Portfolio

Investment opportunities connected to climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation are a popular topic of discussion on this blog. Most of the time, however, the companies we discuss are relatively small, often unknown to most investors and overall pretty speculative. Yesterday, I came across an interesting article on Seeking Alpha entitled "Investing In a Greenhouse Gas-Regulated World" - the title says it all. The article looks at the question of investing in a GHG-constrained world from a conventional portfolio management perspective, and therefore argues for a low weighting in pure-play cleantech or carbon finance stocks, and...

Tom Konrad CFA Year In Review For the fourth year in a row, my model portfolio of clean energy stocks has beaten the clean energy sector as a whole, this year by 23.8%.   Unfortunately, this was mostly due to another year of poor performance by my industry benchmark, the widely held Powershares Clean Energy (PBW) ETF, which lost 16.4% for the year.  My model portfolio, composed of eleven clean energy stocks listed in this article published on January 2nd, gained 7.4%, still short of the performance of the broad market, which gained 16.6%.  The general market...

Tom Konrad CFA My clean energy portfolio outperformed again in 2011, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Without a doubt, 2011 was a horrible year for Clean Energy stocks, nearly as bad as 2008.  The difference was that, in 2008, the entire stock market was crushed, while this year, the broad market ended with only modest declines compared to clean energy stocks. Based on 2010 and 2011 closing prices, the broad market (as measured by the performance of the Russell 2000 index), was down 10%, while clean energy stocks were down 52%, as...

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA My Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2016 model portfolio had yet another strong month, as did my real managed portfolio, the Green Global Equity Income Portfolio (GGEIP.)  The shorter-format of last month's update turned out to be popular, so I'm doing it again. July Total Return July Benchmark Return YTD Total Return YTD Benchmark Return 10 Clean Energy Stocks 8.5% 5.5% 15.3% ...

Tom Konrad CFA September Overview September was another quiet month for my Clean Energy model portfolio and the stock market in general, with the exception of Finavera Wind Energy (TSX:FVR, OTC:FNVRF), which put itself up for sale last Monday (see below.)  Since my last update, my model portfolio rose a modest 4.5%, shadowing my broad market benchmark, the Russell 2000 index (^RUT), also up 4.5%.  Although my clean energy picks rose in line with the broader market, the clean energy sector as...

Tom Konrad CFA 2015 got off to a rocky start for both the broad market in general, as well as clean energy.  My Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2015 model portfolio dd not fare any better, since the main bright spots for the portfolio were its three Canadian stocks, but these were dragged down by the 9% decline in the Canadian dollar for the month. For the month, the model portfolio was down 3.6% in local currency terms, but fell 7.2% in dollar terms.  For comparison the broad universe of US small cap stocks was...

Tom Konrad CFA Three stocks I sold recently, and why. Three years later, I'm still kicking myself that the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and stock market collapse took me by surprise.  Not that I wasn't in good company.  If a majority of investors had been prepared for the crisis, it would never have happened in the first place: The overpriced CDOs and other securities which were a large part of the cause would never have become overpriced.  But making excuses for past mistakes is not useful.  Learning from them...

Tom Konrad CFA It's been a busy six weeks since I last updated readers on the news events driving my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2013 and six alternative picks.  I looked into the performance of the portfolio as a whole at the start of the month, along with some comments about the four renewable energy developers.  I thought at the time we might be seeing a bottom for these beleaguered stocks, but if I was right, we have yet to see the upturn.  Nevertheless, the...

Tom Konrad CFA I like to think that one of the things that distinguishes me from the mass of investment bloggers and newsletter writers is that I write about my mistakes, as well as my great calls.  This is not just a service to readers, but a service to myself.  Overconfidence and why I write about my mistakes One of the most pernicious cognitive errors common among stock market investors arises from our wish to see ourselves as great investors.  One of the ways we accomplish that goal is to selectively and unconsciously self-edit our...

My annual green energy stock picks continue to hold up, but the Obama Effect for clean energy seems to have been lost in the summer's healthcare debate. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA For the first 9 months of 2009,  my ten green energy stocks for 2009 are up 23.4% vs. the S&P 500, and up 20.4% over my clean energy benchmark, the iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index (ICLN).  For the third quarter, that amounts to a loss of 1% relative to the S&P 500, and a gain of 7% relative to ICLN. In my second quarter update, I...

The market has fallen sharply, and Solar stocks have fallen even more following rumors that Congress will pass the Energy Bill without the Production Tax Credit or Investment Tax Credit.   Given this volatility and Renewable Energy's reputation for profitless startups, now might seem like an excellent time for a risk adverse investor to abandon the sector altogether.   Not so.  Even if all tax credits and other incentives for Renewable Energy were to be removed, the underlying drivers of Alternative Energy remain firmly in place: Rising energy prices and decreasing reserves, the need to reduce our Greenhouse gas emissions to avoid...

My Quick Clean Energy Tracking Portfolio has solidly outperformed its benchmark... was it bad design? Tom Konrad, Ph.D. On February 27, I used the top holdings of the (then six) clean energy mutual funds to design a tracking portfolio intended to replicate the performance of those funds at much lower cost.  If my methodology was sound, the tracking portfolio should produce returns within the range of returns of the mutual funds on which it was based. If all went well, the returns would be at the upper end of that range because of the way I chose to emphasize...