Perhaps, the smartest move this company has made was the acquisition of former HP Optoelectronics marketeer Mike Watson as VP of Marketing. Under the leadership of my former colleague, the company’s visibility has improved 1,000% (all puns intended). A “LED Revolution” site now proudly documents all businesses and educational institutions that have jumped the gap from traditional lighting to LED lighting. This is one major reason why this Foolish blogger sees this stock as a wonderful buy.
This stock has returned 85% so far this year (as of June), and secured The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) as a distribution partner, a solid play.
As with all technology stocks, there is an element of risk. The P/E ratio of 111.8 tells us to tread carefully. We are also looking at a quick ratio of 5.6, showing us that Cree is heavily leveraged — LED manufacturing technology is not cheap even today. Yet, Cree is just now beginning to reap the benefits of its consumer strategy, so this Fool is willing to take the risk (after a few more months of watching).
Google sets the stage for social responsibility
Perhaps, the strongest choice of the four, Mountain View, CA-based Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is known for environmental consciousness, social responsibility, and employee satisfaction. A typical pick for socially responsible ETFs and mutual funds, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) runs its sites from wind and solar power and chooses renewable energy sources for its data centers.
The high profile corporation has a lofty goal of achieving 100% renewable energy for all facilities, according to Google Green — the company’s green energy website . The current figure is 30%, which can’t even be closely matched by most of America’s major corporations! Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has investments in these initiatives at present:
Jasper Power Project: investing in South African solar
Spinning Spur Wind Farm: investing in West Texas wind
Rippey Wind Farm: financing wind power in Iowa
Recurrent Energy: large scale photovoltaic (PV) projects in California
Clean Power Finance: financing for rooftop solar
SolarCity: solar for thousands of residential rooftops
BrightSource: concentrated solar power at scale
Atlantic Wind Connection: a superhighway for clean energy transmission
Alta Wind Energy Center: harnessing winds of the Mojave
Shepherd’s Flat: one of the world’s largest wind farms
Peace Garden Wind Farms: opening up more financing for wind
Photovoltaics in Germany: investing in clean energy overseas
The stock is a well-known blue chip, but is priced in the mid $800’s per share – a price out of the reach of many investors. A way to invest in incremental shares is through Orange Sharebuilder, which allows you to invest in incremental shares (half a share, etc) as a part of its automatic investing scheme. The stock is trading at 26 times earnings now, so it is best to wait until a market correction happens, then pick some up.
In summary — gone are the days when social responsibility meant limited returns. Some of the strongest companies, such as Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), are investing heavily in sustainability and working towards a green, healthy future. Given the social climate of today, it makes more sense to invest in companies that care about tomorrow than traditional companies who have a “make-our-number-this-quarter” mentality. That is exactly what this Foolish blogger intends to do.
The article 4 Stocks Cashing in on the Trend Towards Social Responsibility originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Brenda Johnson.
Brenda Johnson owns shares of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). The Motley Fool recommends Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Google. Brenda is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
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