Beacon Power Corp (BCON) announced that it has been awarded a contract through the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and co-funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. The contract, valued at $750,000, is for the preliminary design of a space-based flywheel energy storage system for satellite applications, and is a Phase II award under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Technology. Beacon announced completion of an associated Phase I project earlier this year. [ more ] This was welcome news for this company and its stock. BCON closed the day with a greater than 15% gain today on the news. This gain was also against the general trend of the market today. In general most of the stocks in this sector have had a tough past couple of days in the stock market. I have become extremely cautious about adding any new money to the portfolios. I have received short term sell signals for the general trend of the market on many technical indicators I follow. I have also received confirmation from several advisors that I trust with the regard to the trend of the general market. I only say this as a note of caution about adding new money to the market now. I’m currently at 50% cash in the mutual fund and plan to stay that way in the interim. I’m not planning on selling any of my current holdings but will be ready with cash when I feel the time is right to jump back in. If you have large gains in any of these stocks, you may want to take some money off the table at this point.
