Minyanville's Sean Udall dares to share the kind of keen insight and actionable information you won't find in any prospectus. Here he answers a reader's burning question about "green" stocks. For more original thought, visit www.minyanville.com.

Professor Udall,

Do you have any opinions on Zoltek Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZOLT)? My wife wants me to buy everything "green". Her last "green" company idea was General Electric (NYSE: GE). I know, right? I bought a little just to quiet the noise level. I'm into a little SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) and Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR). Does Zoltek have legs?

Thanks,

Minyan L.

Minyan L.,

First, that's hysterical. Second, a word of caution: Going all green, or all of any one thing, is something I'd never advocate. If you do, you do so at your own risk, as nothing in the market is ever as obvious as it seems, especially when it seems totally obvious.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says as crude goes higher, it makes more and more sense to go for other energy options.

Every day that oil goes up, there is a new set of technologies that had formerly been priced out of the market that comes back to life. Let's take wind. Wind, in itself, just seems so stupid. It needs, well, wind. Much of our country doesn't have enough wind to make this economic. There are only certain regions that can really benefit.

But when oil is at $130, SO WHAT! The parts of the country that have a lot of wind are nuts not to do wind. Wind, when properly integrated into the grid, costs 4 cents a kilowatt. The issue has been shortage of everything that goes into a windmill, because nobody in the chain thought it was worthwhile to mass-produce them. So even though the cost is low, no companies felt it was worth it because the market seemed so niche.

In other words, it was the wind supply chain that was the problem, because we only thought in terms of gigantic plants that created energy. But with nuclear not an option -- never will be in this country, if you ask me -- natural gas falling out of favor post-Katrina as being unreliable, and coal simply intolerable because of the climate problems, wind has become the most natural fuel of all.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Large Cap Oilfield Services, Andersons and Unilever were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• UBS downgraded Large Cap Oilfield Services stocks citing a "more sober 2008 outlook." The firm downgraded Smith International (NYSE: SII) and Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI) to Neutral from Buy, citing delays in offshore growth for the Smith downgrade and execution issues for Baker Hughes.
  
• Banc of America downgraded shares of Andersons (NASDAQ: ANDE) to Neutral from Buy following the company's Q4 results to reflect a lack of visibility on FY08 growth.
  
• Citigroup downgraded shares of Unilever (NYSE: UN/UL) to Hold from Buy to reflect an increase in commodity costs.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Lehman lowered PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) to Equal Weight from Overweight; shares were also downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup.
  
• Friedman Billings downgraded Thomas & Betts (NYSE: TNB) to Market Perform from Outperform.

Main market news: Further selling indicated

The Wall Street Journal gives a report card to iWork, Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Office equivalent. To summarize, Walter S. Mossberg says that while iWork '08 is "capable of turning out sophisticated and attractive word-processing, presentation and spreadsheet documents," but "isn't as powerful or versatile as Microsoft Office."

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) said yesterday it will cut up 12% to 14% of its work force and has lowered its profit guidance to between $4.13 a share and $4.23 from $4.28 previously as sales were less than expected on its amnesia drug. Amgen shares are down 1.36% in premarket trading (8:06 a.m.).

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) was upgraded by Credit Suisse from Underperform to Outperform with the analyst upping the target price from $22.5 to $35.

The Wall Street Journal speculates [subscription required] that Kraft (NYSE: KFT) may sell its Post cereals unit for as much as $3 billion. One potential buyer may be Pepsi (NYSE: PEP).

The Register speculates on what Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) may announce as their operating system agreement in their joint press conference later today.

Thomas & Betts Corp. (NYSE: TNB) announced late yesterday it is buying Lamson & Sessions Co. (NYSE: LMS) for approximately $426.6 million. The two sides valued the transaction at $450 million.