I am a real estate investor because it is something that I understand, through and through. But I have bought stocks in the past - twice. The first time I did, I came to find out that I do NOT know enough about the stock market to make intelligent profitable transactions. I lot a little bit of money, so it wasn't a disaster.
The second time I bought stocks was just a few weeks ago. To be honest, I don't know much more about stock investing now than I did the first time I traded stocks! So why did I buy stocks a second time? Well, this time it has to do with the stocks that I bought - I wanted to buy them because I believe in the companies.
In fact, it's 2 companies - Cereplast and Canadian Solar, which are both green companies. Cereplast is actually a company that I have known about for many years, and is actually headquartered in the same city that I live in. They make bio-degradable plastic resins which other companies use to make bio-degradable plastic products - food serviceware, water bottles, product packaging, plastic film, etc. They have recently restructured from within to be more profitable, use renewable resources that can be sourced from North America, and have recently been awarded large contacts.
Canadian Solar manufactures materials for solar energy panel installation. With the recent push from many governments around the world, solar energy is quickly becoming more mainstream as out-of-pocket costs are minimized due to government incentives. Theoretically, with the increase in popularity, this could help to streamline production, thus reducing costs even further. It's looking more and more like solar energy is here to stay!
Now, I just bought these stocks a few weeks ago, and I am already seeing some very good returns. Canadian Solar is up almost 50%, and Cereplast is up over 20%. My plan is to hold on to these for quite some time, as I see so much potential for both companies - their business is only going to continue to grow as their products continue to mainstream.
Of course, there are many other "green" companies. I was speaking with a woman yesterday who told me that her hand-picked, green stocks yielded a 17% return last year! It beat out her other retirement plans that were professionally managed.
So do you have a green stock that you have had luck with, or that looks good to you?
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