Surprise: Green beat brown in 2025 — by a lot

Mark Hulbert looks at why oil stocks performed better when Biden was president.

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(Mark Hulbert, an 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) — Clean energy stocks trounced oil stocks in 2025.

Consider the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index, which contains over 100 of the largest “companies in global clean energy-related businesses,” according to Standard & Poor’s. The stock with the greatest weight in the index is FirstSolar FSLR 0.00%↑. The index produced a total return of 47.4% in 2025.

In contrast, the S&P Global Oil Index gained “just” 14.9% last year, less than a third as much. This index contains the “largest, publicly-traded companies engaged in oil & gas exploration and extraction & production.” The stock with the greatest weight in this index is ExxonMobil XOM 0.00%↑.