Where is the green wave? That’s got to be on the minds of retail investors who are long on green technologies. Many started betting heavily in areas like solar and wind energy over the last few years as politics and policy in the United States and Europe lined up to spur exponential growth in renewables and other decarbonization technologies. This year the green wave has been a blood bath for green tech stocks. Just last month we issued a Trade Alert on SolarEdge stock, which dropped 35% after the company announced it expected cuts to its original 2023 outlooks for revenue and gross margin. SolarEdge is not alone. Solar stocks are down more than 40% in 2023 based on the year-to-date performance of the Invesco Solar ETF (TAN), a pure-play solar ETF with about $3.2 billion of assets under management (AUM).
The same macroeconomic headwinds – inflation, higher interest rates, and supply chain disruptions – that are clouding solar stocks are also blowing against wind energy stocks. First Trust Global Wind Energy ETF (FAN), with just $180 million of AUM, is down more than 20% this year. One of the biggest drags on that industry has been offshore wind companies, which require massive capital and labor to build these specialized facilities that harvest energy from stronger coastal winds. The world’s biggest developer and operator of offshore wind power, Danish utility Ørsted (
