Guest post by Leo Goldstein
The COVID-19 epidemic and the response to it have devastated the economy. However, the alternative energy stock indexes quadrupled on average, including 150% growth before the US elections.
Alt-energy (alternative energy) market performance can be captured in the performance of the leading alt-energy ETFs (exchange traded funds): QCLN, PBW, and TAN. In addition to alt-energy, these ETFs also hold non-energy manufacturing and service companies, critically dependent on climate alarmism. Thus, the assets of any of these ETFs can be used as a financial index, tracking climate alarmism.
After sustaining no growth and moderate losses for five previous years, alt-energy gained an average of 150%, during the first year of COVID-19 (October 25, 2019 to October 30, 2020; see Fig. 1 below). Even more telling, most of these gains happened in the period of draconian and highly politicized lockdowns; see Fig. 2 below.
There is no economic explanation for this steep increase in alt-energy’s valuation. A society under shutdowns or lockdowns consumes less energy and thus, all energy stocks would consequently suffer. Even alt-energy corporations, mainly producing carbon credits, would suffer, because carbon credits are bought mainly by businesses producing or consuming real energy. Additionally, the significant loss of income due to the sudden downturn of the economy would leave little or no funds for anything other than dealing with the current crisis.
One possible explanation for alt-energy’s growth is the expanding political powers of climate alarmism / global governance. Many entities openly celebrated the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for a power grab, starting with “address[ing] the climate emergency and transition to net zero carbon emissions“. On June 3, 2020, Klaus Schwab, the Head of the World Economic Forum, called for a Great Reset, stating:
“There are many reasons to pursue a Great Reset, but the most urgent is COVID-19.”
“[the pandemic] has shown how quickly we can make radical changes to our lifestyles. Almost instantly, the crisis forced businesses and individuals to abandon practices long claimed to be essential, from frequent air travel to working in an office. Likewise, populations have overwhelmingly shown a willingness to make sacrifices …“
Alt-energy ETFs valuation quadrupled between Oct 25, 2019 (pre-pandemic) and February 12, 2021 (the first date of this writing). Of course, nearly half of these gains happened after the November 3rd elections. Since this is an expected outcome for political rackets, when their party wins, this article only covers the period before the election: Oct 2019 – Oct 2020.
During this period, the S&P 500 index, capturing some of the largest corporations, only grew by 8%. Small businesses are mostly devastated, and employment in the private sector is in shambles. The following charts compare alt-energy with S&P 500.
The blue line represents the S&P 500. The pink, brown, and violet lines represent alt-energy ETFs. The green and red bars at the bottom of the graph are trade volumes, not used. All time periods start and end on Friday. The charts show changes from the first day in the period, in percent.
Chart 1. The first 12 months of COVID-19 globally; Oct 25, 2019 – Oct 30, 2020; weekly
(Yahoo! Finance)
Notice the jump of the alt-energy ETFs in February 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic.
Chart 2. 6 months of irrational shutdowns, May 1, 2020 – Oct 30, 2020; daily
May 1, 2020 to October 30, 2020, was the period of unjustifiable shutdowns and lockdowns. Some states had shutdowns and others had lockdowns, after it was clear that COVID-19 had a low fatality rate, especially among younger people. By this time, COVID-19 treatments and prophylaxis were found and “the curve” had been bent. See the COVID-19 hospitalization rates and the death rates (which are about four weeks behind).
Remarks:
- This article was first drafted before alt-energy failed Texas. The Texas blackouts have shown how dependent we are on reliable electric power supply from the grid. There are almost no local emergency power options. Even gas-powered heating units need electricity to work. In many cases, people lost their internet services (thanks to Obamanet, in part) even before losing power. Most people are totally dependent on the Internet for information, emergency and/or evacuation orders, etc. Many do not even have AM/FM radios. This is a big problem that hopefully states will address.
- It should be noted that before the pandemic, alt-energy ETFs had relatively low beta. Beta values for PBW, TAN, and QCLN were 1.0, 1.2, and 1.5, respectively, measured against S&P 500.
- Big Tech is another economic sector that showed significant gains during the shutdowns and lockdowns. In Big Tech’s case, the causation is well known. Lockdowns forced most business interactions and personal relationships to take place through the Internet, which is dominated by Big Tech. My observation from early June has remained correct – countries suffering under the “rule” of Big Tech (Americas and Europe, excluding Russia and Ukraine) suffered the worst outcomes during COVID-19, especially when adjusted to indoor population densities and healthcare capacities.
- Alt-energy or “clean energy” refers to energy sources other than fossil fuels, nuclear, and large-scale hydro.
They shot up as Biden’s chances of becoming President shot up. Why? Duh.
Handouts, handouts, handouts, handouts, and reliable power be damned, energy independence be damned, the 10 million mostly blue collar American workers in those industries be damned, and middle class workers be damned.
The coup was in place and there was no stopping them even with election frauds.
Joe Biden was nominated a year before the fixed (remember that?) Iowa caucus. The DNC just had to engineer it so that it looked like he “won” the nomination. Remember right before Super Tuesday Pete Buttplug and Amy Klobuchar and few others quit and Elizabeth Warren stayed right in there to split vote from Bernie?
Your homophobia is showing.
If Little Petey Buttplug doesn’t want his sexuality to be the issue why does he keep making it the issue? And please list his qualifications to be Transportation Secretary. He is a failed mayor whose only experience in transportation is calling an uber and making airline reservations.
You too? Wow.
Sanders was going to be the nominee, he had the younguns all in a dither for his big give aways. He just was not controlable like FauxJoe is, and Horizontal Harris is already taking the reins. Saw that coming.
Biden’s chances of becoming President were falling in September-October, as his dementia was becoming more evident. Yet, alt-energy stocks were rising.
“There is no economic explanation for this steep increase in alt-energy’s valuation”
Really? You don’t think $9 Trillion in ‘stimulus’ injections had anything to do with it?
Around 25% of all USD printed since the birth of the nation were printed in the last 12 months!
This will not end well!
If the explanation is stimulus spending, why did it mostly go to alt-energy and not to the stock market in general?
A very very good question…
…Here in the UK its full on ‘Green Global Reset’ propaganda and money being pledged for any greenCrap™ that looks faintly plausible.
Get ready, bend over, and drop yer pants….
difficult to nail it down exactly, but reading between the lines the dosh went to all the big Wall St banks, and they’re fully signed up members of the world banks/WEF “Great Reset” (Rebadged Agenda 21/2030) plus you have Biden spouting all their “Build back Better” type propaganda catchwords, so it’s not exactly difficult to see what’s going on …
“The Fed has provided data on the total amounts of the daily
loans, but not the names of the recipients. All it will say is that the
loans are going to its 24 primary dealers, which are the trading units
of the big banks on Wall Street. The last time we tallied its data in
March, it had sluiced over $9 trillion cumulatively to these trading
houses.”
https://news.bitcoin.com/9-trillion-in-stimulus-injections-the-feds-2020-pump-eclipses-two-centuries-of-usd-creation/
In NZ our politicians are openly talking about ‘resets’ and ‘building back better’, going to conferences to talk about ‘policy resets’, but when asked about the ‘great reset’ they literally spit the dummy.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/02/the-great-reset-grant-robertson-pulls-out-of-weekly-slot-on-magic-talk-with-peter-williams-after-shooting-down-conspiracy-theory.amp.html
What’s with that?
‘conspiracy theory’ lol they really are full of hurbis, the WEF has been banging on about it’s “great Reset” for 6 months or more, they’ve produced a whole bunch of promotional videos (where Klaus Schwab plays a rather convincing Bond Villan) it’s even on the cover of Time Magazine, it’s not a ‘conspiracy theory’ it’s an open conspiracy!
Great Reset was in news articles 2019, and I believe a couple of “global economists” were pushing it several years ago. Hell, at this point lets trot out Shrillary and her reset button, we all saw how well that worked out.
Ever heard about the Green New Deal? It is all -alt-
As far as stimulus moneys go, spend it ASAP because its actual value will contract very quickly-prices go|UP.
Although this is an interesting article, it is not good news. There are anti-capitalism aspects of this, and Big Tech seems to have their hand in it. Our friends freezing in Texas may do us all some good in the long-term, ie, get a reliable energy structure established before you play around with renewables.
Not only “big tech”. From Molly Ball’s naive article in TIME:
“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.” (my bold)
She justifies this collusion with nonsense: “… dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.”
“Curtailed the protests” (over the summer)? Who knew BLM and Antifa responded to coordination with big business and labor?
“Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws …”
”.. In November 2019, Mark Zuckerberg invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked. “It took pushing, urging, conversations, brainstorming, all of that to get to a place where we ended up with more rigorous rules and enforcement,” says Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who attended the dinner and also met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others. (Gupta has been nominated for Associate Attorney General by President Biden.)”
But relax folks, we are told this was a bipartisan effort – to save a democratic election.
THIS is what needs to be investigated by an independent Commission (if one can be formed in today’s political climate)!
U.S. Chamber of Communists
In the US, the expected presidential transition from a clueless narcissist to a clueless climate alarmist seems to be a factor too.
Energy independence, reduction in illegal immigration, low unemployment, no new military conflict, elimination of critical race theory from federal institutions, conservative judges ( OK, less liberal), embassy moved to Jerusalem, reduction in regulations. If that is cluless narcissism I’ll take it!
“If that is cluless narcissism I’ll take it!”
Yes, me, too. And that goes for most other Republicans and conservatives, too.
I will accept your label of PDJT as a narcissist … although TRUE narcissists would NEVER say “America First” … instead they would say things like Biden is a Savior. Narcissists say “look at me! look at me!” and make America LAST.
But to describe PDJT as “clueless” is simply nonsense. PDJT made America the world’s foremost exporter of fossil fuels, and unleashed incomparable stock market and business gains. PDJT increased blue collar wages and prosperity in ways Obama never could (or would).
“unleashed incomparable stock market and business gains”
see the comment above about money printing, and think for a second on who will be paying for the “incomparable gains” …
and they didn’t even offer you lube!
So Trump, beginning back in the ’90s, is the one responsible for mass printing of money? Wow, wish he would let me use his time machine.
Don’t need a time machine. Around 25% of all USD printed since the birth of the nation were printed in the last 12 months! During Trumps office they prnited more dollars than any other similar time period in history.
Really? Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!! good one, I like a nice laugh early in the morning.
Trump wasn’t clueless. He was right on the money as far as conservative policy was concerned. That’s why he has an 81 percent approval rating from conservatives.
Let’s see how defensive you get under constant attack from a bunch of liars. Liars who are trying to steal the country out from under its people. Trump wasn’t perfect, but I’ll take him over anyone else you can name who is alive on this Earth right now.
Conservative Policy = Freedom
Trump = Conservative Policy
Somebody saw Joe coming from a long way off
One would almost believe that this “global Reset” was incubated in a remote ChiCom laboratory, and strategically “leaked” into the population. And the Deep State was prepared for such a “pandemic” with Emergency Powers that superseded the US Constitution and effectively removed The Peoples Vote and The Peoples Liberty.
As someone said … this will not end well. Unless you enjoy the social isolation of High Tech Gulags.
Don’t forget. At precisely the same time, on Aug 7, 2018, the 5 CEO’s of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google simultaneously awoke and all came up with the identical idea of banning Alex Jones ideas and speeches on their platforms.
Nothing bad happened to their corporations at all. There was no outcry from the masses about the stifling of one American’s enterprise or free speech. Because Jonesmanbad, not a single issue was raised about the simultaneous coincidence.
It was a test run. It was highly successful. Orangemanbad. Never forget that.
Could this all be due to insider collusion as the “collapse” of GameStop was done? A pattern of criminal actions does certainly appear to be shaking out before our very eyes, yet again. Guess it is good for the criminals that they have such influence over certain governmental employees in certain countries
Fund managers virtue-signaling with other people’s money.
Classic pump-and-dump
Percentage wise the worst players shot up the most in hopes of another Obama grant/loan/subsidy bonanza with greatest relative benefits for the nonplayers and those locked out of capital markets because they could not compete in a normal due diligence process. Obama turned that into the phrase “we don’t pick winners” in order to fund the politically connected failures. While deflecting criticism on Solyndra he could point to averages that included the best names that did benefit from subsidies while hiding those special losers. You need a great communications team to run the rapids of a con game like that while losing hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds.
Nothing more than speculators thinking that they are getting in at near the bottom of the next growth stock. After all, with the backing of governments and MSM world wide how great can the risk be?
Here is more from world of science:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-magnetic-field-reversal-mass-extinctions-environment-crisis
With the help of new, precise carbon dating obtained from ancient tree fossils, the researchers correlated shifts in climate patterns, large mammal extinctions and even changes in human behavior just before and during the Laschamps excursion, a brief reversal of the magnetic poles that lasted less than a thousand years. It’s the first study to directly link a magnetic pole reversal to large-scale environmental changes, the team reports in the Feb. 19 Science.
‘California and Texas are warnings’: blackouts show US deeply unprepared for renewables stupidity’
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/19/power-outages-texas-california-climate-crisis
Dammit! I fixed the headline now I gotta fix their article too. Wait till they get the bill! $$$$
All through the item, it’s climate change, climate change, climate change. Nothing about human stupidity. Their idea for local power generation would be OK until everyone plugs in their electric cars at the same time.
It is simply a gamble that thee loony-left politicians will gift them billions of dollars for unreliable energy schemes. It is a gamble I fear they will win handsomely on.
‘This article was first drafted before alt-energy failed Texas‘.
Natural gas failed Texas, not wind power. That and not connecting the Texas grid to avoid the Federal regulation which would have insisted Texas winterise its gas plant as it was warned to do after 2011.
I say we vote Griff off the island. He keeps repeating gibberish.
What an idiotic comment, Griff! Natural gas, the cleanest and most adaptable fuel on the planet, saved many people from complete disaster.
it will be interesting to see what happens in a few years during a cold winter in the UK when gas central heating is no longer allowed…..and all those inefficient heat pumps are running and all those electric cars need to be charged. Watch this space!
LIAR !!
Gas SAVED THE DAY.. Wind disappeared to basically NOTHING
If the money WASTED on unreliable wind and solar had been spent on solid RELIABLE COAL and GAS there would have been no problem whatsoever
The OVER-RIDING cause of the FAILURE, has been the cow-towing to the anti-CO2 agenda.
And even more LIES.. you really are either totally IGNORANT or deliberately LYING
Interconnects would have made NO DIFFERENCE because there was no reserve electricity anywhere else.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/02/18/midwest-have-no-surplus-power-for-texas/
Saying that the failure of wind power was not responsible because wind power is always unreliable does not absolve it of the major culpability for the failures in Texas. Conventional generation was able to massively increase output in spite of problems, and if wind power had not replaced a significant proportion of the electricity capacity, there would have been greater conventional generation capacity providing more baseload, and even more peak output.
In a state with more windpower capacity than any other, zero windmills were frozen solid and none went offline during the storm freeze? Are you really trying to make that assertion? Because that is what it takes to assert that windpower did not fail Texas when needed.
Griff is spouting such utter total bollocks only someone living on the island could be that stupid.
So, HOW COME the British grid failed so spectacularly in exactly the same way as Texas eh??
“The third event occurred on 9 August 2019, when around a million customers across Great Britain found themselves without power”…
could it be the much vaunted interconnect which actually EXISTS from nuclear France to near Dover, couldn’t supply enough also???
Could it just be the very wind farms to blame for it, caused a major blackout stranding trains down the entire east coast of England??
Here is what ACTUALLY happened (hey just bad weather eh?)
“around a million customers across Great Britain found themselves without power.Lightning struck a transmission line at 4:52 pm, causing the loss of 500 MW embedded (mostly solar) generation. Almost immediately, Little Barford Power Station and Hornsea Wind Farm tripped within seconds of each other, removing 1.378 GW of generation which was in excess of the 1 GW of backup power the operator maintains. The grid frequency fell to 48.8 Hz before automatic load-shedding disconnected 5% of the local distribution networks (1.1 million customers for 15 to 20 minutes); this action stabilised the remaining 95% of the system and prevented a larger blackout.
Although power was maintained at all times to the railway network (but not to the signalling system), the reduction in frequency caused 60 ThameslinkClass 700 and 717 trains to fail.
Half were restarted by the drivers but the others required a technician to come out to the train to restart it.
This led to substantial travel disruption for several hours on the East Coast Main Line and Thameslink services. The supply to Newcastle Airport was also disrupted and a weakness was exposed in backup power arrangements at Ipswich Hospital.
According to you, it would be because “natural gas failed the UK at that moment???
BTW.
FYI, “Ireland, which being a smaller system has a more temperamental (and therefore less stable) grid, sees about 10 frequency excursions below 49.5 Hz per year – Its target frequency being 50 Hz, just as in Britain.”
“green energy” failed Texas, exactly as you leftards want it to.
Yes, there is. It’s called “a bubble”.
I wonder how the investments in unreliables will do in the near future. That will be interesting. I imagine everone is reassesing their positions right now. They should be, because things may have changed after Texas.
Another possible explanation is that alternative energy went up because everything went up, particularly anything ESG.
The enhanced unemployment gave a lot of people more money than they had when they were working, and they had few entertainment options to spend it.
The only casinos open in America were Charles Schwab and E*Trade and Robinhood.
“Stock of Alt-Energy Quadrupled during the Pandemic. What’s Up?”
Musta been those krazy Reddit kids…