Ten Solid Clean Energy Companies to Buy on the Cheap: Intro, and Honorable Mentions

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.  ...

Four American Stocks for the Next Economy

Garvin Jabusch The Green Alpha Advisors' approach to portfolio management utilizes a top-down macroeconomic model reflecting how global economies will evolve to meet demands presented by modern challenges such as resource scarcity, growing populations, land and food management, atmospheric carbon and extreme weather, to name a few. These emerging challenges are daunting, but fortunately, society is answering and acting to preserve our economies and way of life with a new wave of innovation, the like of which has not been seen since the information technology revolution of the 1990s and the industrial revolution before that.  The...

Ten Clean Energy Stocks: Past Performance And Predictions For 2015

Tom Konrad CFA The last two months have not been kind to clean energy stocks.  Most commentators attribute the weakness to declining oil prices and the Republicans' strong showing in the midterm elections.  Whatever the cause, my 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2014 model portfolio was dragged into a loss for the year where it had previously looked to return a small gain.  A large part of the decline was in the dollar's strength.  Measured in local currency, the average stock was flat, but the 8% decline in...

Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2010

Tom Konrad, CFA A mini-portfolio of stocks that not only are green, but should outperform the market in an environment of increasing concern about climate change and peak oil. This is the third annual list of green stocks I have published.  In 2008, it was a list of ten speculative alternative energy companies (in three parts) that I thought might catch public notice that year.  As we all now know, 2008 was a horrible year for speculative stocks, and my stocks were no exception, losing an average of 55% that year, although that still ended up being better than...

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...

Q2 Performance Update: Ten Green Energy Gambles for 2009

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA I never thought 2009 would be a good year for risky stocks, but my readers asked for them anyway.  So far, my risk taking readers have not been burnt too badly, and the portfolio as a whole continues to track its benchmarks. In my first quarter update for my green energy gambles for 2009, I noted that the portfolio had lost about 10%, between the benchmark returns (-12% and -5%), but not very impressive.  Since then, the portfolio as a whole has gained a little ground, and is almost exactly midway between the benchmarks. The...
10 for 19 v GGEIP monthly

Ten Clean Energy Stocks For 2019: What Caution Looks Like

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA So far, my worries about stock market valuation and political turmoil have not turned into the stock market downturn I've been warning readers to prepare for. In fact, September has been a particularly sunny month for both clean energy stocks and the stock market in general.My broad income stock benchmark SDY was up 3.9% and the energy income stock benchmark YLCO rose 2.7% for the month, more than reversing August's declines. My 10 Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio accelerated upward by 5.3%, as did my real-money managed strategy, the Green Global Equity Income Portfolio(GGEIP), which...
10 Clean energy Stocks Performance Chart

Ten Clean Energy Stocks Back In Positive Territory Year To Date

Stay tuned for a full update next month, but it's nice to be back in the black... especially with the benchmarks still struggling.  Thanks to Enviva (EVA), Covanta (CVA), and Seaspan (SSW).  Until then, here's the May update, where I said EVA and CVA were two of my 3 top short term picks , and I commented that "I still think Seaspan has significant room to the upside." AY (at $18.91) and TERP (at $10.83) are my top short term picks right now. Disclosure: Long EVA, HIFR, GPP, BEP, TERP, PEGI, AY, NYLD, NYLD/A, CVA, SSW.

Alternative Energy and Climate Change Mutual Funds, Part IV

Tom Konrad CFA Cherry picking the holdings of green energy mutual funds. So far in this series I've concentrated on trying to pick the best of the Alternative Energy and Climate Change Mutual Funds.  This is a difficult task, because while I found in Part III that most of the funds' performance has been better than comparable index ETFs, these mutual funds' costs are quite high, even by the standards of most mutual funds, as I discussed in Part I.  In part II, I tried looking at the sector breakdown of the funds' holdings, to see if...

10 for 2020 Preview

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Over the last couple years, I've given paying subscribers a chance to see my annual list one trading day early.  I did not get it organized this year, but I just got an email from a past participant who was interested.  I initially said no, I'd rather be fair to all readers but then I thought maybe there are others who can benefit. I currently have a list of 11 stocks, which I will be narrowing down to 10 after the close on Dec 31st.  Anyone who forwards me (tom@thiswebsite.com) an email confirming a donation in...

Our Blue Chip Alternative Energy Stock List

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...

November Update: What Will The Election Bring for Clean Energy Stocks?

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%...

Green Dividend Values (11 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012)

Tom Konrad CFA Performance in May Fear of the disintegration of the Euro resurfaced in May, sending all stocks downward.  Clean energy stocks once again fell more than the market as a whole.  Possible causes are that many clean energy sectors are exposed to further loss of European subsidies, and that clean energy stocks tend to be more volatile than the market as a whole, with both up and down moves being magnified.  The Russell 2000 index (which I use as a broad market benchmark in this series) was down 7.1% in May, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean...

11 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012: August Update

Tom Konrad CFA July Overview July was a good month for my Clean Energy model portfolio.  Since the last update, these 11 stocks are up an average of 3.3%, with a year to date return total return a tiny loss of -0.5%.  While it's never pleasant to be down for the year, it's helpful to compare this performance to that of the most widely held clean energy ETF, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy ETF (PBW), which was down 8.7% for the month, and down 21% year to date.  All in all, it has been a miserable year...

Correction, or Bear Market?

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA On February 21st, I was helping an investment advisor I consult with pick stocks for a new client's portfolio.  He lamented that there were not enough stocks at good valuations. This is one of the hardest parts of being an investment advisor: a client expects the advisor to build a portfolio of stocks which should do well, but sometimes, especially in late stage bull markets, most stocks are overvalued.  I reminded him, "The Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to good stock picks."  He agreed, but he still had to tell his client that...

Calpine Given Notice

Calpine Corp. (CPN) shares are down another 20% again today and are now down in the 20-30 cent range. They were given notice today by a Delaware judge that they have until January 22 to repay $313 million owed to bondholders. Moody's has also downgraded their corporate bonds to junk bond Ca stauts (10 levels below investment grade.) Calpine was kicked out of the S&P 500 recently and now they are looking like they will declare bankruptcy. Boy the hits just keep on coming.
Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami