Depending on who you ask, solar stocks are always either on the rebound and about to rise indefinitely, or about to fall further than they have for the past few years.
Solar’s Long Fall
To start with, in order to provide context to those who haven’t been following the solar stock or solar business story of the past few years, let me quickly run through some background:
- A handful of years ago, solar incentives from several governments and falling solar costs led to a big boom in solar power growth around the world.
- Following that, solar manufacturing capacity ramped up fast.
- Unfortunately, shaky, dropped, and sometimes even retroactively cut solar incentives led to a massive oversupply of solar panels and solar cells. This resulted in a long and steep solar technology cost drop.
- While great for consumers, the cost drop severely squeezed the profit margins of solar manufacturers, even taking down some big ones.
- In line with the falling profit margins, solar stock prices plunged.
Solar Stocks Rebound
This year, with supply more adequately matching demand and solar manufacturers picking up steam, stocks have started to rise again. Several companies have seen noticeable stock price growth.
Here are a few screenshots of 1-year stock price trends from some of the top solar companies.
