Progressive Investor, a green investment newsletter, says in report, The State of Green Investing 2009, the green industry is “at the nexus of stimulus support by governments around the world”.

These stimulus packages include President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The report says: “The media continually harps on inflammatory points such as President Obama’s plan to tax the wealthiest Americans, while ignoring and misunderstanding the promise of cleantech (clean technology) provisions in the many bills on the table.”

The newsletter says stimulus bills across the world are providing more than $200 billion (£134 billion) in incentives and spending for renewable energy, energy efficient buildings, clean transportation and other green initiatives.

Industry insiders expect the clean technology industry to create at least two million jobs in the US, it reports. Green fund managers also appear upbeat about the future.

Sam Jones, portfolio manager of the New Power Portfolio, says in the report: “People I work with are more optimistic than I’ve seen in years. The stimulus plan is a big piece of it. They finally feel they have backing. They’ve been swimming against the tide for a long time.”

Progressive Investor says green investors are benefiting from holding on through the bad times as green building stocks rise above average market rates.

In 2008 many green mutual funds and individual stocks lost up to 80% of their value but investors can now expect their portfolios to rise higher than the overall market as it recovers.

Matt Patsky, managing partner of Winslow Green mutual funds, down 60% in 2008, said: “During a period of the most extreme withdrawals from U.S. mutual funds – 10 times the typical amounts – we have seen little outflow.”

He added: “Even though we still haven’t reached the bottom of the overall market, I’m at least beginning to see some individual stocks hit bottom. They’re going up even when the overall market goes down.”

A survey found almost half of investors are now “more likely” or “much more likely” to increase their investment in clean energy than a year ago.

Just 5% were “less likely” or “much less likely”.

Rob Wilder, founder of the Powershares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW), an exchange-traded fund, said of investors: “They are hanging on, knowing there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel.”

For more details on the report go to the following link.

David Gibbs

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