Clean Energy Tracking Portfolio Update: Oops!
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...
How Green are Your Earnings?
What Constitutes an Alternative Energy Company? There's a debate going on in the clean energy investment community about which companies are "green" enough to merit our attention. Before the filming of my WealthTrack appearance, I got into a discussion with Ardour Global Indexes' Joseph LaCorte. The Global Alternative Energy ETF (NYSE: GEX) is based on the index he manages. The format of the show includes a top pick from each of the guests at the end of the show, and Mr. LaCorte was hoping that I'd pick GEX, since I had previously told him that it was...
Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2013: January Update
Tom Konrad CFA Clip art by Philip Martin January has been a great month for clean energy stocks, and the stock market as a whole. My clean energy benchmark, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy Index (PBW), returned 10.9%, while the broad universe of small cap stocks which I benchmark with the iShares Russell 2000 Index ETF (IWM) is up a lesser but still impressive 9.5%. My ten clean energy picks for 2013 (introduced here), are up a...
Six Weeks, Twelve Clean Energy Stocks
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...
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. ...
Year in Review: 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2020
by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Looking Back
At the end of 2019, I was worried about overvaluation.
I wrote that my main goal for the 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2020 list was “to find stocks which will be resilient in the event of a US bear market.” We certainly had a bear market in 2020, although it was nothing like the kind of bear market I had been anticipating. The bear market was precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic, rather than overvaluation.
While I can claim to have anticipated the 2020 bear market, if not its nature, I was surprised by two other...
10 Clean Energy Stocks For 2020 May Update: Red Eléctrica, Ebay, NFI Group
by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
Market Outlook
The continuing market rebound in the face of a worsening epidemic in the US (outside of the initially hardest hit states) widespread protests against lack of police accountability, and a President who thinks the right response to mostly peaceful protests is to call in the military continues to befuddle me.
The risks in today's stock market outweigh the possibility of future potential gains. Although I was buying aggressively in March, I've shifted back to a more cautious stance, and am mostly starting to sell covered calls on my positions with the greatest gains. I generally...
In Review: 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2009
Tom Konrad, CFA 2009 was a banner year for my clean energy stock picks, which are up 57% over 12 months, greatly exceeding their benchmarks. Over the last 12 months, my ten green energy stocks for 2009 are up 57% vs. 29% for the S&P 500, and 12% for my clean energy benchmark, the iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index (ICLN), the two indexes I specified for benchmarks when I published the list a year ago. Below is a detailed rundown of the results. Company Ticker Change 12/27/08 to 12/27/09 Dividend &...
Give the Gift of a Future This Christmas: Five Sustainable Companies For Your Kids...
A Carbon Conundrum for Christmas Do we have to choose between happy kids this Christmas, and a happy future for those kids? Practically everything we buy has a negative environmental impact. If green consumption is an oxymoron, so is green giving. Are we left with only greener giving? It often seems that the only way to be truly green is to be like the Grinch (before his heart-enlargement) and not give anyone anything. And skip the tree while you're at it. It's a hard decision, and while there are many Green Shopping Advisories telling us that we can buy...
Ten Clean Energy Stocks For 2014: Patience Rewarded
Tom Konrad CFA For both the stock market and the weather, March was more lion than lamb. My broad market benchmark fell 2.2% to end up 1.5% for the quarter. Volatile clean energy stocks were down 4%, to end the quarter up 15.7%. My annual Ten Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio is designed to avoid much of the sector's notorious volatility, and fell only 0.6%, ending the quarter with a 3.9% total return. In dollar terms, the first six (income oriented) picks returned an average...
Performance Update: 10 Solid Clean Energy Companies to Buy on the Cheap
Unlike my Ten Speculations for 2008, my Solid Clean Energy Companies series will be much more difficult to benchmark. The intent of the series was to list some "stocks to buy when you think we've hit bottom." Since I obviously don't know when you think we've hit bottom (My opinion: not yet), I don't know what prices you'd have paid. Instead, I'll look at what would have happened if you bought only those stocks which dropped 10% since I wrote about them, and you bought them at the close that day, in equal dollar amounts. Here's...
Ten Clean Energy Stocks For 2017: January Jump
Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA The year got off to a spectacular start for my tenth annual Ten Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio. (You can read about the performance in 2016 and prior years here.) The portfolio and its income and growth subportfolios were up 9%, 8%, and 14%, respectively. Clean energy stocks in general also did well, with my three respective benchmarks up 2 to 3% each. (I use the YieldCo ETF YLCO as a benchmark for the income stocks, the Clean Energy ETF PBW as a benchmark for the...
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 for 2020: July Update on Valeo MiX, and NFI
A secular shift in the transportation paradigm?
by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA
I'm continually surprised at the strength and length of the stock market recovery in the face of a worsening pandemic in the US.
The stock market may not be the economy, but it's not totally divorced from the economy either. Perhaps the Senate's unwillingness to even talk about another aid package and the subsequent failure to pass one until after the benefits in the initial CARES act expire will trigger the market reversal I've been expecting at least since late April. Or it won't. I have a long track record...
11 Clean Energy Stocks for 2012: Quick Update
Tom Konrad CFA Experimenting with more frequent updates In the past, I genrally only wrote about my annual list of ten clean energy stocks on a quarterly basis, but when I wrote last month to apolgize for inadvertently slipping in an extra stock, and in the process wrote a few notes on a couple of the stocks with news, a couple readers wrote to say they liked the more frequent updates. So let it be written, so let it be done. Leave a comment if you think it's something I should continue doing,...
June Bloom: Ten Clean Energy Stocks For 2014, Q2 Update
Tom Konrad CFA After two weak months, June brought a strong recovery to clean energy stocks and the market in general. The broad market benchmark IWM put on 7.2%, reversing its previous loss for the year to enter the 4th of July holiday up 4.7%. My clean energy benchmark PBW shot up 8.6%, for year to date gains of 9.9%. Meanwhile my relatively conservative 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2014 model portfolio rose 3.6%, retaining its lead on the broad market with a 7% gain so far this year, but falling...
