Portfolio

Tom Konrad CFA In the six months since I published my annual clean energy mini-portfolio, it has far outperformed my industry benchmark, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy Index (PBW).  The dismal performance of renewable energy stocks so far this year is likely to lead to great buying opportunities in the rest of the year. 2010 is the third year in a row that I've published a list of ten renewable and energy efficiency stocks that I expect to perform well over the coming year. The details on the list for 2010 are here; this article is...

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA I'm experimenting with how to display the returns of the 10 Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio.  My Patreon supporters seem fairly evenly split between the two options show below, so I'm opening the poll up to my broader readership. You can see the two most popular options below (with real return data through the end of February) and take the poll here. Comments are welcome as well. DISCLOSURE: Long all stocks in the model portfolio.

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...

Tom Konrad, CFA I recently published a quick guide to a green or fossil fuel free stock portfolio aimed at the small investor.  For most people, the best options will be to use mutual funds or an investment advisor.  Some of us like to do things ourselves, and build a portfolio from scratch, using individual stocks.  Doing so could rapidly become a full-time job, but it does not have to be.  Instead, you can use information which mutual funds disclose to piggy-back on their research.  Garvin Jabusch, Co-Founder and CIO of Green Alpha Advisors in...

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...

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...

Like last year, I will be offering paying readers a preview of my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2018 list.  I plan to publish the final article after market close on January 1st.  If you would like to see a draft version mailed on December 29th (a full trading day before the final publication) please PayPal $10 to me at with a note that it's for the 10 for 2018 preview.  The draft will contain the full list, but may not have a complete stock discussion for each stock.  I plan to finish the article over the next couple days. Note...

The Obama Effect continues to make my annual ten picks shine. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA This is the second performance update on my 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2009.  In the first quarter, the model portfolio was up a tiny 1.6%, but still managed to beat the benchmarks handily (by 8% and 9%), since they were both down significantly. In the last three months, the market has turned around, logging significant gains, but my ten picks have continued to outperform. Company  Ticker Change 12/27/08 to 7/2/09 Dividend & Interest The...

Tom Konrad, CFA I never thought 2009 would be a good year for risky stocks, but my readers asked for them anyway.  The market's strong third quarter have paid off for risk-takers who gambled on my 10 Green Energy Gambles for 2009. I started out the year by providing readers with a portfolio of ten relatively conservative plays on green energy.  That portfolio was representative of how I planned to approach the market this year, and has produced stronger returns and less volatility when compared to both green energy stocks and the market as a whole.  Many of my...

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...

Tom Konrad, CFA The stock market is up, and my bets against it are down, except in energy.  It's time to double down. Earlier this week, a client asked me if I'd found any buying opportunities while doing research for my "Best Peak Oil Investments" series.  The answer is, "no," although I've found a few companies I'm hoping to buy at lower prices, later.  As regular readers know, I've been bearish since June 2009, after I cashed in on the quick rally in March, April, and May of that year.  My last ten months of...

Update: an expanded version of this portfolio appears here. Alternative Energy: Risky but Alluring For many of my older or more cautious clients, investment in small, profitless (or nearly so) startup alternative energy companies is inappropriate.  Even a diversified ETF such as the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy portfolio (AMEX: PBW) is too volatile due to its heavy exposure to profitless renewable energy companies such as Evergreen Solar (ESLR) (NasdaqGM: ESLR).   Because of this, in the last year PBW has been over $24, but as low as $16.24.  While such volatility can lead to supercharged profits when you are...

Tom Konrad CFA After a rough start to the year,  My Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2015 posted a strong recovery in February.  For the month, the model portfolio rose 7.9% in local currency terms and, 8.3% in dollar terms.  For comparison the broad universe of US small cap stocks rose 5.9% (as measured by IWM, the Russell 2000 index ETF), and the most widely held clean energy ETF, PBW, shot up 11.6%. This year I split the model portfolio into two sub-portfolios of six income stocks (NYSE:HASI, NYSE:BGC, TSX:...