The future looks bright for First Solar , according to Guggenheim. The investment bank reiterated its buy rating on the solar technology stock in a research report Friday, and hiked its price target by 42%, to $287 from $202. Shares of First Solar have climbed 9% this year, through Thursday. This revised target price is more than 49% above where the stock last closed. FSLR YTD mountain FSLR YTD chart Guggenheim analyst Joseph Osha pointed to First Solar’s continued operations in Southeast Asia as a catalyst for the price target increase. “Most of the changes to our estimates are driven by our revised assumption that FSLR is, in fact, likely to continue operating its Malaysia and Vietnam facilities for the foreseeable future, albeit at lower utilization rates relative to the company’s more advanced Series 7 capacity in the U.S. and India,” he wrote. “FSLR’s willingness to consider building a U.S.-based finishing facility to complete intermediate product from those two factories, and to claim the resulting $0.07/watt module credit, was greater than we thought.” Another catalyst will come as the Treasury clarifies rules that restrict foreign entities from accessing U.S. clean energy tax credits. Osha also said that tariff uncertainty has been mitigated by now. “We also note that the tariff outlook for Malaysia and Vietnam appears to have stabilized at levels that make continued operations viable,” he wrote. All told, long-term optimism supports the higher price target on the stock, Osha said. “Our revised financial analysis, taken together with some recent policy developments and our own industry checks, support a higher target valuation for FSLR, in our view,” he wrote. “We acknowledge that the price target change might seem dramatic compared to the relatively smaller recent changes in FSLR’s competitive position and earnings outlook, but in FSLR’s case much of the company’s value resides in our expectations for the business through the end of the decade, which amplifies the impact of changes to financial and valuation assumptions.”
