Back in October of 2009, I re-profiled socially responsible mutual funds. They are not available to me in my 401(k) so frequent monitoring of these important investments are not usually are my investment radar. That is unfortunate, because they should.
As it turns out, investing in socially responsible funds would have done the investor a world of good while doing the world some good. We all know now that actively managed mutual funds outperformed the S&P 500 index in 2009. While critics suggest that this is cyclical – and they may be right on some counts – the fact that 65% of these SRI funds who focus on businesses doing the “right thing” not only for their shareholders but the world in which these shareholders live, took much of the investment world by surprise.
Consider the chart below, which is, it should go without saying, is not an endorsement or a suggestion to invest and spans the last year ending December 31, 2009.
U.S. Large Cap
Benchmark: S&P 500 26.46%
SRI fund performance 32.67%
U.S. Mid Cap
Benchmark: S&P 400 Mid Cap 37.38%
SRI fund performance 36.24%
U.S. Small Cap
Benchmark: Russell 2000 27.17%
SRI fund performance 32.37%
U.S. Balanced
Benchmark: Blend 60% S&P 500, 40% Barclays
Capital U.S. Aggregate 18.40%
SRI fund performance 20.54%
U.S. Fixed Income Bonds
Benchmark: Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate 5.93%
SRI fund performance 8.04%
International Equity EAFE
Benchmark: MSCI EAFE 32.46%
SRI fund performance 28.11%
International Equity Global
Benchmark: MSCI World 30.79%
SRI fund performance 35.03%
Lisa Woll, CEO, Social Investment Forum believes that a growing number of investors a lashing back against what they consider to be companies who show no consideration for the investor. She suggested as much in a January 21st press release : “In the wake of the financial crisis more and more consumers are concerned about runaway executive pay practices and other forms of corporate misconduct and sustainability risks.” This sort of investor sentiment is something that has been growing steadily, the beneficiaries of this sort of thinking are the businesses who care.
The SIF analysizes 22 fund families among which are some well-known names and some not so mainstram: Access Capital Strategies; AHA; Appleseed; Ariel; Azzad; Calvert; Community Capital Management; Domini; Gabelli; Green Century; Integrity; Legg Mason; Meeder Asset Management; MMA Praxis; Neuberger Berman; New Alternatives; Parnassus; Pax World; Portfolio 21; Sentinel; Walden; and Winslow.
The number of funds professing a socially responsible investment style are small in number by comparison to the overall group. The SIF tracks only 73 funds with this investment focus. Yet three out of four did better that the world’s most popular index. As Cheryl Smith, chairman of the board at the Social Investment Forum said in the same press release: “This analysis underscores the reality that socially responsible investments offer what are genuinely competitive returns”.
It would however be worth your time to explore these funds. Many are growing in popularity (in large part because of performance numbers like those posted above) and because they have competitive nature of the fund industry, their fees are coming down as well. For a comprehensive list of the funds available in this group, click here.
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