The Cleantech Index (CTIUS) was actually launched in February 2006, It was the first, and perhaps still the only, index to cover the broad clean technology phenomena across the broad range of industry sectors.

With no malice intended, I certainly take exception to Mr. Wilder’s claim as being the grandaddy of all cleantech indices. Neither I, nor most other cleantech experts consider any of the Wilderhill Indices to be ‘cleantech” by any stretch of the imagination. They are, with varying degrees, energy and alternative energy indices, but certainly not cleantech, and sometimes no so clean either.

What the Wilderhill indices do, as do a plethora of competitors, is to track the more narrow alternative energy energy sector. Given the size of the ETFs linked to Wilderhill indices, I would say Wilderhill has been very successful.

When one takes a closer look at most indices in cleantech, alternative energy, environmental, water, and even nanotech spece, it becomes readily apparent that there are a few good indices and ETFs, and a lot of really bad ones – even ones established by some of the world’s largest financial firms. Veterans of the investment world know that product quality, integrity, and serving investors rarely get in the way of making a quick few bucks (or in this case, a few hundred million).

I would urge any index user or investor in index-based products to spend a lot of time looking at both the index (strategy, composition, weighting scheme, etc) and the mechanics of the derivative product. They will likely be very surprised by what they see. Of course almost nobody does this, but then again, few investors looked too closely at mortgage-backed securities until it was far too late.