Cold Winter, Spring Coming? Ten Clean Energy Stocks For 2016

The first two months of 2016 have been chilly ones for the market, and for clean energy stocks. In addition to the worries about the world economy and plunging oil prices which have been hitting stocks in general, the clean energy sector had to deal with the Supreme Court’s stay on Obama’s Clean Power Plan. This effect was mitigated the following week by the lost of conservative Justice Scalia, but many states’ subsequent delays of their compliance plans have put an additional chill on clean energy stocks, even ones which are unlikely to be affected.

In January and February, my Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2016 model portfolio declined 13.5%, slightly worse than its benchmark (see below), which fell 11.5%. The seven income stocks were down 11.2% on average, slightly below my income benchmark, the Global X Yieldco ETF (YLCO). The three growth stocks declined 18.8%, also behind their benchmark, the Powershares/Wilderhill Clean Energy ETF (PBW), which fell 13.9%. The overall benchmark mentioned above is a 70/30 blend of the income and growth benchmarks.

The Green Global Equity Income Portfolio, a seed account investing in green income stocks which I manage performed outperformed all of them, falling only 4.7% year to date. It under-performed the much smaller income model portfolio last year, so but now it seems to be making up for lost time.

performance chart