Why the collapse of clean tech stocks is different from the Internet bubble
Most companies today have solid profits and balance sheets, and valuations are getting attractive.
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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) — Jeremy Grantham has the almost-impossible task of straddling two seemingly-contradictory perspectives about climate change.
Grantham, of course, is a co-founder of the Boston-based Grantham, Mayo, and Osterloo (GMO), formed in 1977. He is one of Wall Street’s elder statesmen, and his quarterly letters are some of the most widely read in the financial world.
Grantham on the one hand was one of the earliest and most outspoken voices on Wall Street about the need to address global warming. In 1997 he and his wife created the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, well before many Americans had even begun to think about climate change. On the other hand, Grantham is also famous for his ability to identify investment bubbles — before they break. Grantham predicted both the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000 and the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
As you can see from the chart above, clean energy stocks look suspiciously like they have formed another of these bubbles.
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