Opinions on climate change vary drastically from person to person. Discussing the appropriate course of action can also often be obfuscated by tangentially impacted circumstances, like the massive lifestyle changes that first-world citizens will be forced to accept or whether a federal government should be performing any sort of drastic policy intervention to change our…
If the evolving language inside mutual fund prospectuses is a guide, financial advisers should brace for an expanding selection of funds focused on environmental, social and corporate governance issues. The record $8.9 billion of net inflows into ESG-strategy funds through the first six months of this year illustrates the ferocious demand for funds that are…
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management on Monday armed its more than 15,600 reps with a tool to help investors align their portfolios with their socially and environmentally conscious beliefs. The Morgan Stanley Impact Quotient, colloquiallydubbed IQ, is the latest example of the financial services industry’s growing acceptance of and appreciation for impact or sustainable investing principles.…
Pacific Life Insurance is pulling the plug on Swell Investing, a digital advice platform offering sustainable investing-themed portfolios for retail clients and for advisers to offer their clients. Swell’s homepage has been replaced with a message informing investors that it had stopped accepting new clients and new deposits as of Wednesday. It also said any…
ETFs have new competition, and its name is ESG. Exchange-traded funds have been one of the most disruptive forces in investing in recent years. Burned by decades of high fees and underperformance in actively managed mutual funds, investors have turned to low-cost index ETFs in big numbers. They pulled a net $39 billion from mutual…
Ethic, an asset manager that uses technology to build custom sustainable investing portfolios for advisers, now has the backing of Fidelity Investments and Dynasty Financial Partners. Fidelity was part of $13 million round of funding, led by venture capital firm Nyca Partners, which four-year-old Ethic closed Thursday. The funding comes a week after Dynasty said…
My promo description
The Trump administration unveiled guidance aimed at the burgeoning socially responsible investment industry that left some investors scratching their heads. The Department of Labor, which oversees retirement-plan funds, published guidelines Monday that said investments based on environmental, social and governance issues aren’t always a “prudent choice” and that such factors shouldn’t “too readily” be considered…
