Green Wave

Here’s something that might make Al Gore smile: Clean energy is great for your investment portfolio, too. At least some recent research by The Leuthold Group suggests this could be the case. Leuthold has put together a list of 27 “Green Wave” companies that are in industries like alternative energy, environmental services, clean water and air technologies and ethanol production, and has tracked their investment performance over the past 10 years. So far so good, and the research firm predicts these stocks have plenty of power left in them yet. “We see these companies as sharing a common characteristic—they all have the potential to be beneficiaries of the growing support for tighter environmental regulations and cleaner energy resources,” the group writes in its December 2006 report.

A Democratic-controlled Congress could introduce and pass new environmental legislation initiatives, the report says. And widespread support across party lines to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil could result in more subsidies and research-and-development spending on new alternative energy technologies. Here is a random sample of some of the companies on Leuthold’s Green Wave list.