Does anyone know of any good studies on the impact that socially responsible investing (SRI) has had on “green stock” valuations?
One of the things that I find investing on the public market side is finding mismatches between the value of a company and the price that Wall Street is paying for that company at any point in time – you know stock analysis 101 as preached by Ben Graham, Warren Buffet and their disciples. Well…. to say that I do what Graham or Buffet does would be a misnomer – I have my own methodologies which are a bit more about percieved valuations – but that’s a post for a different day.
What is unique about green stocks, however, is this concept of SRI – people assigning value to a firm and investment that is not driven by the profit motive. Nobody invests in technology companies based on an intrinsic value similar to saving the planet – well at least not that I am aware of (e.g., would gamers buy the stock of a gaming company to keep it in business so they can make more games for them?)…
I am interested to see if SRI throws traditional valuation metrics out of whack when comparing a “green stock” to a non green stock in terms of pure economic return – financial investment goals…
