The stock market has been climbing the proverbial Wall of Worry so far this year, with major indices up solidly in 2023 despite thick clouds of doubt and skepticism from both retail and professional investors.
How well is the market doing? One way to characterize the situation is to point out that the S&P 500 is now knocking on the door of “official new bull market” status. Once we see a close above 4192 in the world’s leading index, the market will have gained more than 20% from its bear market lows last October.
And yet, the American Association of Individual Investors has given us more bears than bulls for 79 of the past 82 weeks (a record), we have near all-time record PUT ownership, and near all-time record short interest in equity index futures among smaller non-professional investors.
At the same time, according to the BofA Fund Manager Survey, big, long-only/equity-only funds are sitting at 5.6% cash levels, which is much higher than average, suggesting huge reserves of capital still on the sidelines.
In other words, the crowd is short and flat, with very few people sticking their necks out to speculate on the long side. Yet, the market continues to make progress in a new bull market.
Historically, heavily doubted markets that keep clawing their way along tend to convert the crowd eventually, leading to a frenzy of FOMO buying. If we take this analysis at face value, then it’s time to start hunting for outsized growth themes.
In the bull market ahead, two themes stand out as likely leaders: AI and clean energy. While AI is already crowded with speculative capital, the clean energy train has yet to leave the station, suggesting investors still have time to get on board at bargain prices.
Within that picture, Clean Vision Corp. (OTC US:CLNV) could be a particularly interesting speculative darling in the making.
CLNV: A Closer Look
CLNV has a scalable model and an expanding global footprint starting to take shape and vault its Clean-Seas subsidiary into the pole position in the plastic pyrolysis space.
The basic gist of the story is about taking plastic “feedstock” – basically, waste plastic gumming up the environment – and turning it into useful products like clean energy. It’s saving two birds with one stone: clean the earth and power our lives in one fell swoop.
The company is scaling its model up rapidly with a series of recent expansion moves involving Morocco, Malaysia, and most recently West Virginia. In each case, the process is about establishing a regional hub for processing plastic feedstock in the hundreds of tons per day, creating a huge flow of clean energy products to plow into the market.
While one should appreciate the global nature of the company’s growth model, the domestic step Clean-Seas just took with its deal in West Virginia is particularly striking.
According to local Fox affiliate news coverage in West Virginia, “Governor Jim Justice announced 40 full-time jobs are coming to Quincy, W.Va. as part of a $50 million investment. CleanVision Corp. is building a manufacturing facility in the eastern Kanawha County community to convert plastic into clean energy.”
We would also note that the credibility of this company and the legitimacy of its path forward can be gauged by the fact that West Virginia’s Governor, Jim Justice, announced the deal himself on a live YouTube broadcast yesterday (which can be viewed on-demand HERE beginning at the 6:27 mark).
CLNV’s CEO, Dan Bates, was invited to join the briefing alongside the Governor and deliver remarks. Gov. Justice was also quoted in the company’s press release announcing the deal.
In other words, this is a legit company. And it’s a rapidly growing operation as well. According to communications from the company, CLNV is on a path to becoming the world’s top plastic conversion operation.
Mountain State Magic
Taking a closer look at this latest deal, CLNV just announced earlier this week the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between its Clean-Seas West Virginia subsidiary and the West Virginia Department of Economic Development to leverage more than $12 million in state incentives to establish its West Virginia plastic conversion facility for converting plastic feedstock into precursors for recycled content plastics and clean fuels, including hydrogen.
According to the terms of the MoA, the Project is anticipated to result in capital investments of at least $50 million.
“West Virginia is proud to become Clean-Seas’ first US facility, and the mid-Atlantic hub of its Plastic Conversion Network,” said West Virginia Governor Jim Justice. “This project demonstrates West Virginia’s commitment to innovation and technologies that are financially sound and support a clean economy.”
The Agreement was spearheaded by Mitch Carmichael, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Economic Development, and includes $1.75 million in forgivable loans, with the balance of support in tax and employment incentives.
“West Virginia has always been a globally recognized leader in energy,” said CLNV CEO Bates. “We’re excited to help West Virginia lead in clean energy for the next century. I would like to thank Mitch and his team for their vision in collaborating with Clean Vision on a project that reflects our shared commitment to deliver innovative solutions geared toward making a lasting and sustainable impact on the environment while simultaneously contributing to West Virginia’s economic growth and development.”
According to the company’s most recent release, in order to incentivize Clean Vision to select West Virginia for the location of the Project, WVDED has represented that the state of West Virginia will provide Clean Vision with $1.75 million in the form of one or more forgivable, performance-based loans to fund completion of the Project in addition to all other qualifying statutory tax credits and incentives for which the Project may be eligible.
WVDED Secretary Carmichael added, “Clean Vision has demonstrated a clear commitment to leadership in the clean energy space and we welcome them to the Mountain State with open arms. This project is capable of bringing long-term, good-paying jobs to West Virginia in a strong 21st-century industry. And we look forward to backing Dan and his team as they get this exciting Project off the ground and running in high gear.”
The company also noted that, once construction has been completed and the facility is up and running, it plans to begin processing plastic for conversion to clean energy at a rate of 100 tons per day, starting in 2024, scaling to 500 tons per day over time.
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