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Today the DOW average ended down 268.37 points, its worst single-day
decline in points, since April 20, 2009.
The stock market measure was
off 2.6 percent for the day to end at 10,002.18, a three-month low. In
addition, the NASDAQ fell 2.99 percent, and the S&P 500 dropped
3.11 percent. The old saying "so goes January, so goes the market," is
holding true thus far, as last month showed significant declines for
all major averages. Today, investors were affected by worries over
European government financing issues for their debts, in addition to
jobs data showing America's employment picture may not be improving as
much as expected.
Amidst all of the talk over job creation in the U.S., it has been just
that, only talk. Significant job creation is merely a dream until comprehensive policy can be administered in Congress or across the majority of states through their Assemblies.
As ideas are floated around in Washington concerning measures such as
transferring unused TARP money to small business job creation programs,
it is likely that more rocky days like this will occur on Wall Street.
Green jobs will remain more of a buzz word than a reality until transformative clean energy policies
are adopted. One can only guess what the impact of approving
comprehensive energy reform would have been if the U.S.
Senate initiated it by passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act in July. It would have likely generated more job creation than the endless debate on health care reform.
As leaders of major carbon-polluting countries failed to approve
binding climate change legislation in 2009, global cleantech investment
fell along with the rest of the economy. According to market analysts
at Cleantech Group, investment in clean technology tumbled 33 percent
to $5.6 billion in 2009, down from $8.4 billion in 2008. Even though
there was a decline in total money invested, there were likely more
cleantech venture capital (VC) deals in 2009 than in any other year.
The number of VC deals across North America, Europe, Israel, China and
India, was approximately 557 in December of 2009, but that figure may
be increased by at least 5 percent once the final data is tallied.
The cleantech sector continued to outpace software, biotechnology all
other industrial sectors. Solar was the leading investment category, as
in several years past, but by a slimmer margin than before. Solar took
21 percent of the year's cleantech investment, down 64 percent from
2008. It is no surprise that highly capital intensive concentrating solar power
(CSP) was reduced the most, down 91 percent from 2008, while thin-film
photovoltaics were only down 71 percent. In general, funding of CSP
solar projects is derived from 50 percent debt financing, 30 percent
grants and tax credits, and 20 percent equity. These points were
reiterated at last week’s Arizona Solar Manufacturing Symposium in Phoenix, AZ.
In 2009, there were 32 cleantech IPOs world-wide, raising $4.7 billion. Not surprisingly, approximately 50 percent were in China,
nearly equivalent to 75 percent of total global IPO capital, according
to the report. In the previous 3 years, Asia was less than 10 percent.
The leading IPO of the year was China Longyuan Power Group, the
country's largest wind power producer, raising $2 billion on the Hong
Kong stock exchange. China’s robust economy,
employment situation, and stock market will benefit from its cleantech
surge, while the U.S. may become mainly consumers, leading to
lower-paying installation, sales and service jobs, unless it can
bolster its cleantech manufacturing sector via incentives, as has been implemented in many Asian countries.
Overall cleantech investment growth is expected in 2010 driven by energy efficiency
and initial public offerings (IPOs) in Asia that are increasingly
dominating the sector. Efficiency technologies have a faster
time-to-market, ease of integration, high return-on-investment and are
based on more mature technologies compared to other areas of cleantech.
Amidst increasing Chinese cleantech funding, the overall trajectory of
the U.S. economy and stock market will have play a role in global
financing over the course of the year.
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