What if you bought First Solar in 2008?
US Industry · Solar. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play0.9× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in First Solar at the start of 2008 would be worth about $926 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
First Solar makes solar panels using cadmium telluride thin-film technology rather than the silicon used by most rivals, which once made its panels much cheaper. It went public in late 2006 amid a clean-energy craze, and by early 2008 the shares had multiplied many times over, at one point valuing it like a high-growth tech company.
The fall came from China. Chinese manufacturers, backed by state support, built enormous silicon panel factories while polysilicon prices collapsed, wiping out First Solar's cost advantage. The shares lost the vast majority of their value by 2012, and many US and European solar makers went bankrupt. First Solar survived by building utility-scale solar farms and staying financially conservative. Its fortunes turned again with US trade tariffs on Chinese panels and especially the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, whose manufacturing tax credits strongly favoured domestic producers. As the largest US-headquartered panel maker, First Solar became a main beneficiary, and the shares recovered strongly, though by 2026 they remained below their 2008 peak.
The lesson: Industries shaped by government policy can swing violently in both directions; the company's fate may depend more on subsidies and tariffs than on its own execution.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | $270 | $926 | $4,626 | 0.9× |
| 2010 | $135 | $1,852 | $6,071 | 1.9× |
| 2012 | $34.00 | $7,353 | $5,312 | 7.4× |
| 2015 | $45.00 | $5,556 | $3,301 | 5.6× |
| 2018 | $68.00 | $3,676 | $2,519 | 3.7× |
| 2020 | $56.00 | $4,464 | $2,092 | 4.5× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2012, turning $1,000 into $7,353. The S&P 500 from that same year: $5,312.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. First Solar is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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