AMOLED prep news and hydrocarbon follow-ups ?2

12:01 29-Apr-19

We pivot from hydrocarbons towards AMOLEDs this week, with MagnaChip earnings tomorrow afternoon.  A small negative for that company is development of an under-screen LCD fingerprint sensor of the sort that was previously only possible with organic displays.  Commercialization of the technology will take years, but the fact that this was, once again, done first in China is more writing on the wall.

UDC's report will come on Thursday night, and eMagin's has also been scheduled for a week later, in the morning, along with Superconductor Technologies'.  The latter is more interesting, given the first customer, but I do not expect to write about either.  Some of you have also asked about Uniti over the years.  I will examine that call in the evening, now that the dividend has been cut.  I see the the Windstream bankruptcy situation is similar to Clearway's in some respects, which means interesting but with no immediate opportunity at current prices.  To quote a litigation analyst speaking to Bloomberg:

The bankruptcy court will likely give PG&E the opportunity to reject above-market PPAs.

With the world now aware of the declining costs of wind and solar, that would mean short term pain despite some long-term value.  This is what's being ignored in a new report that favors natural gas engines over electric vehicles and thus benefits Westport... regulators need to look beyond the existing infrastructure.  It may also be what's behind news that the Arabian Drilling Company is buying Schlumberger's rigs in the Middle East.  There is no confirmation from Schlumberger yet, but the trend is clear.  Norway and the United Kingdom are showing less interest in their North Sea reserves in preparation for an age where production will be increasingly high-tech and high cost.  The developing world is taking a different approach, probably due to lack of regulation, and America as well, perhaps due to its continually worsening debt profile.  Those situations benefit Golar and CUI Global, which showcased its technology in Houston last week.  It remains to be seen whether or not it will benefit Energy Recovery, whose press releases are all about desalination, though at least in differentiated geographies.  Its report on Thursday will still be more interesting than UDC's.