Solar Stocks As the Best Play On The Cleantech Revolution? (Part II)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a recent report claiming that solar PV was going to be at the fore of the "cleantech revolution." I've never doubted solar PV's potential. What I like most about it, besides the fact that it's the most abundant energy form on Earth, is the ability for solar technologies to be deployed either through the building stock as a load-abatement measure or in large arrays of panels as solar parks. No other power generation technology can be scaled simultaneously through these two routes. Besides investments in Energy Conversion Devices (ENER)...
Shares of Capstone Rising
Shares of Capstone Turbine Corp (CPTC) are rising sharply this morning with high volume and gapped up with a gain of over 35% this morning. There is currently no news to cause this increase today and I will be digging deeper to find out what is going on. This is good news for the stock and also the portfolio. My holdings are now up over 50% in about 10 days. If you were thinking of buying the stock now, you should wait till some news confirms this move. Update at 12:15 EST: The only news I can...
Alternative Energy Funds In The Lead
By Harris Roen Alternative energy MFs and ETFs posted record gains in the past 12 months. Guggenheim Solar (TAN) and Market Vectors Solar Energy (KWT) are the top two performers out of more than 1,500 ETFs. Firsthand Alternative Energy (ALTEX) and Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy (GAAEX) are in the top ten for over 28,000 mutual funds. Mutual Funds Returns overall have been spectacular for alternative energy MFs. Even the lowest performer is up 27% in the past 12 months. The best performers are those strongly invested in solar, specifically ALTEX and GAAEX,...
Did You Just Buy a Sustainable Mutual Fund? No.
Garvin Jabusch Did you just buy a sustainable mutual fund? No. The answer is no because human economies are still so far from real sustainability that even a highly idealized portfolio of our most sustainable enterprises necessarily still falls short. Ultimately, the best any portfolio can do is mirror the reality of the world, and today, still, even the best representatives of sustainability can be found wanting compared to what will be required if we would like to keep society thriving indefinitely. At best, whatever fund you just bought can only be described as, to a greater or lesser...
Vacation, Updated Graphs, and 2 Conferences
Vacation and Meet Me at the Colorado Renewable Energy Conference or the International Peak Oil Conference. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I'm on vacation this week, so I'm going to leave you with a preview from a presentation I will be giving at the Colorado Renewable Energy Conference on Aug 29 in Golden Colorado. I'm updating my Investing in Renewable Energy presentations, and I've been able to incorporate a lot of the work Charles and I did on clean energy mutual funds and ETFs since January this year. ETF Holdings Revealed Charles did some in-depth work...
Fuel Cell Companies Purchased for Portfolio
I placed several trades for the mutual fund this afternoon to start building a position in some of the fuel cell companies. This sub-sector has been under pressure the last couple of months but seems to be building a nice base of support at the current levels. I feel this entire sub-sector is ready for a nice up move and the stocks have been behaving nicely the last week or so. The one stock I seriously considered not adding was Quantum. The stock has been in a steady decline and there is no sign that it’s going to slow...
Virtual Mutual Fund at Marketocracy.com
I finally got around to setting up a virtual mutual fund at Marketocracy.com. This virtual fund gives me 1 million in play money to prove my worth. If they like what they see, they will set up a real fund. Just like every real mutual fund you need to setup an investment charter and style. They will report on performance once you have maintained the mutual fund compliance rules. In a nutshell they are as follows: No position can exceed 25% of your total portfolio value.Half your portfolio must be comprised of positions under 10% each.Your cash...
Carbon ETFs/ETNs: Playing Copenhagen
Charles Morand At $126 billion transacted in 2008, up from $11 billion in 2005, the global carbon market is the fastest growing commodities market in the world and, provided that an agreement is reached at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen and that the US adopts a cap-and-trade program, this growth could go on for several more years. Yet this is a market that remains comparatively unknown for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the rules surrounding it are very complex. Unlike other commodities, to successfully invest directly in...
Alternative Energy Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
UPDATE 3/4/2011: An up-to-date article on selecting renewable energy ETFs can be found here. For investors looking for diversified exposure to Alternative Energy, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are the best option. I have not found any statistical evidence that actively managed alternative energy mutual funds can beat the market (and hence justify their higher fees,) so lower expense ratios make ETFs compelling. Since last year, the wide variety of Alternative Energy ETFs also makes it possible to even speculate on subsectors. People who expect Solar, Wind, or even Carbon Trading to do better than Alternative Energy...
Shares of Hydrogenics Purchased
Hydrogenics Corp (HYGS) is a developer of fuel cell technology and hydrogen generation. They are also working with wind farm technology in the generation of hydrogen. Back in January of this year they successfully completed the purchase of Stuart Energy which compliments their product portfolio. Shares of the stock have been under pressure for the last couple of months due to missed expectations on Q1 revenue results. There is also some major concern about an increase in product backlog. In August, HYGS issued their most recent quarterly earnings and are attempting to reassure the...
ESG5 Summit brief
A conference hosted in NYC in early April, 2019 ESG5 SUMMIT showcased the issues of current concern to institutional asset managers. ESG as a term is a rebranding of SRI (socially responsible investing) and CSR (corporate social responsibility) now under broad headings of Environment Social & Governance, to reflect that it is more than just an investing style, but is concerned with risk management and value creation. ESG strategies are being pursued by a range of participants, including public and private pension funds, mutual funds and ETFs, family offices and sovereign wealth funds, and advisors and advocacy groups.
The goals are...
Do Falling Alternative Energy Funds Returns Signal Danger?
By Harris Roen Green Mutual Fund Returns Falter Returns for green mutual funds have slid as of late. Longer term, however, alternative energy MFs are still showing strong gains. All MFs are in positive territory for the past 12 months, and 6 out of 14 funds are up double digits. Three year returns have faired even better, showing an annualized return of 14.3% on average. Short term, however, almost all the funds have given up a significant amount of their recent gains. For example, Firsthand Alternative Energy (ALTEX), the MF with the best one-year returns, gave up...
Endesa Reports 52 Percent Rise in Profit
ENDESA (ELE) reported a 52 percent increase in third-quarter profit Wednesday and said it will distribute almost 2.12 billion euros ($2.48 million) in dividends for the year. The company said it will pay out nearly 2 euros ($2.34) a share in dividends for 2005. The increased dividend is an attempt to ward off a hostile takeover attempt by Gas Natural. The stock way paying an almost 4% dividend yield and this move takes the divendend up near 12% with the special payout. Today I purchased the second third of my planned holdings for ELE in ...
A Diamond In The Mutual Fund Rough
The credit crisis and ensuing collapse in equity markets hasn't been especially good for the mutual fund industry (especially of the equity type). Over the weekend, I ran a search on Morningstar's Fund Quickrank using "U.S. Stocks Funds" as a category and "Total return %: 1 Year" as a ranking field. The top-five ranked funds (as at March 20, 2009) and their performances are outlined in the table below, excluding fees. The group average, containing 9,978 funds, is -40.43%. Fund Name Ticker 1-Yr Total Return (%) Gabelli ABC GABCX -1.52 ...
Shares in Energy Conversion Devices Purchased
Energy Conversion Devices Inc (ENER) opened up trading this morning with a gap down to the $33 level. For the last hour it has been steadily rising up from this point. As I said in my earlier post, I have been looking for a good entry point in this company and feel that the near term support of $33 is an ideal area to place an order. The stock has been on a run for several months and it is always hard to take a new position in a stock that has already seen dramatic increases...
Alternative Energy Mutual Fund and ETF Year End Update
By Harris Roen Alternative energy investing was very profitable in 2013. This article reviews how green mutual funds and ETFs performed in 2013, what stocks were most favored by these funds, and forecasts where funds should go in 2014 and beyond. Alternative Energy Fund Returns 2013 has been the year of the comeback for alternative energy mutual funds and ETFs. As of close last week, green mutual funds are up 37% on average. Without exception, not one of the 13 mutual funds ended down for the year. ETFs did even better on average, up 43%, with 14...
