With a new year, a new president and a bit of optimism on the horizon, socially responsible exchange traded funds (ETFs) may be the one of the busiest arenas in the ETF world.

Fund providers such as Veritas Funds and Pax World Funds plan to launch new funds which range from environmentalism to those with a religious emphasis, focused on Islam and Christianity.  Of the funds that already exist, PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio (PBW) was down 68.9% in 2008, but has seen tremendous success in that it attracted about $630 million, indicating that a market exists.

The sector may flourish for the following reasons:

• In an effort to calm the strained credit markets, the Federal Reserve broadened a program to provide credit for buyers of certain money market instruments, allowing U.S.-based reinvestment firms, securities lenders and some local government investment pools to its money-market investor funding facility, once only used by mutual funds, states Meena Thiruvengadam of The Wall Street Journal.
•  There has been a trend of assets shifting from mutual funds to ETFs.
•  President-elect Obama’s plan to focus on infrastructure and clean energy plans.

On the downside, with low crude oil prices and weak consumer confidence, the sector may still face an upward battle. Only time and the future of the overall economic health will determine the success of the sector in 2009. 

Tags: Green ETFs, Infrastructure, Mutual Funds, Obama, PBW, Sector ETFs