By Christine Idzelis
Hello! For this week’s ETF Wrap I spoke with Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, about the battle he sees forming around ESG.
Please send feedback and tips to christine.idzelis@marketwatch.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at @cidzelis and find me on LinkedIn.
Environmental, social and governance criteria seem to be getting on some people’s nerves lately, although ESG funds represent just a tiny slice of assets in the U.S.-listed exchange-traded-fund market, according to Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi,
"ESG has become the villain for many people who are using it as a way of speaking to their narrative," Rosenbluth said in a phone interview. It’s not just politicians in states such as Florida or Texas pushing back on ESG, "we’ve seen asset managers like Strive take a more investment-focused stand," he said.
Strive Asset Management, which last month launched the Strive U.S. Energy ETF (DRLL), announced Sept. 6 that it sent a letter to Chevron Corp. (CVX) urging the oil and gas producer to "liberate itself from constraints imposed by its ESG-promoting ‘shareholders’ and to focus exclusively on maximizing long run value for the company’s ultimate owners."
Strive, which recently became a Chevron shareholder, wrote the letter on behalf of its clients to "deliver what we term a ‘post-ESG’ shareholder mandate," according to the announcement. Strive Executive Chairman Vivek Ramaswamy addressed the letter to Chevron chairman and chief executive officer Michael Wirth, saying Chevron should "produce and distribute more fuel to customers around the world — proudly, publicly, and without apology."
Read:Kremlin says sanctions to blame for halting natural gas supply to Europe
Ramaswamy wrote "we are concerned that Chevron faces immense pressure from its large institutional "shareholders" including BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard to adopt value-destroying limitations on its business that do not align with Chevron’s best interests."
BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard Group are giant asset managers whose offerings to investors include ESG funds. But ESG represents "a very small slice" of the exchange-traded-fund market at about 1.5%, according to Rosenbluth.
BlackRock has pushed back on claims that it is putting its "climate agenda" ahead of clients, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing a letter that the asset management giant sent to attorneys general in 19 states.
ESG funds go beyond climate change concerns and "they serve a great purpose for many investors," said Rosenbluth. They aren’t just about the environment, or the "e" in the acronym. The "s" and the "g" pillars are linked to areas such as labor management, a diverse workforce and product safety, he said.
Investors in ESG-focused funds may get "broad market exposure tilted toward companies that are relatively strong across multiple metrics," said Rosenbluth.
Read:Opinion: Ron DeSantis ramps up attack on ‘woke capital’ with ESG crackdown
Check out: Learn how to incorporate ESG into your investment portfolio. Join Jennifer Grancio, CEO of Engine No. 1, at the Best New Ideas in Money Festival on Sept. 21 and Sept. 22 in New York
Battle over ESG?
BlackRock’s iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) and the Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) rank among the biggest ESG ETFs, according to a research report from Strategas at the end of August.
The iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF, with about $22 billion of assets under management as recently as Sept. 6, invests in large and mid-cap companies with "strong ESG traits," FactSet data show. The Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF, with almost $6 billion of assets on that same date, offers "an ESG slant" on U.S. stocks of all market capitalizations, according to FactSet data.
ESG ETFs tend to have holdings that are "extremely" similar to the S&P 500, the Strategas report shows. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index and has around $360 billion of assets, held Chevron shares as of Sept. 7, as did BlackRock’s iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF, holdings data from the funds’ webpages show.
Meanwhile, oil prices were trading higher Thursday afternoon, with West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery up 1.9% at $83.50 a barrel. That’s after settling Wednesday at the lowest level since January, amid fears of a global economic slowdown and Russia’s threats to walk away from energy contracts.
Read:Oil prices settle at their lowest since January on fresh concerns over a slowdown in energy demand
ESG is "serving as a stand-in for people who are looking for something to rail against," said Rosenbluth. "They’re making this a battle"
But in his view, there needn’t be one.
People may choose to invest with an ESG focus, he said, "or they can do what most people are doing, which is ignoring these products and buying traditional market-cap weighted" ETFs tied to indexes such as the S&P 500.
As usual, here’s your look at the top and bottom performing ETFs over the past week through Wednesday, according to FactSet data.
The good…
…and the bad
New ETFs
Weekly ETF reads
-Christine Idzelis
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
09-08-22 1510ET
Transparency is how we protect the integrity of our work and keep empowering investors to achieve their goals and dreams. And we have unwavering standards for how we keep that integrity intact, from our research and data to our policies on content and your personal data.
We’d like to share more about how we work and what drives our day-to-day business.
We sell different types of products and services to both investment professionals and individual investors. These products and services are usually sold through license agreements or subscriptions. Our investment management business generates asset-based fees, which are calculated as a percentage of assets under management. We also sell both admissions and sponsorship packages for our investment conferences and advertising on our websites and newsletters.
How we use your information depends on the product and service that you use and your relationship with us. We may use it to:
To learn more about how we handle and protect your data, visit our privacy center.
Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investor’s point of view. We also respect individual opinions––they represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.
To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.
Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
© Copyright 2022 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved. Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Morningstar Index (Market Barometer) quotes are real-time.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
