2010-10-04

The month that passed was an unusual month in an unusual year. September has historically been one of the weakest months for world’s stock markets, but this year it was different. The concerns that historically have hit the markets in September and October came in August this year - when the question of the sustainability of the U.S. economy's recovery came to a head - and instead we witnessed a strong month for global stock markets in September. For example the Dow Jones Index edged up by 7.7% in September, which was the largest increase during the month of September since 1939 (in USD)! The renewable energy sector performed better than both the World index and the water index in the month, which has only happened twice this year (July and September).

During the month the British investment bank HSBC published its annual overview of the global environmental sector. The report concludes that China has increased its climate investments by a factor of 30 since 2004, and now accounts for more than 24% of annual global investments in the sector. Secondly it finds that the environmental sector is quite resilient to economic downturns; the revenue of the 366 companies in the HSBC Climate Change Index decreased by 0.9% in 2009, compared with a decrease of 3% for the 2 400 companies in the world index (MSCI ACWI). Finally, the report shows that the best performing companies in the environmental sector this year have been energy efficiency companies in North America and the worst performers have been renewable energy companies in Europe.

Save Earth Fund rose +1.4% during the month while the benchmark index, MSCI World, rose by +1.8%.

Read the monthly report

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