10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2009: End of Q1 Performance Update

I promised I'd do a performance update on my 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2009 each quarter. Here is the first (although readers got a mini-update in mid February, because I decided I didn't want to use double-shorts.)

Company	Ticker	Change 12/27/08 to 3/27/09	Dividend & Interest
The Algonquin Power Income Trust	AGQNF.PK	+7.14%	5.36%
Cree, Inc.	CREE	+59.96%
First Trust Global Wind Energy ETF	FAN	-10.73%
General Electric	GE	-32.50%	1.94%
Johnson Controls	JCI	-25.97%	0.77%
New Flyer Industries	NFYIF.PK	+13.52%	2.31%
Ormat	ORA	+6.81%	0.23%
Trinity Industries	TRN	-33.20%	0.47%
Warterfurnace Renewable Energy	WFIFF.PK	+17.77%	1.05%
-2x S&P Depository Receipts + 3x Cash (was SDS until Feb 13)	3x $ - 2x SPY	4.31%	-0.14%
Total Portfolio		1.61%
Benchmarks
S&P 500		-6.51%
iShares S&P Global Clean Energy Index (ICLN)		-7.30%

As you can see, the portfolio has been strongly outperforming both the market index (+8%) and clean energy stocks (+9%). The big gainers were Energy Efficiency Stocks Cree (CREE) and Waterfurnace Renewable Energy (WFIFF.PK), and Mass Transit stock New Flyer Industries (NFYIF.PK). All of these are set to benefit from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: New Flyer even received a visit from Vice President Joe Biden.

The inclusion of these stocks in the list was no accident: I chose to emphasize energy efficiency and transit because I was expecting them to be a large part of the stimulus (although I can't claim to have predicted the VP's travel itinerary.)

On the losing side, we see conglomerates (each also involved in clean transportation and / or energy efficiency) which have been knocked down by the continuing financial crisis (GE), car industry (Johnson Controls (JCI)), or rail industry (Trinity) (TRN), all of which have been disproportionately hurt by one aspect or another of the continuing downward slide of the economy. It was for just this contingency that I included the SPY short, since, as I said "I feel there is more downside risk than upside potential for the market as a whole in 2009."

As usual, in hindsight, I feel I should have seen the implications of GE's exposure to finance, or Johnson Controls' exposure to the auto industry, but I can't complain about the overall performance.

Stay tuned for updates on my Ten Clean Energy Gambles for 2009 (on a losing streak, but no more than the benchmarks) and my Quick Clean Energy Mutual Fund Tracking Portfolio (more "turbo-charged" than "tracking") as these come up on 3 months after the articles were published.

DISCLOSURE: The author owns AGQNF, CREE, FAN, GE, JCI, NFYIF, ORA, TRN, WFIFF.

Comments

[John Lounsbury:]

Tom - - -

Thanks for setting up and tracking this portfolio. It is useful for those of us still trying to figure out how to best invest in the alternative energy sector.

Apr 02 09:32 AM

[tc1:]

Tom, thank you for diligently keeping us updated. I've not had time to keep my eye on a few of these companies that caught my attention when you wrote about them before, such as New Flyer.

I had already invested in Cree back on Dec. 5 (up, as of today, over 80%), and my investments in Great Lakes Hydro Income Fund (GLHIF.PK) and Boralex Power Income Fund (BLXJF.PK), both of which you alerted me to with your AltEnergy site, have held up rather well, outperforming the S&P and Dow during the markets' wild ride this last Quarter.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work! You're providing a real service to us "green investors" (green in more ways than one).

Apr 02 10:57 AM

[Tom Konrad:]

You're welcome, both. It's not every day that I get to toot my own horn and have people thank me for it. ;) But I'll keep this up even if next quarter I have less to brag about.

Apr 02 02:33 PM

[Marcap:]

While the information provided is indeed helpful, it should be noted that the +1.6% total change in portfolio valuation is due primarily to the results of just one company, Cree, which enjoyed a 59.96% increase. Remove just that one company however from the mix, and the results look anything but positive. On the contrary, they would show a 58.36% decline which is why one should never add equally weighted percentages to try and make a generalization about a market trend.

Apr 02 09:37 PM

[raytayzmd:]

...you should consider adding Amazon (AMZN) to your list as an indirect investment...if Kindle ultimately succeeds in doing away with a substantial portion of the hard copy book market the savings in terms of reduced need for all kinds of resources will be enormous.

Apr 03 08:49 AM

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Apr 05 12:14 PM

[Tom Konrad:]

If CREE were removed, the portfolio would still have out performed the indecies.

However, removing the best performing company after the fact is a falwed methodology for evaluating performance. If we are going to remove outliers, at the very least, we should remove one top-performing outlier, and one underperfroming outlier. If we remove both CREE and TRN, the overall perfomrance would be about -1%, still far outperforming both PBW and SPY.


On Apr 02 09:37 PM Marcap wrote:

> While the information provided is indeed helpful, it should be noted
> that the +1.6% total change in portfolio valuation is due primarily
> to the results of just one company, Cree, which enjoyed a 59.96%
> increase. Remove just that one company however from the mix, and
> the results look anything but positive. On the contrary, they would
> show a 58.36% decline which is why one should never add equally weighted
> percentages to try and make a generalization about a market trend.
>

Apr 14 01:12 AM