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8:30 AM Monday, January 30, 2006: Tomorrow night President Bush will give his state of the union address to Congress. He will focus on making the U.S. independent of imported energy. He will announce major initiatives designed to encourage alternative energy. As a result, there will be a pop in many of these stocks.


As to which stocks? Alternative energy and domestic coal companies make sense:



Do not buy any of these without doing some research. I put this list together in a whirlwind this morning. I also like ethanol. The only ethanol company I've found is Pacific Ethanol (PEIX). It's a new company with its first ethanol plants still under construction. It is losing money at present. The stock is rising bumpily:



There are currently 91 ethanol plants operating across the United States with a total production capacity of over 4 billion gallons annually. Another 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol will be provided annually when the 22 plants under construction are finished.

In 2004, ethanol was blended into about one-third of America’s gasoline. The majority of this ethanol was blended as E10 –- 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent unleaded gasoline. This fuel is covered by warranty for use in all makes and models of vehicles. When all the 22 plants are complete, 42% of America’s gasoline (according to my math) will blended with ethanol.

I’m guessing 22 plants would not be under construction if this business were not ridiculously profitable. In fact, I've seen some numbers. And it is ridiculously profitable.

Alternative energy for your home: Oil above $60 makes previously uneconomic energy sources now economic. An example: My country neighbor just installed a $6,000 wood furnace. He loads it with wood twice a day.

It heats water, which is pumped to his home through insulated, underground piping. A heat exchanger heats the water his oil burner would normally heat. This gives him normal temperature control throughout his house. He figures he'll pay the whole thing off in two years and then have very cheap energy. He has plenty of trees to chop down. For more, click here.

Sex sells. Someone just bought www.sex.com for $12 million. The site receives millions of visitors every month. It's an amazing site.

A deal's a deal: Christine Ryder, 53, says she was so depressed, she asked a friend, Kevin Reeves, 40, whom she had met in a mental hospital in Kent, England, to find a hit man to kill her. He offered to do it himself (he was her friend, after all!) and accepted £20,000 (US$35,000) for the job. After several arranged dates to kill her came and went and she was still alive, a frustrated Ryder filed a criminal breach of contract complaint, and prosecutors took him to trial. Even Reeves's own defense attorney admitted the scheme was "mean." Reeves was sentenced to 15 months in jail and ordered to pay £2,000 in compensation.

Fact of the day:
In 2004, The Japanese Ice Cream Association promoted "raw horse flesh" ice cream in hopes that it would boost the popularity of ice cream.

Grandmas -Gotta Love 'Em!
A government employee allegedly heard this conversation between an old lady and an antiwar protester on a D.C. Metro station. The protectors were handing out pamphlets on the evils of America.

"An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined.

"The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, 'Lady, don't you care about the children of Iraq?'

"The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my father died in France during World War II, I lost my husband in Korea, and a son in Vietnam. All three died so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth our country. If you touch me again. I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it."

Recent column highlights:
+ Munich, the movie. A must-see. Click here.
+ Identity Theft precautions. Click here.
+ Dumb reasons we hold losing stocks. Click here.
+ How my private equity fund is doing. Click here.
+ Blackstone private equity funds. Click here.
+ Manhattan Pharmaceuticals: Click here.
+ NovaDel Biosciences appeals. Click here.
+ Hana Biosciences appeals. Click here.
+ All turned on by biotech. Click here.
+ Steve Jobs Commencement Address. The text is available: Click here. The full audio is available. Click here.
+ The March of the Penguins, an exquisite movie. Click here.
+ When to sell stocks. Click here.

Harry Newton

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look mighty interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Claire's law school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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