New Energy Finance - NEX - Weekly Review

Posted by Tim

November 5, 2008

Each week I recap the results of the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index, symbol NEX, and published by New Energy Finance Ltd. The index consists of approximately 90 stocks from 22 countries. The NEX is the tracking index for the PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio ETF (PBD: 13.31 0.00 0.00%).

Last week the NEX broke a string of gut-wrenching weekly drops by posting a 22.9% gain. The index handily out-gained the NASDAQ, up 14.6% and the S&P 500, which gained 13.8%. Conventional energy benchmark AMEX Oil lifted 21.4%. Although the nice gain is encouraging, we must remember the NEX now sits at 187.19, well off its 52 week high of 468.75. Or put another way, the NEX is still 60% below the recent peak.

All of the sectors in the index were in positive territory led by a 40.6% gain in solar energy. A Barack Obama presidency is seen as especially positive for solar power and the top 5 stocks in the index were from this sector. Hydrogen and fuel cells was close on the heels of solar, gaining 38.6%. This sector contains only 3 stocks and all had a nice week.

Biofuels and biomass was the trailing sector, up only 12.8%. Brazil Ecodiesel surged 45% but VeraSun Energy lost 2/3 of its remaining value by declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend.

Here are the top gainers and losers from the index for the week (Note last week had only one positive stock, and this week only 4 negative returns):

NEX top gainers since 28/10/08
Evergreen Solar ESLR + 96.2%
Conergy CGY + 88.2%
Yingli Green Energy Holding YGE + 70.1%
Q-Cells QCE + 62.1%
LDK Solar LDK + 52.6%

NEX top losers since 28/10/08
VeraSun Energy VSE - 66.7%
Zhejiang Yankon Group 600261 - 5.0%
Epistar 2448 - 1.7%
Boralex BLX - 0.4%
Covanta Holding CVA 0.0%