Soros Sending $1B to Green Energy

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 10:10 am EDT, Monday October 12, 2009

Nothing makes a statement like a ten-figure investment.

According to various sources, famed financier and hedge fund manager George Soros plans to invest one of his billions in clean energy. According to Time magazine, Soros has given more than $6 billion to various philanthropic causes during his career, but this time he's also got profit in mind. Bloomberg quoted the billionaire on his planned investments, "They should be profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem."

At the end of the second quarter, Soros' top-15 U.S.-listed holdings included waste-to-energy company Covanta Holding (NYSE: CVA - News) and New Orleans, Louisiana-based Entergy (NYSE: ETR - News), as well as fertilizer giants Potash of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT - News) and Monsanto (NYSE: MON - News).

According to Bloomberg, which cited London-based research firm New Energy Finance, renewable energy investment fell -22% in the third quarter from the same period in 2008. Still, clean technology is winning more venture funding than any other sector.

A recent Reuters report highlighted a bias towards solar energy among venture capitalists. U.S.-listed solar stocks are mixed over the last month, with Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL - News) and First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR - News) setting the pace. Meanwhile, China's LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK - News) and ReneSola (NYSE: SOL - News) have been discounted by more than -10% for the period.

Other billionaires have made their own bets on clean technology, including Warren Buffett with his investment in Energy Storage and Battery Technology Stocks Index component BYD (OTC: BYDDF - News). Berkshire (NYSE: BRK-A - News, BRK-B - News) now owns over $1 billion worth of the company, although much of that is profit from the October 2008 investment.

T. Boone Pickens is also counting on improved storage and transmission technology to support his push for wind energy, although no U.S.-listed wind stocks were among his top-15 holdings at the end of Q2.

A performance graph of Soros' top picks at the start of Q3 shows that those investments have gotten off to a roaring start in October. It will be interesting to see whether he has rebalanced the portfolio since the last 13F was filed with the SEC.

With General Electric (NYSE: GE - News), Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW - News), and a number of other multi-billion dollar firms in the sector, volatile small-caps are not the only way to play the green trend. Investors can find a number of green-energy Indexes and a suite of other metrics to help generate investment ideas 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 stem cells to green energy 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!