Alternative Energy Mutual Funds
Someone asked me recently about investing in renewable energy stocks, but asked if there were any special mutual funds for them. Knowing that there are socially responsible investment vehicles out there, all it took was a simple Google search for “alternative energy mutual fund” to turn up two solid articles from CNN and from Altenergystocks.com. Neither article is moldy oldy. They’re within the last 2 years and the Altenergystocks.com article has a follow up link from October 2007.
Personally, I’m holding Applied Materials (AMAT). Not because they are some special renewable energy stock, but because they are the leader in semiconductor manufacturing. However, as a leader in chemical-vapor-deposition products, their machines are also used to make photovoltaic products, i.e. solar energy collectors. I bought it a little too high, but it pays a dividend and generally moves cyclically, so you can always buy more on the dip. I plan to hold these shares forever because computers are never going to go away. I’m just putting it out there since apparently their stock jumps on press releases about their solar product line. I doubt it makes much money for them, but easily every single chip in the electronic device you are using to read this post was made on one of their machines. (FWIW, Lam Research (LRCX) and Novellus (NVLS) are probably their two biggest competitors and I’d buy those too, but they don’t have dividends.)
A few of my friends have made money off of Evergreen Solar, but I’m not interested in it myself. At any rate, the person who inspired this post isn’t interested in single-stock investments for various reasons, high risk being one of them.
moominoid wrote:
I just bought PBW - alt energy ETF this morning. Been on my buy list for a few weeks.
Posted on 11-Mar-08 at 8:52 am | Permalink
Clever Dude wrote:
Like Moominoid, I have PBW. I bought high though and so I’ve lost. However, I think now is the time to cash in on it. But then again I’m in no way an educated investor
Posted on 12-Mar-08 at 8:14 am | Permalink
Ron Robins wrote:
Until the problem of climate change abates, investing in ways to both combat and accommodate it will flourish. However, discerning what will be successful among them is another matter!
Also, I believe that if everyone invests according to their personal values, then, since so many of our core values are alike — and are supportive of higher ideals — that in the long run, only companies employing these higher values will truly prosper.
For your information, I’ve been following socially responsible investing for around forty years and have a website which covers all the latest global green/socially responsible investing news and research. It’s at http://investingforthesoul.com/
Best wishes, Ron Robins
Posted on 12-Mar-08 at 9:13 am | Permalink
Tom Konrad wrote:
I’m currently writing another update to my article on Renewable Energy Mutual funds and ETFs (the AltEnergyStocks.com article cited above) and came across this entry on my own web search… thanks for the link.
There have been a lot of new funds launched in the last few months… hence the need for another update.
Posted on 08-Jul-08 at 1:13 pm | Permalink