If you’re at all interested in the world of finance, you may have encountered Catholic Mutual Funds (who claim they can beat the market by shorting the stocks of gay-friendly companies), Islamic Mutual Funds (who claim they can beat the market by shorting the stocks of media companies who publish pictures of Muhammad), and Jewish Mutual Funds (who claim they can beat the market by only pretending to make trades and by paying earlier investors with money from later ones).
And probably you wondered why there were no Protestant mutual funds. Well, a couple of Oklahomans had the same idea, and are launching ETFs to capture that unaddressed demand:
FaithShares Trust, established by Tom Phillips and Garrett Stevens, will offer shares of exchange traded funds based on indexes that track recommendations of organizations representing Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and nondenominational Christian groups. The funds will include large-cap stocks, excluding those that conflict with core beliefs of the various denominations.
Do the doctrinal differences between the various groups suggest substantially different investment strategies? Apparently so:
For instance, the index designed for Baptists will invest no money in companies that produce alcohol of any kind, Phillips said. For Catholics, companies that make beer and wine are allowed, but not those that produce distilled alcohol, he said. The Methodist fund will not invest in any company that produces more than 10 percent of its revenue through alcohol production.
This reflects, of course, the Methodist teaching that god doesn’t want you to earn more than 10% of your income in alcohol-related activities (for instance, bartending, stripping, and long-haul truck driving).
If you look through the prospectus, you can tease out other denominational variations as well. For instance, Baptists are adamantly opposed to “defense,” Catholics like to invest in “human dignity,” Lutherans don’t want their money going toward nuclear weapons (though biological and chemical are presumably OK), Methodists look to invest in companies that “nurture community,” and non-denominational Christians refuse to make money off “anti-personnel land mines.” (I assume pro-personnel land mines remain acceptable.)
The problem is that pretty much every conceivable stock pick is offensive to some religion or another. Scientologists don’t want to invest in companies that provide mental health benefits to their employees. Jains won’t invest in companies that make mousetraps or flyswatters or those cool blue electric bug zappers that hang in the mess hall at summer camp. Deists won’t invest in companies whose founders take an ongoing role in management.
That’s why, just to be safe, I’ve got my portfolio 25% in gold, 25% in canned vegetables, 25% in Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and 25% in Beanie Babies. Although now I’m starting to wonder if hanging on to that mint condition Forky the Devil is such a good idea.
Awesome post
I know how profitable gold investing can be. My brother made really good money doing just that, and myself I am making good money investing in gold.
I recommend to anyone who’s thinking of starting to invest in gold to read a book or two on this topic, as there so many mistakes and blunders that are possible to make when you first start in this industry.
Thank you very much for sharing this with your readers.