Displaying items by tag: esg

(Las Vegas)

ESG may have started as a play from the conscience but as of late it has turned out to be just as potent of play for the wallet. Since the start of the pandemic green power exposed stocks in the S&P 500 such as First Solar, NextEra, Albemarle, LG Chem, and Samsung SDI have averaged 140% return compared to the S&P’s 41%. But the real hidden gem has been at home solar company Sunrun which posted a 212% return over the same time frame. The CEO says its wide base of customers draws in democrats and republicans and boosts demand. It also has dealt with Ford Motor Co. to cooperate on in-home charging for the new F-150 Lightning. It has risks as Tesla and Home Depot are trying to take up market share but Sunrun is the leading market contender.

FINSUM: At-home solar is one of the top plays right now, but wider ETFs could provide the exposure with less risk.

(New York)

Any advisor likely already knows it, but it is worth repeating: ESG funds are troubling space. They are significantly more costly than traditional funds, have middling returns, and perhaps worst of all, these days they seem quite undifferentiated from conventional funds. One of the big problems in the space is that there is no universal definition of ESG or standard convention for defining ESG risks or parameters, so anyone can call anything “ESG”. For example, take a look at the top ten holdings of two funds, one a basic S&P 500 tracker, the other labeled “Large Cap ESG”, and you will see they have virtually no differences except that the ESG fund costs 40 bp at best and the conventional fund costs 9 bp.

FINSUM: Some people call ESG a pure marketing scam. To some extent that is true as it is pretty easy for fund providers to take advantage of ESG pricing without really doing anything under the hood. But at the same time, there is also genuine interest on the consumer and provider sides to expand opportunities in the space.

(New York)

ESG is a very notable area right now that has been gathering considerable assets. Client demand for such products is high in certain demographics. That said, some reports show that ESG stocks do not perform as well as their conventional peers. With that in mind, here are some of the best ESG stocks that looked primed to do well (and most of them won’t even be recognizable as ESG). The stocks are: Home Depot (HD), PayPal (PYPL), GlaxoSmithKiline (GSK), Equinor (EQNR), Churchill Capital Corp IV (CCIV), Microsoft (MSFT), Unilever (UL).

FINSUM: We love Home Depot here. The fundamentals look good –Millennials, which are the largest generation ever in the US, are entering prime home-buying years—and Home Depot is a leader in social responsibility, with diverse hiring practices.

(New York)

ESG has already taken the financial world, nearly dominating every other headline over the past couple of years…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site

Wealth and investment management are ever-changing, but a new generation of clientele is shifting that landscape even more quickly…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site