Stanford Getting Rid of $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock

mdsolar sends this report from the NY Times: "Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments. The university said it acted in accordance with internal guidelines that allow its trustees to consider whether 'corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury' when choosing investments. Coal's status as a major source of carbon pollution linked to climate change persuaded the trustees to remove companies 'whose principal business is coal' from their investment portfolio, the university said."

Comments

To the contrary

[turkeyfish]

By selling Stanford will put downward pressure on the stock of coal companies, which means they have less capital against which to borrow and pay executives their stock options. It will take more and more stock options to keep the insiders happy, which will put further pressure on the stocks as other stockholders recognized they are soon to be the last guy out and the one holding the bag. If owned stock in a coal company, I would be selling as quickly as possible and moving into solar, wind and other renewables, since these will be the growth industries of the future, while fossil fuels will be creating more and more pollution and health problems for more and more people, leading to more litigation, more calls for regulation and less profits, especially as the world grows hotter and hotter and the 99% figure out they are being stuck with the tab. Its bad enough that oil companies have been raising prices recently to fund lobbying and campaigning for their favorite republican candidates. As fracking leads to more earthquakes and health and water issues, expect to see the profits in the fossil fuels sectors decline as those in the alternative energy industries rise as new technologies power increase efficiencies and growing public acceptance. It will only take one El Nino to drive this point home to all but those most deeply in denial.