FSLR · investment memo
the best PRODUCT operating margin First Solar has ever demonstrated (FY2024), i.e. subsidy-EXCLUSIVE. Deliberately below the reported TTM operating margin of 31.8%, because 45X credits are 100.2% of TTM operating income and 114.2% of FY2026 guided operating income. The screen used 16.4% (capped from a subsidy-inclusive 30.6%); correcting it is worth +24.2pp of required CAGR, the single largest driver in the reconciliation.
Four distinct questions, one field each. A price is not a thesis: the trigger below forces a re-underwrite and freezes further purchases — it is never an automatic sell.
A daily close below $173.66 triggers a mandatory re-underwrite and freezes further purchases. It is not an automatic sell unless a separate fundamental invalidation condition has been breached.
Not stated. This name has no falsifiable invalidation conditions on file, so it cannot be risk-monitored. That is a gap in the research, not a clean bill of health — recorded rather than hidden.
Not stated. No permanent-loss case with a named cause is on file. A valuation bear case is not an impairment case.