Good Business: Vegan gold rush

Inside: Vegan investing is finally here, but might be a little confused. Bank of England presses insurers on climate. Big money starts to dump oil stocks. This basic carbon capture and storage technology has been around 400 million years. These countries will be first to face a water crisis. — Emily Chasan and Eric Roston

There's a gold rush for vegan investors as faux meat grabs the headlines and plant-based food is considered one of the best solutions to climate change. Beyond Meat's meteoric IPO gave public market investors one of their first real chances to hold shares of a vegan company. While shares tumbled last week after an unexpected secondary offering, the stock is still up about 600% this year. It seems like investor fans of a plant-based diet will have even more choices soon, as long as vegans also like tech stocks. A vegan ETF based on Beyond Advisors' Vegan Climate index, VEGAN, is expected to launch next month with a plan to avoid companies that profit from animal cruelty. But, it looks mostly like a large cap tech fund with big allocations to Microsoft and Apple and no shares of Beyond Meat, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said. Meanwhile, this big technology-focused ETF made a $500,000 bet on Beyond Meat. The rapid mainstreaming of fake meat should grab even more investor attention this year. Beyond Meat and Hardee's announced a vegan sausage deal, while still-private rival Impossible Foods passed a hurdle to move into retail stores and is rolling out to Burger Kings nationwide.

Solar stocks capped their biggest rally in four months last week, boosted by strong second-quarter earnings from SunPower and Enphase Energy. That was before Monday's market plunge largely wiped out those gains.