Buffett's Bet on the Future: How You Can Profit

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 10:11 am EDT, Wednesday August 26, 2009

Warren Buffett has reportedly earned over $1 billion on his electric car investment, but it might be what's under the hood that counts.

In October of 2008 Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-A - News, BRK-B - News) MidAmerican Energy Holdings subsidiary paid $232 million for a 10% stake in Chinese electric carmaker BYD. Since then, the Hong Kong listed firm more than quadrupled in value, pushing Buffett's stake above $1 billion. According to The Wall Street Journal, BYD plans to test the waters in the U.S. in 2010, offering less than a thousand of its e6 model to a target demographic of government agencies, utilities, and celebrities. With a price tag of over $40,000, comparable to GM's Volt, the e6 is out of reach for many of the world's drivers. However, there are a number of companies working on the expensive battery technology required to run these cars, and they are only a few breakthroughs away from changing the way the world looks at electric transportation forever.

One of the primary handicaps of electric transportation is the inability to efficiently and inexpensively store energy. Power is not the issue - electric trains have been used for decades, but disconnect them from a constant energy supply and they are useless. Thankfully there is an entire industry on the hunt for better energy storage technology, and with the introduction of cars like the Chevy Volt and the BYD e6, electric cars are no longer science fiction.

Investors can track the performance of twelve battery companies in the Energy Storage and Battery Technology Stocks Index.

The stocks range in size from small-caps C&D Technologies (NYSE: CHP - News) and Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ: ALTI - News) to billion-dollar names like Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI - News) and Enersys (NYSE: ENS - News).

Over the last six months, more than half of the Index's components have more than doubled. Exide Technologies (NASDAQ: XIDE - News) and Maxwell Technologies (NASDAQ: MXWL - News) are both up by more than 125% for the period.

While some of the firms have specific areas of focus, battery technology can be used in a wide range of devices. China Ritar Power's (NASDAQ: CRTP - News) products, for example, have applications in motorcycles, golf carts, and other light vehicles. However, don't be surprised to see an energy storage breakthrough applied in everything from buses to cell phones.

With the improvement of energy storage technology will grow the practical application of electric vehicles. With the Energy Storage and Battery Technology Stocks Index as a research tool, your portfolio can grow as well.

Investors can follow the Energy Storage and Battery Technology Stocks Index as well as more than 250 other sector-based Indexes at tickerspy.com.

Fun and informative, tickerspy.com is a free investing website where you can track multiple stock portfolios and compare against 250 proprietary Indexes tracking themes from nanotech to agriculture to precious metals. Best of all, tickerspy.com lets you spy on the portfolios of nearly 3,000 Wall Street institutions and hedge funds and see graphs of their performance. Try tickerspy.com today and find out how you stack up against investing legends like Warren Buffett!

Buzz up!