I love building my own green portfolio with handpicked stocks, but for many investors venturing into this exciting market sector for the first time, it makes a lot of sense to establish an initial stake with index exchange traded funds (ETFs).

While I have not mentioned it much on the blog, one of my favorite sectors to invest in is the energy sector. When it comes to energy ETFs, the 800 pound gorilla is XLE, the energy select sector SPDR that trades over 20 million shares on a typical day. XLE’s holdings are heavily tilted toward the major integrated oil companies, with Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) accounting for slightly more the 1/3 of the ETFs holdings, followed by ConocoPhillips (COP), Schlumberger (SLB), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), etc.

With cap and trade legislation passing the House over the weekend, investing in the energy space is getting even more interesting. XLE was up Monday morning, as were the popular oil services ETF, OIH (the top five holdings favor drillers and include RIG, SLB, DO, BHI and NE) and the exploration and production ETF, XOP (top five holdings are XEC, PXD, EAC, INT and HK.)

Yet cleantech is a risky play because despite all the investment in the field, most clean technologies are not profitable. Only wind energy can currently compete with fossil fuels without subsidies. But with carbon legislation now inevitable, technological advances bringing costs down, and market values depressed by the financial crisis, the future is looking brighter for cleantech shares.

These cost curves strike me as fanciful -- does anyone know how closely they have hewn to reality since being created in 2002? -- but they are interesting and darn colorful:

Louis Basenese is one of the smartest investment analysts I know, and a good friend of mine to boot. And most of the time I agree with his research - and his conclusions.

Just not this time.

John Maynard Keynes is one of the most influential and controversial economists in history.

He warned of the huge burden war reparations placed on Germany and its allies after WW I. He played an integral role in establishing the post-WW II financial world. His economic theories established the impetus for governments to spend like mad during downturns. He made, lost, and made back a massive fortune in the stock market. He counted Pablo Picasso and Virginia Wolf as friends.

By Matthew Hougan

What's the best U.S. total market ETF?

If you're looking at January performance, the answer is clear: the ELEMENTS Benjamin Graham Total Market ETN (BVT).

Barack Obama will be sworn in as the US President in a few days’ time, and investors are looking at how to position their portfolios to benefit from the new administration’s projects. In this interview, Ed McRedmond, Senior Vice President at Invesco Powershares, gives investors some ideas about how to position themselves using Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

The new administration has promised to take on major infrastructure upgrades as a way of boosting the economy. What would be some of the ways to take advantage of this upcoming government spending?

Despite stiff competition, Monsanto cited the long term nature of its business, saying it is pursuing technological advances and value as opposed to discounting for market share gains. Monsanto increased its guidance as earnings grew 117% in FQ109.

Excerpt from Raymond James strategist Jeffrey Saut's latest essay, published Monday (January 12th):

...[T]he tone seemed to change last Wednesday when ADP Employer Services reported that 693,000 private sector jobs were lost in December. They also revised November’s job loss number upward to 476,000 from a loss of 250,000 jobs. Since we pay more attention to the direction of revisions than we do to the actual headline numbers, this revision was disturbing.

Sandwiched around the election of the first African-American President of the United States, we find the debacles associated with the collapse of the international finance sector and the imminent end of the American automotive industry as we've known it for decades -- accompanied by the scurrying of would-be leaders and experts around the world attempting to patch holes in the badly leaking dikes with hastily-applied band-aids.

Commodity forecast:

For the first time the company saw more than 50% of its AG [agricultural equipment] sales come from markets outside the U.S. and Canada.

Many of our readers at AboutETFs.com enjoyed our earlier article The Complete List of Currency ETFs and have been requesting a similar list for commodities. So, once again, by popular demand, here is our newest list, The Complete List of Commodity ETFs and ETNs, as of October 20, 2008.

COMMODITY BASKETS (All Commodities)

Part of being a good trader involves game planning possible market outcomes based upon external events. I picked up this investing habit at the tender age of 18 after reading about it in the book, Liars Poker. In the book, the traders would go back and forth with different external scenarios and would quiz each other on the best trading strategies to profit from them.

The world is always changing, and having at least a loose idea of what areas will be affected by certain predictable changes, helps to clear the investment fog tremendously. The military engages in similar exercises, game planning their response and the enemy's counter response based upon any number of scenarios.

Amid the carefully choreographed political conventions last month, there was a spontaneous chant that will be familiar to anyone who watched the Republican festivities: 

“Drill, baby, drill!  Drill, baby, drill!  Drill, baby, drill!”

It's become cliché to say that the United States is addicted to oil. I'll make no effort to refute the claim because it's true. It's an expensive habit, too. The upshot, however, has been the explosion of interest in renewable energy sources. Last year, investors poured a record $71 billion into the alternative energy space. And billions more funnel in every day.

But with so many possibilities - hydropower, wind power, solar power, geothermal, biofuel, clean coal technology - investors are forced to pick which alternative energy source will distinguish itself as the most viable replacement for oil. It's a crapshoot.

By Ucilia Wang

The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Thursday on an energy bill that would provide $17 billion in renewable-energy tax incentives.