News

April 15, 2009

Alternative Power Roundup: Carbon Is Coming Good

By Sally White

Carbon trading investor Trading Emissions has produced the goods – a maiden dividend and promise of more to come. The London quoted closed-end investment company is returning some of its cash to shareholders, despite the recent weakness in carbon markets. News of a 1.5p payment now at the interim stage and the promise of a total dividend of 4-5p for the year as a whole sent the shares up to around 78p from the recent low of 60p. Trading Emissions is not exactly short of cash, with £172 million net at the end of December.

And to support that position, fund manager Simon Shaw believes the price of carbon credits in Europe should recover to around €30 in the coming months, certainly by 2012. His fund’s average buying price for its 56 million credits is €7.70. 

Meanwhile carbon jumped sharply on Thursday last week and broke through a key resistance level of €13.00, rising 62 cents to €13.32. EU carbon prices have been improving over the last two weeks following the release of 2008 emissions data from...