Big Opportunities for Investors in Wholesale Electronics: WEST, AVT, ARW

Two bigger players, Arrow Electronics Inc (NYSE: ARW) and Avnet Inc (NYSE: AVT) haven’t got anything on small cap Westinghouse Solar Inc (NASDAQ: WEST) except a few billion in market capitalization.

At the outset I would like to say that I like all three of these stocks, for different reasons, as investment vehicles. The industry has been drifting lately and some solid opportunities have come about. When the industry surges next time round, I think all three of these companies will benefit.

The two companies with the larger caps are Arrow Electronics, with a cap of $4.69 billion and Avnet with a cap of $4.93. They both have good stories to tell and both would be a ‘Buy on the Dips’ consideration for me.

Arrow Electronics has staged a very strong run up in the last six months, traveling from $30 in December to its current $40.78, a gain of 36%. The stock topped $46 several times in May, making the gain at the top of the run 53%. It has since dropped in price on profit taking, but I don’t think its run up is over; Arrow Electronics has lots of support from ‘the Faithful’ and new buyers coming in.

Arrow Electronics has some great things going for it: virtually no short sellers, a very reasonable P/E of 9, and positive, double digit sales and EPS quarterly projections. Arrow Electronics distributes a great range of electronic parts to both commercial and industrial businesses.

So too does Avnet. This stock is currently trading in the $32.44 range; it December level six months ago. That’s the good news for Avnet: it has spiked to $37, dipped, spiked again to $38, and dipped gain, but its bottom has consistently been its current range. While not a profit maker through the last six months, Avnet has: 1) showed great support on its bounce backs, and 2) that it really loves the $37-$38 range.

It too is at the bottom of a dip right now and if history is any barometer, it will stage a bounce back to the near-$40 level. Can it hold it? I’m going to guess, that’s right guess that it can; it has tested that threshold enough times. A bit of good corporate news could sustain it at $40.

The last company in this grouping is a small cap wholesale electronics play; Akeena Solar Inc (this is its old name still in use at the exchanges; its new name is Westinghouse Solar Inc, and thus the new symbol WEST).  The stock has jumped from $1.10 at the beginning of this month to its current $2.52, a gain of 129% in a week based on news that it is rolling out a new solar power system. Congratulations to everyone who held this stock at the beginning of the month, but I don’t think the ‘jump’ is over yet and there’s still money to be made in this stock. Give it a look.