What happened
Shares of eponymous fuel cell company FuelCell Energy (FCEL -8.02%) dropped 9.6% in 12:30 p.m. EST trading Friday, en route to the stock's fourth straight day of declines this week.
You can thank JPMorgan for this decline, though.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Citing a 22% decline in its JPMorgan Renewables Index over the past month, the investment megabanker pointed out today that the entire alternative energy market seems to be in correction territory right now.
That news is already bad enough for shareholders, but JP further warned that now that investors have suffered through this decline, we could see a "lingering effect on multiples, particularly the more speculative hydrogen pure-play stocks" going forward, as investors turn once-burnt, twice shy.
Anticipating less upside and more downside for FuelCell stock, therefore, JP cut its price target on the stock from $10 to $9.
Now what
It's worth pointing out that JPMorgan wasn't terribly hot on FuelCell Energy's prospects already -- the analyst had FuelCell tagged with an underweight (i.e., sell) rating even before this morning's cut in price target. The fact that an already negative analyst has become incrementally more negative about FuelCell Energy, therefore, might not be something investors should worry about.
But here's something that maybe you should worry about: FuelCell Energy hasn't earned a GAAP profit since 1997, nor generated positive free cash flow since 1998. All the money it's made this side of the millennium, it's made not from selling fuel cells, but from selling FuelCell stock.
If investors are losing interest in buying the stock, though, then FuelCell is going to have to figure out a new way to finance its $70 million in annual cash burn.
