The UK and US economies are still heading for recession caused by the credit bust and high food and energy prices. The rest of the world is affected to greater or lesser degrees. So mainstream equities are a bad idea and today they went into bear market territory with 20% drops from the peak last October.
Oil is $146 so oil related stocks are still looking like the place to be. I don’t see how that’s going to change for the next few years, if not a decade. China and India are still growing, non OPEC supplies are still falling and demand still equals supply. If OPEC starts to decline in the next decade we’re in for a hell of a rough time.
This only makes ‘climate change’ stocks and funds look more attractive since most of the responses are the same for peak oil and climate change. Fuel efficiency, renewable energy, electric cars, lightweight materials, insulation, energy efficiency, etc.
As things stand I might up the climate/renewable % of the fund to 20% from the current 10%.
Just to remind myself, the breakdown is currently:
cash 10%
renewables 10%
oil/gas related 30%
industrial mining 30%
gold miners 20%
It's interesting to look at this a year later now that I'm completely out of the 'guess the future' game. I still think the basic premise is correct, but now over a longer time scale of one to several decades with long periods of ups and down in between.