Vegan theme outperforms

An ETF with heart has outperformed the S&P 500 with Claire Smith of Beyond Investing’s US Vegan Climate ETF increasing by 38.08 per cent in 2023, in comparison with the S&P 500 Index, which edged upwards by 26.29 per cent in the same period.

Our writer Fiona Nicolson explains that VEGN aims to avoid investing in companies which are involved in the slaughter of, cruelty towards or other mistreatment of animals. Smith calculates that the lives of almost three million animals have been spared, based on her analysis of the total number of animals globally; the proportion of those in the US; and the market caps of companies excluded from VEGN because of their use of animals. Read our interview with her on her expansion plans.

Equally passionate are the Blue Tractor Group’s team who have been working on being able to offer their semi-transparent ETF structure to investment managers who run long/short investment strategies, and they have done it, receiving notice from the SEC late last week.

Terry Norman, Blue Tractor Group founder, says: "This now opens up the semi-transparent ETF space to hedge fund managers and those who run long/short portfolios but don’t want predatory traders or ‘copycat’ funds either front running their trades or running near identical funds."

Keep your voting up in the 14th outing of the ETF Express European ETF Awards which are open to your votes on ETF service providers and issuers until 16th February. Voting closes Friday 16th February.

To cast your vote please click here.

Meanwhile, we are off to the ETF conference Exchange, in Miami, with a full dance card of meetings and, I observe, quite a lot of drinks parties.

We are hosting the inaugural US ETF Distribution awards, sponsored by ACA Foreside, a mini in-conference awards designed to allow the attending financial advisers to vote on their favourite ETF products. We will report from Exchange over the next week.

Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor

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