Are oil companies the new sin-stocks? Here’s what that might mean for investors

What’s the connection between tobacco and fossil fuels? Not much you might think. Both are commodities of a sort.

Both of them have been at the centre of global anger. In the late 1990’s tobacco was feared, hated, and disgraced.

A recently updated post from Capitalist Exploits compares the current headwinds facing oil companies to those facing the tobacco industry in the late 1990’s. Capitalist Exploits lists all the things going against tobacco:

“An industry in decline. Widely considered to be murderous thugs. Banned from advertising via many traditional media channels. Fined by regulators. Enjoying a blizzard of litigation. No innovation in the industry.”

Two decades on today’s equivalent is fossil fuels and the oil company specifically. Oil majors are taking heat from the courts, from the media, from the public, from banks and from investors:

Lawsuits over climate change proliferate across the United States — Reuters: “A trial in which Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) stands accused of defrauding investors out of up to $1.6 billion (£1.2 billion) by hiding the true cost of climate change regulation is expected to wrap up this week.”