A contrarian take on clean energy investments over the next four years

Sustainable stocks match gains in fossil fuel shares since Election Day

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(Mark Hulbert, author and longtime investment columnist, is the founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest; his Hulbert Ratings audits investment newsletter returns.)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — It’s just possible that clean energy stocks will be good investments during the incoming Trump administration.

That’s hardly the consensus expectation, of course. President-elect Donald Trump has famously called climate change a hoax, and his campaign slogan was “drill, baby, drill.” It seems obvious to almost everyone that the next four years will be a challenging period for the clean energy industry.

Try telling that to Wall Street, however. Since Election Day, clean energy stocks are in a statistical dead heat with fossil fuel stocks. That’s very revealing, since the stock market discounts the future. If it were merely probable that the next four years would be terrible for clean energy companies, much less certain, investors would be selling the companies’ stocks now rather than waiting until their earnings actually plunge.