What "green energy" stock should I invest in??

Question

Or should I at all. I have a feeling that this green energy movement is going to stick. What do you think. And which stock(s) are the way to go for "green"?

Answer 1

Individual green stocks carry tons of risk and volatility.  Try an ETF that invests in a basket of these companies.  This will smooth things out a bit for you.  The attached article gives several decent alternatives

Answer 2

I agree with what the 1st responder states.  Individual stocks do contain a great deal of risk,  especially in emerging markets such as green energy.  For every one company that will survive 10 will fall by the wayside.  I am not entirely in agreement with investing in an index fund in this area though, at least not at this juncture.  If in fact 10 are going to fall by the wayside, then 9 out of 10 of the stocks in the index are going to fail. Not a promising opportunity.  

I have to admit that I myself have positions in 3 companies, all outside of the U S.  They all however are very expensive relative to their earnings. The least expensive of the 3 is TSL, a small Chinese company manufacturing solar energy solutions.  Another is STP, another Chinese solar energy company, much larger and much more expensive.  But both are absolute bargains compared to U S based solar companies.  The 3rd is Vestas, a Danish company, which is the largest producer of wind turbines in the world.  It is somewhat on the expensive side currently however.

I have studied The Andersons ANDE as a possible investment.  The company among other things produces alcohol.  It also has a large rail car fleet that it leases.  One might consider railroads as the greenest of the green.  Other railroad possibilities are NSC, UNP, BNI, and CSX. At least these companies pay dividends, have reasonable earnings, are more or less the only game in town in their respective regions, and are 7 time more fuel efficient than trucks and 50 times more fuel efficient than airplanes.  Also they are the only form of transportation that currently is clean.  They can run on electricity which can be generated by other clean sources.  Unfortunately, I think others have caught on because they are all up significantly this year.