ETHICAL INVESTING

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!

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For a general overview of what we mean by Ethical Investing, consider the words of Sir John M. Templeton, founder of the highly successful Templeton Fund:

      Ethics and spiritual principles should be the basis of everything we do in life. All that we say. All that we think. Every activity should be based on that -- including the selection of investments.
      You wouldn't want to be an owner of a company that is producing harm for the public, and therefore, you wouldn't want to be an owner of a share of a company that's producing harm for the public. We should all give great attention to that, and probably it will be profitable to you, because companies that are harmful ordinarily do not prosper for very long.
      You will be better off with companies that are truly beneficial. They will go up in price and grow more rapidly.
Sir John Templeton

Help the World While You Help Yourself

Invest with your values and your interests. The results can be profitable and deeply satisfying. There are plenty of good companies in the world to invest in. There is no need to put your money with companies and ideas you don't believe in. Contrary to myth, you do not have to sacrifice profits. Ethical investing has been proven to be just as profitable, if not more so, than investing without consideration to ethics. For instance, the Citizens Mutual Fund Index of 300 Ethical Companies (WAIDX) has beaten the S&P 500 Index every year since it started in 1995, and in 1998 its 45% return beat the S&P Index by over 16%. Just a fluke you say, well consider the eight top Ethical Mutual Funds in the go-go years of the late 90s, all with one-year returns of better than 20 percent. They all beat the returns of the top S&P 500 index funds:

ETHICAL MUTUAL FUNDS	Ticker	1-yr. rtn. %	3-yr. rtn. %
IPS Millennium Fund	IPSMX	55.8	32.3
Citizens Emerging Growth	WAEGX	31.0	18.9
Citizens Index	WAIDX	29.1	31.5
Domini Social Equity	DSEFX	21.1	28.5
Citizens Global Equity	WAGEX	20.7	21.1
Green Century Equity	GCEQX	20.5	27.9
Pax World Fund	PAXWX	20.5	20.4
Dreyfus Third Century.	DRTHX	17.9	24.7

Now compare the returns of the ETHICAL FUNDS with the top 10 S&P 500 index funds in through 1999. Keep in mind that the index funds, in turn, beat 85 percent of all actively managed stock equity funds:

TOP 10 S&P 500 INDEX FUNDS	Ticker	1-yr. rtn. %	3-yr. rtn. %
Vanguard Index 500	VFINX	18.8	26.7
BT Equity 500 Index	BTIIX	18.8	26.7
First American Equity Index	FEIIX	18.8	26.5
MainStay Indexed Equity	NIIEX	18.8	26.5
USAA S&P 500 Index	USSPX	18.8	26.7
Fidelity Spartan U.S. Equity Index	FUSEX	18.6	26.5
SEI Index S&P 500	TRQIX	18.6	26.5
Dreyfus S&P 500 Stock Index	DSPIX	18.5	26.5
T. Rowe Price Equity Index 500	PREIX	18.5	26.4
SSgA S&P 500 Index	SVSPX	18.5	26.5
Schwab S&P 500	SWPIX	18.3	26.2

The bottom line is you can help humanity and earn a high return. Money Wisdom will show the way.

Ethical investing necessarily entails: Avoiding Unethical Companies; and, Choosing Ethical Companies. These two basic steps are discussed further, with specific tools and selection information provided, in the Negative Screening and Positive Screening pages. These two steps can make you an Ethical Investor, but alone they are not really much fun, and will not maximize your profits or personal satisfaction. For this two more steps are required which we call Personal Vision and Global Diversity. The result is the Fourfold Way of Money Wisdom.

The Global Diversity criteria is propounded by most money managers today. It is based on the simple, time proven wisdom of diversification -- hedging your bets -- coupled with the realization that we are now living in a global economy. You are advised not to put all of your investment money into one stock, or even one industry, or country. Take a broad holistic view and invest in many different areas. This is particularly important if you invest in individual stocks, instead of mututal funds.

The Personal Vision criteria is unique to Money Wisdom. The idea essentially is to invest in your vision of the future. We say Personal Vision, and not just Vision, to emphasize that it should come from what you know, and see, not what someone else tells you they predict will happen. Personal Vision is based on your ideas and intuition of a positive future and social trends, using your special knowlege and insights. For instance, if you are an expert cook, you probably know a lot about food and kitchenware. So your portfolio should include companies with products and services in this area. Select companies that you would like to see dominate cooking in the future. This criteria is akin to positive screening, but more personal and creative. It allows you to take the universe of companies that survive both your negative and positive screens, and focus in on several dozen companies personally tailored to you.

All four steps together constitute the Money Wisdom way of ethical investment: 1 - screening out companies you consider unethical; 2 - screening in companies with good business practices, services and products; 3 - global diversification to a number of different funds or companies; and, 4 - selection of companies you are most attuned to, and consider best positioned to change the world for the better. If you follow all four steps you can enjoy investing more, and sleep soundly in the knowledge that your money is well spent.

You may have heard of so called "Socially Responsible Investing" (SRI) and wonder how it compares with Money Wisdom. SRI also has a fourfold approach, begining with the same negative and positive screening, and then adding: Shareholder Activism, where you try and change a company's negative policies and practices by protests and other legal means and strategies; and, Community Lending, where money is deposited in banks and other lending institutions designed to benefit a certain segment or group. Money Wisdom endorses these approaches, and encourages your participation in them whenever possible.

This web is supported solely by our advertisers. Please patronize them! We take no money from any company we mention, unless they also happen to be an advertiser. Under all circumstances, our opinion is solely our own. We often put our money where our mouth is and invest in the companies and funds mentioned. Anything less would be hypocritical! Likewise, you should make up your own mind about investments and values. We are here to provide information, tools and ideas, but not to make any decisions for you, or provide any investment or securities advice. Investing always carries risks, and any investment you make can always lose money, even ethical ones! So before you invest, always research carefully, think it through, and be very sure you want to put yourself, your money, into it. To be safe, you are advised to seek the advice of an investment professional before committing any funds. Finally, some statements made in these webs may contain information about a company's future business prospects. These statements may be considered ``forward looking''. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in or implied by such forward looking statements.