Years of constant hammering from the media and politicians have tried to convince us of the inevitability of the transition green. From “Fridays for future” by Thunbergiana memory of the “Green Deal” produced in the Brussels offices, the ideology green has now taken on pseudo-religious contours. The ruthless judgment of the new “green inquisition” belongs to the few bold people who dare to raise any objections. Reshuffling the cards, providing an objective analysis of how the financial markets are judging assets linked to the economy greenan analysis of Bloombergdrawn up thanks to data provided by more than 500 advertising funds Hazeltreea cloud-based data compiler.
Despite the billions in financing and incentives provided by the United States, Europe and China, the majority of American hedge funds have decided to sell short the shares and assets linked to electric batteries, solar panels, electric and hydrogen vehicles, convinced that the prices of such shares will fall. Simply put, Wall Street’s largest hedge funds have taken a hard look at key sectors of the green economy and decided to bet against them.
The managers of high speculative finance, an industry worth around five trillion dollars, explained that the reason for the lack of confidence in the economy green and that despite the promises, clean energy and green technology stocks have lagged far behind the rest of the market. Which leads to the logical conclusion that many of the investments related to green they will not pay off as quickly and as profitably as originally planned.
The analysis of Bloomberg takes into consideration that part of finance that operates outside the public spotlight, little interested in ideology and grand proclamations. This means that assets and shares linked to the green transition are valued for what they are really worth, i.e. less than we would like to believe.
It should not be thought that speculative finance is biased towards the economy greenfar from it. Renaud Saleurfounder and CEO of Anaconda Investment SAa Geneva-based company that manages several hedge funds, said a Bloomberg that he and his company have been “waiting for years for a turning point” to be able to invest in the sector greenbut despite the stimuli “we still don’t see the turning point”.
In fact, even looking at the S&P Clean Energy Index (the Standard & Poor’s stock index which includes companies linked to energy production green), it can be seen that after reaching the peak of its value in 2021, the index has now lost around 60% of its value.
One of the main reasons for the failure of the financial market to take off green it is the growing geopolitical instability. In fact, most of the supply chain linked to green technologies depends on China: solar panels, electric cars, lithium batteriesjust to name a few. The risk of tensions or a trade war with the dragon is a powerful brake on investments in the sector.
In the traditional energy sector (oil, gas and coal), however, speculative funds prefer the “net long” position, thus betting on an increase in the prices of the assets purchased, in stark contrast to the desires for certain activism and politics. Fossil fuels are still considered necessary as a safe and reliable source of energy (albeit polluting). To reinforce this trend, the S&P Global Oil Index grew by 48% compared to the minimum value of 2021, which by the way is the same year in which the Clean Energy Index it reached its highest peak before starting to lose value.
Bloomberg’s analysis highlights what many people think but few say out loud: we are absolutely sure that the transition green is it inevitable?
