Investment culture wars?

Conventional conservativism was traditionally pro-corporation, profit-first, and generally liked business to stay out of politics. At least superficially, they didn’t need to invest their values as many on the left have with Socially Responsible Investment / Environment Social Governance (SRI/ESG) funds. Merely investing in American (and maybe foreign) companies was an adequate expression of their beliefs.  

But the more current version of conservativism is more explicitly anti-progressive, and is interested in more than profits. You can even (sort of) invest (sort of) directly in Donald Trump’s (sort of) 2021 business Trump Media & Technology Group which may have been only (sort of) legal. 
 
But put that aside. Where do anti-progressives invest in real companies? Matt Levine (possibly the best financial journalist on Wall Street) reports on three funds that appeal to the contemporary conservative.  The American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF) “boycotts” Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and more than 20 other companies that it views as overly progressive in their corporate politics…,” according to the founder. ACVF removed holdings in Delta and Coca-Cola after the companies criticized the Georgia voter bill.   

ACVF is not a large fund, only about $10M with an above-average expense ratio of .75%. That’s high but I suppose it’s worth it if those are your values. Funds of about the same size and expense ratio are two even more pointedly issue-based funds from 2ndVote Funds investments, LYFE (Life Neutral Plus EFT), which is pro-life, and EGIS (Society Defended EFT), which is progun and border security.   
 
Interestingly, none of these funds score terribly on ESG ratings. Morningstar, a respected mutual fund and ETF rating organization, rates ACVF as ‘lower than category average’ for general ESG sustainability. LYFE and EGIS score a little worse on the ESG rating by Morningstar but are still very middling. Why do they score relatively well? All three score pretty well on the environmental rating, while social ratings are quite low and governance scores are generally lower. 

I expect to see many more of these anti-woke ETFs in short order. What’s next in culture wars? Breakfast cereal? Well joke’s on us.  That already happened.