Shares of Seal Beach-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. rose sharply on Tuesday, despite a recent downgrade by TheStreet Ratings.
Investors sent Clean Energy shares up more than 10% in afternoon trading to a market value of $1.3 billion.
Shares today crossed above their 200-day moving average of $14.90, which may have spurred some additional action from trading programs and systems that kick in after certain benchmarks are hit.
Tuesday’s gains come less than week after TheStreet Ratings downgraded the company, citing deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity, poor profit margins, weak operating cash flow and little growth in its earnings per share.
Clean Energy builds and operates natural gas stations.
It saw sales of nearly $293 million in 2011 but has yet to clear earnings hurdles amid a push to build and expand what Clean Energy is calling “America’s Natural Gas Highway.”
Major transportation arteries in California, Texas and the Midwest are expected to have natural gas stations spread out every 250 miles or so when the multiyear project concludes.
It is targeting the largest segment of the market: heavy-duty haulers that consume some $30 billion of fuel annually. That dwarfs the public sector and waste management industries combined.
Oilman and corporate investor T. Boone Pickens started Clean Energy as a tiny part of his Dallas-based Mesa Petroleum in the late 1980s. He split it off in the late 1990s.
Clean Energy shares often see wide fluctuations based on macroeconomic affects and may have been buoyed by today’s strong trading session.
