INTRO Here's my semi-annual exercise to see if I remember why I own the stocks I own, and so I can check back and see if their stories have changed. I post in case it helps others too.

AMSC (now called American Superconductor)
AMSC (market cap $0.190B)
AMSC is an innovative company looking to make money from the power infrastructure industry, primarily through the increased efficiency of superconducting cables, but also through power regulators, network connections, and wind turbine support. They've even renamed the company from American Superconductor to AMSC, and broken it into two divisions: Gridtec and Windtec. The company looked like it was doing the right things: diversification, product introduction, and industry partnerships. Unfortunately, it's largest revenue generator (wind turbines) was severely impacted by questionable actions from its Chinese customers (who cancelled major orders and have been accused of stealing intellectual property). They had just turned profitable and then had major losses. I expected the superconducting related sales to begin making up the difference, but the lack of news (at least that I've come across) means the stock is languishing at less than one-tenth it's ten-year high.

The company is making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, and some of the losses are probably one-time write-offs. The cables, motors, power regulators, and wind turbines are selling to an industry that needs such products. The Tres Amigas project (http://www.tresamigasllc.com/) that will connect all three US major power grids continues to develop. The company is selling into a growing, though stodgy, industry. I wonder if amidst the Chinese wind turbine story I missed a similarly sad bit of news about the superconducting side, the side that convinced me to buy the stock. As the CEO from a few years ago said, they could do for power what fiber optics did for communication. If they do, then that's worth a lot.

The stock trades at a book value of about one and a price/sales of less than two. That is very cheap considering that the company has hundreds of millions in revenue, an active product pipeline, and effectively no debt.

DISCLOSURE LTBH since 2003 but the first shares were sold a while back. I bought more after the main drop, and have been surprised that the knife continued to fall. I might buy more if discretionary funds were available.
(I've also collected links to the other discussion boards and my other stocks over on my blog trimbathcreative.wordpress.com)