K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
If you are an investor who wants to support the advancement of women, there’s a category of investments for that: gender-lens funds.
These mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are part of the environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing movement, and they specifically invest based on whether a company has women in leadership roles or is committed in some other way to women’s advancement and equity.
Morningstar MORN -0.17% Direct includes gender-lens funds in a group of 52 funds that seek to make a measurable impact on gender and diversity disparities. The research firm says $4.9 billion has flowed into this fund category this year through Sept. 30, up from $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago.
Parallelle Finance, a gender-lens advisory firm, says assets in the group of gender-lens stock funds it tracks rose 8% in the second quarter from the first quarter, helped by a combination of performance and net inflows. Assets in gender-lends bond funds grew 20% in the second quarter from the first, helped by new issuance, the firm says.
For investors who may be interested in this theme, here are some mutual funds and ETFs to consider.
Mutual funds
Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund (PXWEX). Pax Ellevate is one of the oldest offerings in the gender-lens category. The investor class of shares launched in 1993 and an institutional class launched in 2006. The fund tracks the Impax Global Women’s Leadership Index, which includes the highest-rated companies in the world for advancing women’s leadership, as determined by Impax Gender Analytics, an asset-management firm that creates investment criteria and indexes specifically focused on gender-lens investing. The fund includes approximately 400 companies that have made strides in areas including women in leadership roles, board positions and front-line positions. The fund also seeks to invest in companies that have gender parity in their pay policies and are transparent about gender diversity.
Continue reading: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gender-lens-funds-put-money-towards-women-leaders-11636056301
These mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are part of the environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing movement, and they specifically invest based on whether a company has women in leadership roles or is committed in some other way to women’s advancement and equity.
Morningstar MORN -0.17% Direct includes gender-lens funds in a group of 52 funds that seek to make a measurable impact on gender and diversity disparities. The research firm says $4.9 billion has flowed into this fund category this year through Sept. 30, up from $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago.
Parallelle Finance, a gender-lens advisory firm, says assets in the group of gender-lens stock funds it tracks rose 8% in the second quarter from the first quarter, helped by a combination of performance and net inflows. Assets in gender-lends bond funds grew 20% in the second quarter from the first, helped by new issuance, the firm says.
For investors who may be interested in this theme, here are some mutual funds and ETFs to consider.
Mutual funds
Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund (PXWEX). Pax Ellevate is one of the oldest offerings in the gender-lens category. The investor class of shares launched in 1993 and an institutional class launched in 2006. The fund tracks the Impax Global Women’s Leadership Index, which includes the highest-rated companies in the world for advancing women’s leadership, as determined by Impax Gender Analytics, an asset-management firm that creates investment criteria and indexes specifically focused on gender-lens investing. The fund includes approximately 400 companies that have made strides in areas including women in leadership roles, board positions and front-line positions. The fund also seeks to invest in companies that have gender parity in their pay policies and are transparent about gender diversity.
Continue reading: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gender-lens-funds-put-money-towards-women-leaders-11636056301
