The Church of Climate and the Law of Unintended Consequences

 Read this excellent article: https://investor.fm/the-church-of-climate-and-the-law-of-unintended-consequences/

As an investor, my role is simple—my clients hire me to protect and grow their wealth. In other words, they hire me to make them money. The ESG movement, the vilification of oil companies, and the political incorrectness of investing in them have created opportunities; energy stocks were left for dead a few years ago. We took advantage of it. More importantly for this discussion, I am hired to make economic, not social decisions.

I do not apply my personal social filter when making investment decisions; I let my clients do that. We have a large, diverse client base with varying views on the world. The beauty of managing separate accounts is that we can customize portfolios to fit those views. Some clients tell us not to own tobacco, some have a beef with social media and tell us to never own Facebook (Meta), others have strong views on Elon Musk and ask us not to buy any Musk-related companies. Others ask us not to own oil companies. We even have clients who, due to their faith, don’t want us to own banks and liquor stocks. We don’t judge; we just don’t buy.

We are not allergic to investing in green energy stocks; they just have to make economic and financial sense—in other words, they have to be good investments (excluding subsidies, which are subject to political football). In the meantime, I focus on the reality of supply and demand, not the “religion” of the moment. The reality is that the world still runs on energy.

The website is called The Intellectual Investor by Vitaliy Katsenelson.