiconductor (HTS) and is apparently a ceramic rather than a metal. The important thing about it is that it

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