Depression is the rule of the day on the Yahoo Message Board for First Solar. First Solar soared in 2007 but 2008 has been brutal for shareholders.

In a post called “It’s only Just Begun” an investor laments:

Sooner or later the music stops. No momentum, no rise.

It would take years and years for this stock to catch up with its price.

Repeat of Dot Com days. Didn’t you guys learn anything in the 90’s?

The stock has fallen from a peak of $283 to $181 in only a few weeks. The stock was already expensive, trading with a P/E over 100.

It’s hard for true believers when high fliers go down day after day. Yet that is what is happening to several of the glamour stocks right now.

Take Apple.

Investors don’t know what to do. For now, they are just “depressed and scared.” As is evidenced by this poster on the Yahoo Finance Message Boards:

I bet it all on aapl…thought it was a sure thing…i used all my margin account to average down to 173…i’m worried that we’ve dropped so low…even an earnings bounce might fall short..i need some advice from some saavy longs…I already know what shorts think.

Apple is down about 20% since it hit an all-time high just under three weeks ago. It’s fallen from $202 to $159 a share.

Hold on for the ride.

Potash Corporation (POT) has seen its share price triple in 2007. The stock is near a record high. Founded in Canada in 1953, they make…fertilizers.

Fertlizers and anything agriculture are hot, hot, hot.

But is the stock? There is a healthy debate on the Yahoo Message Boards about whether or not you should be buying it at these levels. Said one poster:

POT is a leader in a hot sector - Agriculture/Fertilizers. The market still expects further price increases in potash, so EPS will move up, and over the next few years POT will be increasing output by 50%. EPS for 2009 may be $8 to $9, but p/e could return to 15-18 or even lower once the market thinks that the commodity price has peaked.

Everyone talks about the increasing population and changing diets as the cause for increasing Potash demand. The only reason for the present tight supply of fertilizers is biofuels. If ethanol use as fuel was discontined, POT’s stock price would fall by 75%.

The U.S. government is beginning to realize the potential impact of biofuels on food inflation, and there will be increased ethanol production from sources other than corn. Also, if oil falls to $60 - $70 as I think it will, that may reduce the demand for ethanol as a fuel, which would pressure fertilizer stocks.

With the exuberance in Google’s stock seeming to have peaked (for now), maybe it’s a contrarian play to stay away from agricultural commodities and buy some of the Tech Titans?

A good question to ask: do you even know what potash is? If not- think before you leap into buying the stock.

First Solar (FSLR), one of the solar power stocks, has had an incredible run over the last year. It is currently trading at a skyhigh P/E of 195 times earnings. In 2004 and 2005 the company traded with a negative ROE. In 2006, it was a paltry 0.9.

Can anyone say “gambling” when talking about this stock?

Some posters on the Yahoo Message Boards are beginning to liken the solar stocks to the dot-coms of the late 1990s:

Boy this message board sounds like an internet stock in 2000

How many solar companies are out there doubling? 40

First Solar competitor SolarFun Power Holdings (SOLF) is up another 6.50% after signing a $230 million contract with a Korean company to sell them wafers. It is trading with a P/E of 113.

There are hundreds of posts on the Yahoo Message Boards a day about these stocks.

Compare the solar stocks with a stock like Apache, one of the energy plays. Apache hit new all-time highs today and its shares were up 63% last year. It is still trading at 16 times earnings. They are an exploration company so their revenue will go up if crude prices stay high. The last post about Apache on the Yahoo Message Boards was December 30, 2007- or 4 days ago.

Irrational exuberance in the solar power stocks?

You be the judge.