Hedge funds flip on green energy and start betting against oil

Japan Times

2 days ago

Hedge funds are betting against oil stocks and winding back shorts on solar in a reversal of positions that dominated their energy strategies over the past four years.
Since the beginning of October and through the second quarter, equity-focused hedge funds have — on average — been mostly short oil stocks, according to an analysis of positions on companies in global indexes for sectors spanning oil, wind, solar and electric vehicles. That's a reversal of bets that had dominated since 2021, according to the data, which are based on fund disclosures to Hazeltree, an alternative-investment data specialist.
Over the same period, funds have unwound short bets against solar stocks. The analysis, which is based on a universe of some 700 hedge funds representing about $700 billion in assets — or roughly 15% of the industry's total under management — also shows that portfolio managers have stayed net long wind in the period.
There has been "a bottoming out with some of these clean energy plays,' said Todd Warren, portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners Pty. That trend has "really occurred at the same time as we've seen — in the oil patch — some concerns with regards to supply and demand balance,' he said.
The analysis shows that more hedge funds were, on average, net short stocks in the S&P Global Oil Index than net long for seven of the nine months starting October 2024. By contrast, net longs exceeded net shorts in all but eight of the 45 months from January 2021 through September 2024.
Vineyard Wind 1 in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 10, 2024 |
Randi Baird / The New York Times
The development coincides with a rise in oil supply as some OPEC+ member nations act to preserve their market share. Joe Mares, a portfolio manager at Trium Capital, a hedge fund managing about $3.5 billion, notes that ratcheting up output has "not historically been great' for the oil industry. Evidence of an economic slowdown in the U.S. and China, combined with an expectation that global oil inventories will continue to rise through the rest of 2025, means there's growing skepticism toward the sector.
Once investors take in "the general slowdown in everything,' the question then becomes, "who's buying the oil?' said Kerry Goh, Singapore-based chief investment officer at Kamet Capital Partners.
Greenwich, Connecticut-based Tall Trees Capital Management LP is short oil stocks because "we see much lower oil prices, especially in 2026,' said Lisa Audet, the fund's founder and chief investment officer.
And in the U.S., President Donald Trump's quest to add supply in an effort to bring down the price of oil has unsettled local producers.
The Dallas Fed's latest quarterly energy survey, published on July 2, shows negative sentiment among oil companies toward the Trump administration's policy on the fossil fuel. One respondent in the anonymized study said the administration's implied price target of $50 a barrel is simply unsustainable for the industry. Another spoke of the "chaos' caused by current U.S. trade policies, adding the volatility will drive companies to "lay down rigs.'
Meanwhile, the outlook for solar and wind stocks is starting to improve.
A man rides a motorcycle along solar panels in Gujarat Solar Park in Patan district in Gujarat, India, on Sept. 12, 2024. |
REUTERS
​​The analysis of Hazeltree's data shows that the average share of funds that were net short stocks in the Invesco Solar ETF dropped to 3% in June. That's the lowest percentage since April 2021, when green equities were trading near record highs. The number of funds net long stocks in the First Trust Global Wind Energy ETF reached a 30-month high in February this year. Those positions fell back in June, but net longs still dominated shorts overall.
Other hedge fund managers said AI has the potential to trigger a generational swell in energy demand that is likely to give new support to renewables.
"The market is telling you that AI is the biggest thing we've seen in our entire careers,' said Karim Moussalem, chief investment officer of equities at London-based Selwood Asset Management LLP, which manages about $1.6 billion. To meet energy demand from AI, renewables will need to play a big part, not least "because they're the fastest to market,' he said. Renewables are likely to meet more than half of the required additional generation capacity by 2035.
In China, green stocks are now enjoying a rebound after its solar industry started addressing overcapacity concerns. After losing about half its value between the end of 2021 and 2023, the Solactive Select China Green Energy Index — which includes solar giant Longi Green Energy Technology — has advanced around 19% from an April low.
A view of Statoil's Dudgeon offshore wind farm near Great Yarmouth, U.K., in 2017 |
REUTERS
In the U.S., Trump administration attacks on green energy — including a rollback of Biden-era subsidies — have already contributed to over $22 billion of clean energy projects being canceled or delayed since January, according to an analysis from the E2 advocacy group.
Yet, for a number of fund managers, the decision to slash green subsidies helps end some of the policy uncertainty that had prevented investors from moving into wind and solar.
"At least now we know what the rules are going to be and so people can go back to evaluating these as businesses,' Mares said.
The final version of Trump's $3.4 trillion budget bill — dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill — was actually more favorable toward some corners of the renewables market than Tall Trees Capital's Audet expected. Utility-scale solar, for example, has emerged as a relative winner, she said.
For green investors, it's been "less bad than expected,' said Nishant Gupta, founder and chief investment officer of Kanou Capital LLP, an energy transition-focused hedge fund. "There's been more protection around U.S. domestic production than expected.'
And this year's tariff wars have coincided with a broad rebound in green stocks. Since Trump first unveiled his proposed tariffs on April 2 — dubbed Liberation Day by the White House — the main S&P index tracking clean energy stocks has added about 18%. Over the same period, the main S&P index for oil companies is down around 4%.
Much of the clean-energy rebound has been driven by solar. The Invesco Solar ETF, a widely tracked exchange-traded fund packed with solar stocks, is up more than 18% since April 2.
More hedge funds continue to be short stocks in the Kraneshares Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility Index ETF than long — a constant since 2021 as China has steadily displaced Western manufacturers. But the share of net shorts dropped to 2.87% in June, which is the second-lowest level in almost half a decade.
At the same time, there's an expectation among fund managers that the continued rise in sales of EVs globally will reduce the need for petroleum. That matches analyst estimates of a 25% annual increase in EV sales this year. BNEF also expects that about 40% of vehicles on the road could be electric by 2040, displacing 19 million barrels of oil a day by that year.
An aerial view shows rows of solar panels at a solar farm in Anson, Texas, on April 23. |
REUTERS
The strategy shift among funds reflects the fact that economic growth without low-carbon energy is now inconceivable, according to Trium's Mares.
"If we are going to continue to grow both in developed and emerging economies, we're going to need a lot of energy,' he said. "A big chunk of the marginal growth in energy over the last 10 years has come from renewables and it's hard to see why that isn't going to continue.'