Customer Reviews

Billion Dollar Green: Profit from the Eco Revolution

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Investment guru Tobin Smith, as seen on Fox News, claims two goals for his book: (1) to help us "understand why the green wave has grown so strong, and (2) why it will likely continue to growing relentlessly." Unfortunately, by the time the book was published in December 2008, that wave had crashed on the beach. Maybe "relentlessly" was a big too strong.

One big reason Smith missed this call is that he missed the call on oil. "Today that $60 oil is a fond memory. ... I am of the opinion now that ... we will never see that level of cost for petroleum again." "Oil has blown past the $100-a-barrel mark. ... Oil prices are not likely to go significantly lower any time soon." All that must have been written a month or two before oil prices began to crash. If you want to read that a book that really explains peak oil, oil markets, and what to do about them (this is energy policy not investing) try Carbonomics: How to Fix the Climate and Charge It to OPEC. Written at the same time, this author takes it for granted oil prices would collapse, and actually proposes a policy to keep this from hurting green investment.

The first two chapters cover his two goals in general terms. Oil's getting more expensive (generally), and green tech is getting cheaper. Then chapters 3 - 13 each covers a specific area of green investing: (3) transportation, (4) solar, (5) water, (6) electric grid, (7) computers, (8) plastics, (9) biofuels, (10) fuel-cells and advance batteries, (11) wind, (12) clean coal, (13) buildings, natural foods etc. There's very little depth here, but Smith does give you the general lay of the land, and lists the major stocks in the area, like GM in transportation - well their thinking about it.

Finally we have chapter 14, "Caution: Green Portfolio Construction Ahead" which explains in the broadest generalities, and for all of one (1) page, how to do green investing. Then he mentions what may be the real purpose of the book: "these are some of the basic rules I recommend in my ChangeWave Investing advisory service." Ahh, and infomercial.

Now if you're not into green investing just to make money, or even if you are, I'd try Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money through Environment Friendly Stocks, or Investing in a Sustainable World: Why GREEN Is the New Color of Money on Wall Street.

Of little value. Out of date despite December 31 publication date. Authors lack of scientific knowledge shows through.

great overview of the US green investment opportunities that I will use in evaluating green investment opportunities in Asia.