Hype helps and hype hurts. It is time to get ready for the pain.

After months of waiting for Obama’s “golden touch” to save Wall Street and the world, sentiment is turning against him and his plans.

The market is reacting sharply to the President’s moves today.

Investors woke to news of major Wall Street reforms coming later this week. As Washington tightens the screws on runaway prosperity, the average investor had better be prepared for less-than-stellar gains.

For my thoughts on the administration’s tweaking of the risk/reward system, see my earlier article.

But Obama likes to spread his attacks on multiple fronts. A divided enemy, he feels, is easier to defeat. By creating a buzz about reforming healthcare, he can slip by major financial regulations without making more than a few Section-B headlines.

As the nation turns its attention to another Washington-created crisis, the hype-filled stocks investors have been using to rack up profits are drying up quicker than a sun-backed worm. The tighter the contraction on the Street, the further the losers will drop.

Brace for impact

Sure, there are plenty of green-energy companies that will be successful over the next few years, but far too many of them are nothing more than financial experiments. They soared on post-election optimism. And now that reality is setting in, their investors are wondering what in the world they bought into. (A lot of voters are thinking the same thing).

The solar industry is showing its investors the optimal time to take profits and run has come and gone. Shares of some of the sector’s most popular companies are down by double-digit proportions today.

GT Solar (NASDAQ:SOLR) is down by nearly 13%. Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ:ESLR) is down by 10%. Real Goods Solar (NASDAQ:RSOL) is down by 9%. And even Asia’s players are getting hit, with China Sunergy (NASDAQ:CSUN) down by 8%.

From here, expect plenty of choppy action. Washington just launched a full-on healthcare offensive, which means Cap-and-Trade legislation, which is even more politically and economically charged will be pushed to a back burner.

If you want to stick with the sector, do your homework and do not make feel-good investments. Dissect balance sheets. Research product pipelines. And most importantly, ensure the company has more than enough liquidity to see it through what will likely be a tumultuous end of 2009 and 2010.

Solar energy represents great technology and will likely play some sort of role in our future energy prospects. But it is not the strongest investment. There are no clear winners. The industry is still in its infancy. And the hype is off the scale.

If you are sitting on big profits, now is the time to lock them in. Join the other sellers today and make a move to a more predictable, reliable sector.

Washington is moving on. So should you.

Source: The Solar Industry Puzzle is Missing a Few Pieces

Justice gave six reasons why China is a buy now. These included the recent correction in crude oil prices, China’s high level of personal savings and the country’s massive foreign reserves.

Today’s Financial News editor J. Christoph Amberger says Justice is wrong about China. The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges have plummeted since the opening of the Beijing games. J. Christoph says China now looks more like Japan in the ’90s than a strong buying opportunity…

Olympic medal counts look different to Americans than they look to the rest of the world. In the US, all medals count equally. The team with the most gold, silver, and bronze medals “wins” in the standings. Elsewhere, it’s just the number of gold medals that determines who leads the pack. Which may explain why China feels its superiority complex validated with 17 gold medals (vs. the United States’ 10)… while Americans really couldn’t care less about leading with 29 (vs. 27) total medals.

Still, for a country that just put on the most expensive halftime show ever, with lip-syncing girls, computer-generated fireworks, and thousands of young men in light-studded green “fruit suits” (as my teenage son called their skintight garbs), the stock market is sure looking like the last flea-bitten chihuahua in the pantry of a Korean short-order cook.

If China is leading in the medals count, the fruit-suit optimism isn’t filtering through to investors. Both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange have simply plummeted since the August 8 side show. On Wednesday, the Shanghai Stock Exchange closed at 2,470 points, falling 135 points to close at a 20 month low after touching an even lower intra-day low of 2,372. The Shenzhen exchange slumped more than 6% to close at 698 points.

Shanghai set an all-time record last October at 6,092. That’s a drop of 3,720 points in ten months – a loss of 61% at today’s lows.

The last time I saw an index plummet like this was 1990, after Tokyo’s Nikkei had posted a record high at 38,912. The only difference: It took the Nikkei fully five years, until April 1995, to fall by this amount. China managed this in just 10 months.

There are now accusations that the government of causing the problem by misleading traders. (I’m glad this very Western tradition has finally made it to China…)

But here’s the odd part: There are some Western stock gurus who are not worried. In fact, one just came up with six reasons to buy China.

Let me summarize:

Reason to Buy China #1: The Silly Season Is Over. Now that the frenzy has subsided, real values are starting to show up again. The hot money has burned itself out, providing opportunities for those who see longer-term value and aren’t out to just flip a quick buck.

Reason to Buy China #2: Oil Is Coming Down. With oil backing off, China and India can breathe a little easier. The fear that high-priced oil might kill the Asian miracle is lifting. That gives them more time to tap alternative energy solutions and build economic strength at home.

Reason to Buy China #3: The Locals Are Optimistic. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center shows that most Chinese feel positive about where their country is headed. According to the survey, 86% are “content with the country’s direction.” (That’s up from just 25% six years ago.)

Reason to Buy China #4: The Growth Is Still There. China moves up the quality food chain. As China gets better at enforcing intellectual property laws, its high-tech skills will only increase… and profit margins, too.

Reason to Buy China #5: Personal Savings and Domestic Demand. Perhaps even more impressive than China’s long-term growth rate is the personal savings rate.

Reason to Buy China #6: Huge Foreign Reserves. China has somewhere between $2.3 trillion and $2.4 trillion in excess reserves.

Let me respond why I am hesitant to wear that fruit suit of optimism:

1) The “silly season” is over. If China managed to double and double again in two years on that supposedly “bad” hot money… where is the money coming from that will power the Shanghai to recover even 20%? Japan’s Nikkei has a cautionary tale to tell about markets that see the hot money born out. For the Nikkei, that meant a low of 7,831 in April 2003 – 80% below the record high. For the Shanghai, that would mean a level of 1,218 – another 50% drop. (Given the accelerated failure rate the Chinese, we could see this level within the next 16 months!)

2) Oil may be coming down, relieving some pressure on wafer-thin Chinese margins. But labor cost – China’s biggest competitive edge – is going up. So are environmental regulations… healthcare cost (they say breathing the air in Chinese cities is the equivalent of smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day)… and unemployment.

3) Local optimism. May I point out that the people are fickle. Consumer confidence is the least reliable indicator of an economy’s health. More importantly: investors are chafing with just over 60%  losses under their belts… and more to come!

4) Growth will be there as long as Americans and Europeans place orders. Recession, anyone? Some analysts like to argue that the Asian economies have “decoupled” from the West. Someone must have forgotten to tell Japan…

5) Personal savings and domestic demand. The latter may be there… and is usually a prelude to the destruction of the former. Plus, those personal savings have taken a beating since Chinese citizens transferred their renminbis from their passport savings to their stock brokers by the billion each week last year. Add in inflation and tally it all up once you account for two months of forced idling of factories and work forces, and an overall low average income of just $2,025 a year (in 2006)… and those personal savings factor in far less than you might think.

6) Huge foreign reserves may be more than made up by huge non-performing and “special interest” loans… a looming real estate crash… and of course the potential for the predicted devaluation of these reserves, most of which are kept in dollars. (May I also point out that Japan’s incredible foreign reserves did not help it one bit from 1990 to 2005.)

In short: China is a potential train wreck in the making! Analysts who predict Armageddon for America based on a 20% drop in the Dow and discount a 60% drop in the Shanghai Stock Exchange may just have sand in their slide rules. Those who buy wholesome into official Chinese numbers and believe the U.S. government manipulates GDP numbers may not do their readers a favor.

The big Chinese companies that trade as ADRs, such as China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (NYSE:LFC), China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (NYSE:SNP), and China Telecom Corporation Limited (NYSE:CHA) have declined at a far less precipitous clip than their home markets.

Chinese solar stocks such as LDK Solar Co. (NYSE:LDK), China Sunergy Co. (NASDAQ:CSUN), and ReneSola Ltd. (NYSE:SOL) have actually risen in price as the Shanghai Exchange collapsed. Then again, they move with their global industries… not with China.

But while I am getting more bearish on China’s medium- to long-term prospects by the day, I think there are a small number of Darn Good Stocks you can make some serious money with.

P.S. J. Christoph says Today’s Financial News’ new trading service, Hot Stock Confidential, is currently pursuing a small company with key technology set to profit from big demand in China. This keystone technology will reach deep into China’s interior – tapping into its rural market and creating wealth on a scale like never before. It has been earning between $80-$100 million a year on total revenues of $450-$550 million in revenue.

The company has just come back up from a bit of a dip, and is charging forward with gains of 8% in a day. Hot Stock Confidential is already up 20% over the recommended entry price. But you still can buy it for less than five bucks. Read on here for more more details on how to profit from this China success story.