Citibank Says Coal Bad for Environment and Your Stock Portfolio

Thanks to Vickie Patton over at Environmental Defense for this information. Yesterday Citigroup downgraded coal stocks "across the board" in no small part because the industry has failed to respond to the growing perception (realization, I would say) that coal companies are "landscape-disfiguring global warming bad-guys." Citigroup also expects that "anti-Coal politics to intensify, with Carbon constraints almost certain to pinch." to which, I can only say that I certainly hope so, but still it's great to see this coming from Citigroup. 

Pertinent excerpts follow:

P. 3:   "We are downgrading Coal stocks across the board."

P. 1:  "We are downgrading Peabody, Arch, and Foundation, while shaving estimates/targets.   We have no Buys in Coal, and recommend switching into select Non-ferrous, Steel, and Gold names, or elsewhere in energy." 

P. 3:   "…prophesies of a new wave of Coal-fired generation have vaporized, while clean Coal technologies such as IGCC with carbon capture and Coal-to-Liquids remain a decade away, or more."  

P.  3:  "…election politics are likely to turn progressively more bestial for Coal.  Candidates are already stepping up to 'ban Coal,' while company productivity/margins are likely to be structurally impaired by new regulatory mandates applied to a group perceived as landscape-disfiguring global warming bad-guys."

P. 1:  "We expect anti-Coal politics to intensify, with Carbon constraints almost certain to pinch."

[edit: here's the file. (PDF, 0.5MB)]