Vegan investment funds – do they perform?

As you will see on the “CFM around the World” section of this site, there are three stock market funds which can be classed as Vegan-friendly.  Two of these are available as investment funds in the UK and in Australia there is Cruelty Free Super.

The big questions asked by so many people is can one invest in a fund with vegan criteria and still make money?  In a completely non-scientific way, I have asked each of the three companies to give me information about their performance over the last few years using the most appropriate benchmarks for their own funds.  As Cruelty Free Super was only launched in October 2010, I haven’t asked the much longer established companies to provide performance information before this, to keep the comparison between all three funds to roughly the same time period.  I am not trying to compare the funds against each other, as they are all different.

In alphabetical order, the results are:

Cruelty Free Super (Australia)

Return for CFS from 10/10/2010 to 16/06/2012 was positive 5.38%, versus the ASX 200 negative 13.0% (Gross)

Return for CFS from 1/7/2011 to 12/6/2012 was positive 3.02% versus the ASX 200 negative 11.61% (Gross)

Return for CFS from 1/7/2011 to 30/4/2012: Net positive 4.45% versus gross ASX 200 negative 4.59%

Since the end of April 2012 investment markets have been very poor (CFS 1/7/2011 to 12/6/2012 positive gross 3.02% versus negative 11.61 from the ASX200).

Henderson Global Care Growth (UK)

Henderson Global Care Growth A	Year to Date *   1.83%	1 Year *   -8.94
Benchmark	-3.12%	-8.11%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kames Ethical Equity (UK)

Ethical Equity	1 Year *  -4.53%	2 years * 10.04%
Median	-3.83%	8.84%

 

 

 

 

 

* – figures to 16/7/12

 

 Conclusion:

The above is rather simplistic and only a snapshot but what it shows is that against their appropriate benchmarks/markets and non-ethical peers, the Vegan funds have performed really well. Is it because they are Vegan?  I’d like to say yes, but I am not sure that there is enough evidence to prove this.  It is more likely that the funds are all run by good managers who have to work harder within the ethical criteria to pick the right stocks and this extra hard work pays off.

So, if you’ve been holding out from investing in line with your values, isn’t it about time you chose the option which isn’t going to exploit animals, people and our planet?  If you are in Australia or the UK, now is the time to stand up and invest in line with your values.

 

Note – past performance is no guide to future returns.  There is no element of financial advice or recommendations in this comparison, it is purely a way of answering the big question posed earlier.

 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2012 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Animals, Cruelty Free Money - general, Our Planet, Pensions (UK), People, SUPERFUNDS (Australia). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.