Cree Inc.

Despite terrific share price appreciation over Q1 2011 for many clean energy companies, as demonstrated in our Saturday list of the TOP 20 performing companies in the EnergyBoom Clean 100 Index, not all companies in the sector ended the quarter with happy shareholders.

Here are the 10 worst-performing companies on the EnergyBoom Clean 100 Index January 3 through March 31:

Lighting Science Group Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: LSCG), a junior light-emitting diode (LED) lighting manufacturer/marketer profiled in E•BOOM CAPITAL Wednesday, announced Thursday it had completed an $18 million private placement of its common stock. The company said the proceeds would be used to finance its aggressive marketing program. 

Shares of Lighting Science (market cap: $388 million) dropped six percent on the news.

(Other news:  Cree Announces New 60-Watt Replacement)

Shares of Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE), a market leader in light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, tumbled 14.5 percent Wednesday (and declined another three percent by mid-day today) losing more than $1 billion of market value after announcing Q2 2011 revenue and earnings that were below analysts’ expectations. The company also provided a weak third quarter outlook, with both earnings and revenues forecast to come in under analysts’ models. 

Shares of LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (NYSE: LDK), a leading vertically integrated manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) products and the world's largest producer of multicrystalline solar wafers, rose 18 percent Monday after the company increased its guidance for its fourth quarter 2010 and fiscal year 2011.

(Other news: Johnson Controls, Inc.; Cree, Inc.)

EnergyBoom’s E•B Efficiency subindex had the best performance in November among Energyboom’s five sector indices and also beat all broad market indices for the month. The E•B Efficiency slipped 0.13 percent for the month, narrowly beating the best-performing broad market index, the S&P 500 Index (-0.23 percent).

EnergyBoom’s five clean sector stock market indices declined last week, with the overall EnergyBoom Clean 100 Index subindex falling 0.76 percent, compared with the S&P 500 Index (-0.82 percent), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.90 percent), and the NASDAQ Composite Index (+0.65 percent).

EnergyBoom’s E•B Efficiency subindex gain of 3.1 percent last week was the best performance among the EnergyBoom clean sector indices. It also beat the leading green ETFs  and all broad market indices.

Yesterday’s market selloff took a broad swipe across all sectors, with the solar stocks being the hardest hit among green sectors. The E•B Solar subindex lost 6.61 percent yesterday, compared the overall E•B Solar Clean 100 (down 2.98 percent), the S&P 500 Index (down 1.62 percent), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (down 1.59 percent) and the NASDAQ composite (down 1.95 percent). European exchanges were down slightly more than U.S. markets.

The global market in super-efficient LED lighting products is booming and share prices of LED companies are following step.

The Obama Administration has directed a lot of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money into renewable energy technology that can help wean the U.S. off of fossil fuels.