Alternative Energy Stocks

By Jeff Siegel Well, I was partly right.. Last year I wrote the following about the car sharing company Zipcar (NASDAQ: ZIP): “... because Hertz and Enterprise are foaming at the mouth to tap the car sharing market, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both eventually made a bid for ZIP in a couple of years. Either way, I don't think Zipcar is under any serious threat in the near-term, and I may be looking to pick some up on dips.” When I got to the office on Wednesday morning, I read the following headline:...

Tom Konrad In 2007, it seemed like clean energy was finally becoming mainstream.  Both candidates for the US Presidency accepted the need to act on global warming, even if they did not agree on the degree, and clean energy stocks were rising even faster than the broad stock market. Then came the 2008 financial crisis, and many Americans discovered they had much more immediate worries than the slow but inexorable warming of the planet.  Fossil fuel interests and the politicians who benefited from their donations  played to the new mood by providing a worried populace with the excuse they wanted...

Garvin Jabusch There are a few truths that make the fundamental case that investing in the emerging next economy is the clearest path to long term competitive portfolio performance. First, innovation – meaning improving economic output without increasing material or capital inputs - always wins. This is simply how capitalism works, money chasing the best ideas, and has been the basis of the industrial revolution. Second, successfully mitigating the worst effects of economically and societally disastrous climate change (that we're not already irreversibly committed to) will save enormous costs, provide generational investment opportunities and also be inestimably economically stimulative....

Meg Cichon Geothermal well photo via Bigstock The renewable energy industry had quite a bit to celebrate this week as 2013 rang in a PTC extension that many had feared would never come to fruition. Though the extension to January 1, 2014 greatly benefits the wind industry, whose PTC was set to expire at the end of 2012, it also included a provision that could be huge for geothermal development. This provision states that projects under construction by January 1, 2014 would quality for the PTC, rather...

Jeff Siegel PTC Extension It looks like the wind power tax credits survived the fiscal cliff deal. But I wouldn't get too excited. The credit was extended only for an additional year. Which, as we see time and time again does not allow for any real, long-term commitment by developers or manufacturers. Of course, I still don't believe subsides are the best way to transition our energy economy, anyway. The truth is, decades worth of subsidies in the energy markets has never allowed for a real free market to flourish. It's why prohibitively expensive nuclear power still exists...

Doug Young A few of the latest headlines reflect a cooling appetite by banks for funding solar energy related projects, creating a worrisome vacuum that Beijing may need to fill as it seeks to stop struggling sector from sinking further still. Two of the latest such headlines look like particular cause for worry, with Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) taking over financial responsibility for a solar power project from one of its construction partners for unspecified reasons that I suspect are related to waning interest by banks in funding such projects. (company announcement) Another similar recent domestic media report...

Renewable Energy World Editors Offshore Wind Farm photo via Bigstock. On January 1, 2013, Congress passed legislation that included the long-sought extension of wind energy tax credits in a bill to avert the "fiscal cliff" that now moves to President Obama for his expected signature. The extension of the production tax credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is expected to save up to 37,000 jobs and create far more over time, and to revive business at nearly 500 manufacturing facilities across the country....

Tom Konrad CFA Year In Review For the fourth year in a row, my model portfolio of clean energy stocks has beaten the clean energy sector as a whole, this year by 23.8%.   Unfortunately, this was mostly due to another year of poor performance by my industry benchmark, the widely held Powershares Clean Energy (PBW) ETF, which lost 16.4% for the year.  My model portfolio, composed of eleven clean energy stocks listed in this article published on January 2nd, gained 7.4%, still short of the performance of the broad market, which gained 16.6%.  The general market...

Tom Konrad CFA This article is intended as a companion piece to Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2012. In the past, I've generally avoided illiquid stocks like Lime Energy (NASD:LIME) and PFB Corporation (TSX:PFB, OTC:PFBOF) which are included in this year's list.  The reason is simple: it's hard for all but the smallest investors to buy such stocks without significantly moving the price.  This year, I've instead chosen to publish a short list of alternative picks which readers can substitute for stocks they consider too illiquid or otherwise risky for their portfolio.  Another advantage...

Tom Konrad CFA Every year since 2008, I've published a list of ten (or eleven in 2012) clean energy stocks I expect to do well over the coming year.  The list is intended as a model portfolio which could be used by a small investor looking to avoid the relatively high costs of clean energy mutual funds, most of which have expense ratios around 2%, in addition to the trading costs they incur with fairly high turnover ratios.  My list also reflects my belief that the best returns and least risk in clean...

Doug Young A couple of news bits from the solar sector are showing at once how companies continue to struggle with fallout from the ongoing downturn even as some larger players continue to receive lifelines from Beijing. In the former category, floundering giant LDK (NYSE: LDK) has just announced an arbitration panel's ruling that it must pay hundreds of millions of yuan for equipment that it ordered at the height of the solar boom but which it no longer wants or needs. Meantime in the latter category, mid-sized player Hanwha SolarOne (Nasdaq: HSOL) has just received a major...

Tom Konrad LED lights on an outdoor tree. Photo by author This is the third article in my series based on my panel of green money managers’ predictions for 2013.  The first article looked at what they expect 2013 holds for the Solar industry, and the second looked at their predictions  for the Smart Grid.  This installment focuses on the LED industry. Jeff Cianci: Faster than Anyone Expects Jeff Cianci is Chief Investment Officer at equity investment fund Green Science Partners. Cianci says “The trend toward LED lighting for...

Jim Lane Biofene production starts up in Paraiso, Brazil – sales expected to commence in Q1 2013 – Total, Temasek, Biolding inject fresh capital. What’s next for biofuels’ “Comeback Kid”? By now, most of the “smart set” that found itself excited about Amyris (AMRS), and about advanced synthetic biofuels during the IPO fever, have moved on. They read Dan Grushkin’s “The Rise And Fall Of The Company That Was Going To Have Us All Using Biofuels” in Fast Company, wrote off Amyris and possibly the entire sector, and presumably migrated their enthusiasm to low-cost natural gas, battery...

Tom Konrad What will the New Year hold for Clean Energy?   For the people who manage clean energy portfolios, mutual funds, and indexes the question is more than idle curiosity.  Getting the answer right means finding the stocks which will put a shine on your solar portfolio’s returns.  Getting it wrong means the competition will blow away your wind stocks. I asked my network of green money managers for their predictions.  This is the second in a series on their predictions and stock picks from my panel.  This first article focused on what they had to...

Tom Konrad What will the New Year hold for Clean Energy?   For the people who manage clean energy portfolios, mutual funds, and indexes the question is more than idle curiosity.  Getting the answer right means finding the stocks which will put a shine on your solar portfolio’s returns.  Getting it wrong means the competition will blow away your wind stocks. I asked my network of green money managers what they thought, and they gave me a lot more than I expected.  This is the start of a series on the predictions and stock picks from my...

Jennifer Runyon According to Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the Secretary, DOE, making REITs or MLPs available for renewable energy project financing is the key to advancing the industry.   Top engineering, procurement and construction firms gathered to network, learn and do business with corporate-level project developers at the PGI Financial Forum, one of four co-located events that took place in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month. Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, gave the keynote address during a luncheon that took place during the conference. ...