Portfolio

As I mentioned yesterday I had a limit order to purchase SunPower Corporation (SPWR). The stock was scheduled to start the day at $18 and I expected that the stock would be up big in the morning, so I set a limit order at $20. Well when the stock started trading it opened up at over $27. Mid-day the stock seemed to rest around the $25 level and that is when I entered the stock with a 1/3 position in my personal portfolio at a price of $25.70. The stock is not available for purchase at Marketocracy, so it...

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% ...

Renewable energy is still very much in its infancy, which means that companies in the space are either profitless or high-multiple startups, or divisions of much larger companies (GE Wind (NYSE:GE), or utilities such as FPL Group (NYSE:FPL) and Xcel (NYSE:XEL) which get much of their power from conventional generation.) This presents a dilemma for investors who understand the compelling drivers for the sector, but whose risk tolerance or financial needs indicate an income-based investing strategy. Canadian Income Trusts in Renewable Energy A few Canadian Income Trusts have historically gone some way towards filling this niche....

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA So far, the broad stock market seems to like the idea of a tax and regulation-cutting and infrastructure spending Trump administration and Republican controlled Congress.  The bond market is less pleased at the rapidly growing deficits such a "borrow and spend" policy will inevitably entail.  While the S&P 500 advanced 3.4% in November, bond funds fell in the face of rising interest rates.  The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT) fell 8.4%. Clean energy stocks were also hurt by the incoming President's climate change skepticism and his promises to undo environmental regulations put...

Two diametrically-opposed stories for this post: Beacon Power and RailPower Tech . The latter is up 134% on its week-ago closing price, while the former is down nearly 22% over the same period. Beacon Power Corp I wrote about Beacon Power a little while ago. The recent drop in share price is due in large part to the fact that Beacon announced, last Friday (Dec. 29), a glitch at one of its testing facilities in Massachusetts. This was followed by an analyst at Merriman Curhan Ford downgrading the company from Buy to Hold. Almost immediately, the...

Tom Konrad. CFA A "bonus" stock pick this year.  Also, notes on New Flyer Industries and Finavera Wind Energy. Maybe it was because Seeking Alpha did not carry my annual list of 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012 this year, but no one seems to have noticed that there were actually 11 stocks in the list.  Call it the Spinal Tap of top-ten lists. If anyone did notice the extra pick, they didn't leave a comment.  What happened was that I have two number 8 stocks, but there is enough text...

DayStar Technologies Inc (DSTI) has been on my radar for some time and the recent operational update created some renewed interest in the company. The stock traded up nicely over the past couple of days and it is now trading back down to the near term support due to some profit taking on the news. I have been looking for a good entry point on this stock and I feel like today is the day to make the move. Technically, the downside of this stock is that it may not be able to hold its currently levels and could...

Tom Konrad CFA I missed my regular monthly update on my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2013 model portfolio last month, and a lot has happened to the individual companies since.  Because of this, I will split this semiannual update in two parts.  This part will look at the performance of the portfolio as a whole, and the reasons it's lagging its benchmarks.  The next part will look at the news driving the performance of specific stocks. Since the last update on May 5th, my portfolio has advanced 3.0% for a 10.5% return for the first...

The Energy Stock Blog has posted an update of the stocks that make up the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW). The only change that I see from the last reporting of the index is the addition of Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (PEIX) to the portfolio.

With the recent market declines, the start of the year may not have been the best time to publish ten speculative stock recommendations.  Considering the S&P fell 6% in the month of January, I find it quite surprising that an equal-weighted portfolio of those picks is up over 6% for the same period (using the prices I quoted in the original articles.)  If the market as a whole continues down, I expect it to drag those speculative picks with it.  Small, profitless companies tend to be hurt more than others in market declines, and to benefit more from booms.  ...

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA My Quick Clean Energy Tracking Portfolio continues to outperform all benchmarks and expectations... is it luck, or did I stumble onto a better way to invest in green energy stocks? I continue to be stunned at how the portfolio which I intended as an easy way to duplicate green energy mutual fund performance at much lower cost continues to blow those green mutual funds out of the water.  I last published an update on this portfolio at the end of May, and was shocked to find that it had beaten the funds it was...

Wouldn't you know it, right after I posted about this company and complained that I couldn't buy it, I checked my brokerage account to see if there was any movement to my open market order. Well the IntraWeb gods must have been smiling on me, I got a partial fill in my personal account. So I now have a small stake in Carmanah Tech Corp (CMH.V) at a price of $3.0525. Maybe I should post my complaints more often :-) DISCLAIMER: I am not a registered investment advisor. The information and trades that I provide here...

11 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012 Tom Konrad CFA October Overview October brought a gentle fall to my Clean Energy model portfolio, and a slightly-less gentle decline for the clean energy sector and the stock market as a whole. Both the unhedged and hedged versions of my model portfolio fell 2.3% for the month, compared to a 4.1% decline for the widely held Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy ETF (PBW), which I use as a benchmark for the clean energy sector as a whole, and a 4.0%...