Alternative Energy Stocks

Equus Total Return (NYSE: EQS) is a closed-end fund that trades at a 42% discount to its net asset value (NAV). The fund invests primarily in both debt and equity instruments of small-caps and private companies. Each quarter, management must report the fair value of its net assets, but the stock market value of Equus is much lower than that of its net assets. Here's a chart showing Equus' discount to its net assets for the last five years: As we can see, Equus is used to trading at a discount to its NAV, but...

On Sunday, Edgar A. Gunther at Gunther Portfolio provided some silicon updates from Intesolar North America 2008. Solar investors never get enough silicon updates, so here's another one! On Monday, Stacy Feldman at Solve Climate told us that China was now making increasingly more wind power parts. Actually, she is reporting on an article that was written last week and that I missed because I took a break from the Week In Cleantech last weekend. With regards to Chinese companies active in wind, we already list some in our Cleantech Stocks section, and will be sure to keep...

I get a large number of emails asking "What do you think of Company X?"  Unlike Jim Cramer, I don't have a lot to say about companies I have not been following, so all I usually do is point the reader to the most recent related article (something they could have found with the search feature in the right nav bar), if I have written one.   However, this spring I decided to research a couple companies solely based on reader's requests, and the articles have proven very popular, especially the one on Petrosun's Algae Farms. The recent surge of...

It wasn't long ago that people still believed the price of energy commodities - and crude oil in particular - had a greater impact on alt energy stocks than did general movements in equity markets or even fundamental factors. The logic went something like this: even though oil and most of the sub-sectors that make up the broad alt energy space (e.g. solar) are not in direct competition with one-another, expensive oil is the number one driver behind governments searching for alternatives to the way we currently meet our energy needs. For a time, this theory may have...

UPDATE 3/4/2011: An up-to-date article on selecting green mutual funds and ETFs can be found here. by Tom Konrad For new investors looking to green their portfolios with clean energy, the first thought is usually mutual funds.  The following three are available in North America: Mutual Funds Expenses New Alternatives Fund (NALFX) 0.95% + Sales load Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund  (GAAEX) 1.64% ...

by Tom Konrad.  This story is cross-posted on EcoGeek.org As lovers of green gadgets, EcoGeeks probably know as much about what's new in clean technology (a.k.a Cleantech) as anyone on the web.  So if you're an EcoGeek thinking about investing in companies which make the technology you know and love, you will probably take comfort in the old adage that you should invest in what you know.  An EcoGeek investing in clean technology companies will have an advantage understanding how a company makes money, and what is a needed innovation with a large  market,  and what is simply a...

The following is a Special Information Supplement by our Featured Company sponsor Guinness Atkinson Funds. Excerpt from The Dawn of the Alternative Energy Age Report: Written by Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund Managers “In the 20th century, mankind's massive material and financial progress were only made possible by the exploitation of oil. Oil was a main force in global geopolitics and the driving force behind unprecedented industrialization. Oil has been such a powerful lynch pin that it is hard to believe that its days of prominence may be waning. But as demand for oil steadily increases...

We have discussed on several occasions the investment opportunities related to power regulation and renewable energy. I have also recently written about the value approach to investing. I came across a stock today that I believed fell into both categories: power regulation (transformers) and value. The stock is Hammond Power Solutions (HPS-A.TO or HMDPF.PK), a firm that makes transformers for a number of applications, including wind turbines. While revenue and earnings have been ramping up quite nicely over the past four years, the stock price has been trending mostly laterally (albeit in a volatile manner) over the...

by Tom Konrad David Kline, and his team at the National Renewable Energy Lab, wants to help China exceed its target of 30 GW of installed capacity by 2020 by miles.   How is he helping?  By developing a methodology to help the central planners find the "Geospatial Supply Curves" for wind within China's regions.  By a geospatial supply curve, he means the available sites for wind farms at each levelized cost of energy (LCOE,) associated with the geographical data as to where that capacity would be installed. The team's technique combines geographical wind speed data with turbine...

On Monday, GreenBiz informed us that new cars in California would have to display a global warming score. This is interesting, and it would be good to see data on whether it actually impacts consumer behavior. On Tuesday, David Ehrlich at the Cleantech Group reported that cleantech investments had hit a record high. Interesting results, though I suspect that if problems in capital markets persist and VCs can't find acceptable exits things could change. On Wednesday, Katie Fehrenbacher at earth2tech outlined ten things we should know about nat gas vehicles. An ambitious proposal by Pickens, but I...

Investors are getting  bearish these days, which comes as a surprise to me, since I'm used to being in the minority.  I was a bear when I first took the leap from mutual funds and started trading stocks in 1999, and am a bear still.  I wish I'd turned bullish for a couple of years at what I consider to be the large bear market recovery of 2003-2006, but I didn't.  However, since I was (and still am) bullish on commodities since around the same time frame, I can't complain about my returns over the period. This spring, I...

In June, I wrote how intermittent power sources such as photovoltaics and wind would have to compete with baseload technologies such as IGCC "Clean Coal" and nuclear for capacity on the grid.  The key problem is that neither baseload technologies nor intermittent technologies are able to match themselves to the fluctuations of demand.  This creates a need for technologies which can fill the varying gaps between supply from these sources, and normal energy use.  From the comments, it seems like I was not completely clear how intermittent and baseload power cause problems for each other, so I will start...

I recently came across an interesting report released in June by the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think-tank, on large-scale electricity storage. The ability (or lack thereof) of the grid to take in all that new renewable power ranks as one of the main near-term risks to the growth of the alt energy sector, and cost-effective storage could go a long way in alleviating grid concerns. The report outlines the main technological options for storage along with their strengths and weaknesses. Although I wish there was more information on the costs of these technologies, as this is currently...

Two related pieces of news yesterday, one that was the day's headline and the other that drew a little less attention. First, the big news: auto makers, especially US-based ones, got hammered by their product mixes. As expected, Americans are responding to a rise in gasoline prices by turning away from trucks and demanding cars, especially small ones. Of course, this spells nothing but hard times for the likes of Ford, GM and Chrysler, who are still hungover from a decade-long party fueled by high-margin pick-up trucks and SUVs. Economic incentives, whether state-imposed or market-driven, work after all....

Update:You can find a comparison of FAN with PWND. a more recent wind ETF here. Since I last covered clean energy mutual funds and ETFs, the sector has seen the launch of two solar ETFs (KWT the Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF from VanEck,  and TAN, the Claymore/MAC Global Solar Energy ETF.)   Continuing in the tradition of cute ticker symbols, First Trust's new global wind energy ETF is FAN. I recommend that investors stay away from the (very expensive) green energy mutual funds, and invest either in one of the ETFs, or if they have...

On Sunday, Ed Pilkington at The Guardian informed us that a leading climate scientist was going to push for oil company leaders to be tried. I'm not sure one will ever be able to draw exact parallels between fossil energy and cigarettes, seeing as the latter had no bearing on industrialization and economic growth. Nevertheless, alt energy investors would benefit greatly if fossil fuels were given the same treatment as cigarettes by local policy-makers. Are potential bans on drive-thrus a sign that such times are upon us? On Monday, Martin LaMonica at CNET News told us that...