On another lethargic day for U.S. stocks, solar exchange traded funds are shining following bullish comments on the sector by Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn.
In remarks made at the at the Robin Hood Investors Conference in New York today, Einhorn told attendees of the private presentation that Greenlight holding SunEdison (NYSE: SUNE) could be worth $32 a share, report Simone Foxman, Joshua Fineman and Saijel Kishan for Bloomberg.
Einhorn’s remarks about SunEdison helped lift the Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSEArca: TAN) and the Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF (NYSEArca: KWT) by 2.3% and 2.1%, respectively. Those gains are enough to make the two solar ETFs two of Monday’s top-performing non-leveraged ETFs of any variety.
SunEdison, which develops, manufactures, and sells silicon wafers to the semiconductor industry, is up 9.4% at this writing. Currently trading around $18.20, the stock would have upside of about 76% if Einhorn’s $32 price forecast proves accurate.
SunEdison is the second-largest holding in TAN at a weight of 9.3, about 40 basis points more than the ETF allocates to First Solar (NasdaqGS: FSLR). KWT, the smaller of the two solar ETFs, features a 6.9% weight to SunEdison, making the stock the ETF’s fifth-largest holding.
Einhorn’s comments about SunEdison provided much-needed relief for TAN and KWT, which had been tumbling since GT Advanced Technologies (NasdaqGS: GTAT) announced it was filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire earlier this month. [Solar ETFs Stung by GT Advanced Bankruptcy]