jump to navigation

Pension time again January 8, 2007

Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing, Little Green Portfolio , trackback

Its about time I put some more money into my pension scheme, I think. Over the last year, my SIPP hasn’t really made any money, mostly due to one bad share, Renewable Energy Holdings, which I clearly should have ditched when it first started to slide. Having said that, the other shares in the little green portfolio have been very up and down, and are now about neutral, so I am going to hang onto it.

The start of the portfolio is Straight PLC, which took advantage of the water restrictions last summer to go as high as 314p in July, although its fallen to about 260p now. I’m still well in profit there.

Novera Energy hovers around 60p, which is the breakeven mark for me, and has just acquired the stake held by Macquarie Bank in a joint venture between itself and Macquarie. A good 2007 looks hopeful. The other stock, TEG Environmental, is also about breakeven at 82p, and has had some good orders over the last year.

With the exception of Straight, all these companies suffered quite badly from the correction last May, and its likely that falling oil prices will make REH and Novera look at little less attractive.

I’ve learned a couple of things. When I bought it, REH was heading into a clear high. That probably wasn’t a smart time to buy. These small shares can be very volatile, and sink into the doldrums when there’s no news, so waiting until times are quieter would be a good idea. I’m still happy with the buy and hold strategy though, and am sure that there’s a long term future for alternative energy and environmentally friendly stocks.

This time, I’m looking to buy 3 stocks in equal-value batches. I’m going to look at the fuel cells market, particularly Ceres and Ceramic Fuel Cells. Ceres share price has just gone through the roof, from 30p to 47p since the beginning of December, so I might give that one time to stabilise.

So, a few tasks:
General review of the fuel cells market
Are there any other companies in this area that are listed on the LSE
Research the companies
Go back to my original criteria, and select

I’m also reading Volker Quaschning’s book, Understanding Renewable Energy Systems, and will probably blog a review of that at some stage. Its fairly readable with, say, A level Physics, and seems to be good background material for all these alternative energy shares.

Comments»

no comments yet - be the first?