Black energy takes the lead as green transformation stocks turn negative

While our green transformation basket is down 1% year-to-date, the MSCI World Energy sector comprising of the old oil and gas industry and its services and equipment companies is up 21% over the same period. This is a stark reversal of last year’s fortunes, but maybe also a sign of what to expect. It might be that governments are incentivizing industry and investors to go all in on renewable energy, but the transition cannot happen without the oil and gas industry providing the necessary ingredients for an efficient baseload of the electricity grid (natural gas). The oil industry is still necessary for society while we transition to electric vehicles and lesser carbon footprint in our industries. The trend in ESG is lifting the cost of capital for companies involved in resource extraction such as oil and gas, and while it is a good thing, it will mean higher cost and less access to capital which means further constraints on supply. ExxonMobil is a good example of this phenomenon with return on invested capital below cost of capital for six straight fiscal years. It might have worked with lower interest rates but if we suddenly get higher interest rates and high demand from stimulus energy prices will also increase drastically and likely extending the momentum in black energy.

Electric vehicles and their constraints

Electric vehicles are part of the green transformation and Volvo’ CEO had a good interview on Bloomberg TV yesterday answering all the critical questions about battery, new sales models impacting dealerships etc. It worth watching if you are interested in the direction of electric vehicles. Aside from Volvo’s CEO comments, we would like to a few things about what is going on in electric vehicles. Sentiment has soured a bit recently and this Monday NIO disappointed on its earnings forecast as competition is pressuring EV-makers in China. Tesla is still leading this emerging category but in 2020 we saw emerging cracks in Europe, with Tesla losing market share to VW and other brands despite a fast growing EV market turning Europe into the largest market for electric vehicles. We think 2021 will be a key year for Tesla, as the most bullish investors have potentially overestimated Tesla’s advantage, and we will get a clear sense of this in the coming months as car registrations are released in Europe.

We all know the constraints on EV production from batteries and other parts such as microprocessors, but something few are aware of, is that we could soon be facing a real constraint on the grid as well. With more heat converters and electric vehicles more demand is put on our electricity grid and especially local transformers which are risking overheating. Many countries are estimating high infrastructure investments in our grid to make society ready for the green transformation. And these investments and capacity needs to be a head of the demand curve not behind if we want to avoid our green transformation to stall.

Previous notes on equity themes:

The commodity sector and the reflation trade in 2021 – 4 January 2021

Bubble stocks go into ‘hyperdrive’ mode – 8 January 2021

Introducing Next Generation Medicine basket – 20 January 2021

Updating our Green Transformation theme basket – 29 January 2021

Launching Saxo’s E-commerce theme basket as more growth lies ahead – 5 February 2021

Be careful of bubble stocks and updating bubble methodology – 12 February 2021

Gaming is a long-term winning industry – 26 February 2021

The 5-year chart below is for regulatory purposes