US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris listens to former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Solar and clean energy stocks rose Wednesday after Wall Street largely declared Vice President Kamala Harris the winner of the first and likely only debate before the November election.
The Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) and the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) gained more than 3% and more than 2%, respectively, in morning trading. The benchmarks are down 28% and 11% this year as uncertainty over the outcome of the election has clouded the outlook for the clean energy industry.
“We expect a near-term bounce towards Vice President Harris following the first debate with former President Trump, but the longer-term impact remains unclear,” Raymond James analyst Ed Mills told clients in a note late Wednesday night.
Betting markets have shifted in favor of Harris, but only back to levels before a New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump had a one-point advantage in the race to the White House, according to Citi.
The election is a potential turning point for the energy transition, with some investors nervous that former President Donald Trump will weaken or even repeal the Inflation Reduction Act if Republicans sweep the White House and Congress.
Trump supports solar — kind of
Trump repeatedly took aim at the Biden administration’s energy policy, claiming that “fossil fuel will be dead” if Harris wins in November. The former president knocked wind and solar energy, before quickly offering a fig leaf to clean energy companies.
“We’ll go back to windmills and we’ll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out,” Trump said. “You ever see a solar plant? By the way, I’m a big fan of solar.”
Harris tried to walk back a statement she made in 2019 in favor of banning fracking, an extraction technique that has led to a natural gas boom in the U.S. Oil and natural gas production have set records during the Biden administration.
“I will not ban fracking,” Harris said during the debate. The vice president also pointed to investments the administration has made through the IRA in manufacturing clean energy technology.
“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” Harris said.
The vice president said a clean energy economy brings investments “in American-made products, American automobiles.”
Analysts largely expect the IRA status quo if Harris wins. While they think a full repeal of the IRA is unlikely if Trump wins, the expectation is he will take aim at least some of the law’s provisions, particularly tax credits for electric vehicles.
His position on solar is not as clear cut. Investments in solar manufacturing have disproportionately benefited GOP congressional districts.
