Portfolio

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA For the last few monthly updates, I've been focusing on the big picture, and have neglected to say anything about many of the 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2020  since I looked at how the pandemic would likely affect each stock in March. This month, I'm trying to rectify the oversight, and have been posting updates on individual stocks for my Patreon supporters since Friday.  Below is a collection of the updates I've published so far.  I am to keep posting one a day until I've gotten to all of them, after which I plan to...

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...

The first quarter of 2019 saw the market's largest quarterly gain in a decade, and my 10 clean energy stocks model portfolio outperformed both the broad market and the clean energy income ETF I use as a benchmark (see chart above.) Performance that strong makes me nervous, especially since the last time we saw gains like these it was the stock market rebound from the financial crisis.  In this case, while the market was down in the last quarter of 2018, it had only been enough of a decline to blow a little of the foam off the top of...

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA Almost every major index fell in 2018.  My Ten Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio and the Green Global Equity Income Portfolio (GGEIP), the real-money portfolio that I manage were not exceptions.  Still, I'm satisfied with their performance: the model portfolio lost only 1.3 percent for the year, while GGEIP was down 2.6 percent.  That's well ahead of most indexes, including my benchmarks YLCO (down 7.8 percent) and SDY (down 4.1%.)  These benchmarks are intended to reflect the performance of clean energy dividend stocks and general of dividend stocks, respectively.  Non-income oriented indexes such as the...

By Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA 2017 is turning into a second banner year in a row for my “Ten Clean Energy Stocks” model portfolio. I expected at best to make high single digit returns after the impressive 20% (while my benchmark fell 4%). Instead, the portfolio produced a 36.8% total return while its benchmark is up 19.5% with only four trading days left in the year. Such returns are obviously cause for celebration, and also for profit taking. I plan to replace at least five of this year's list with new stocks in the 2018 (tenth annual) “Clean Energy Stocks” model...

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...

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...

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Two of the cash covered puts in the 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2020 model portfolio have now expired, and I am left with a difficult decision as to what to replace them with. As I discussed last month, I feel the market is overvalued given the economic impact of the pandemic and little prospect of fiscal stimulus before January.  Yes, the market is not the whole economy, and large tech firms and high income workers and the wealthy are doing great while people on the bottom half of the income ladder are being crushed.  With...

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA At the start of November, I abandoned my short-term bearish stance on the market, writing "I’m not confident that the correction is over, but we seem to be heading into a temporary lull, and so I’m going to abandon cash as my top pick for November."  This turned out to be a good call, with my Ten Clean Energy Stocks model portfolio up 4.3% for the month, slightly behind its broad dividend income benchmark, SDY, which was up 4.9%.    Its clean energy income benchmark YLCO gained 1.6%, as did the private portfolio I manage, the...

by Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA After a couple down market days, all the limit orders I listed on Monday have executed. Here is the current portfolio: Position Shares Position Shares CVA 135 CIG 587 CVA Mar21 $7.50 Put -2 RDEIF 100 VLEEF 57 VEOEF 75 GPP 276 EBAY Jan ‘21 $8 Put -1 NFYEF 98 Cash $4415 MIXT 274   Coming Up: Third quarter earnings season is starting… I plan to write short notes on earnings as they come out for my Patreon supporters, which will be compiled into longer articles on AltEnergyStocks.com a few days later. Also, I’m doing a talk on how to divest from fossil fuels with the founder of divestor.org this coming Monday at 8:30 pm ET for the Climate and Health subgroup of Citizens Climate Lobby ...