Anti-woke investing opportunities

Finance
42

Some guys tried to make an anti-woke bank GloriFi and it does not seem to have been a financial success.

It might still be ok as a bank, if they managed to launch it. Get a home insurance discount for owning a gun, etc.

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43

that’s how they make money, rile you up w/politics , then cash in

I think i might just buy KRUZ ETF after the elections if GOP wins the landslide
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-15/etfs-that-track-stock-trades-of-us-congress-members-planned

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44

From a similar discussion to the one on this thread over at Gyroscopicinvesting forum

The Investor Democracy is Expected (INDEX) Act was introduced in the Senate in May " to address corporate voting power by requiring any asset manager of a passive index fund with more than 1% of a company’s voting shares to vote those shares in accordance with the instructions of the fund’s investors—not at the discretion of the asset manager. "
https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom … -investors

Seems no further action since a hearing in June: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-con … -bill/4241

It sounds like a great idea, but details are important. Note the Routine Matters Exception section in
https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/imo/med … 051722.pdf
For example, if we go down this route you still need enough shareholders to actually vote in order to satisfy a company’s shareholder meeting quorum.

So some kind of default is probably still required. I know I don’t want to cast votes for each of the 500 stocks in my S&P 500 fund. But maybe a system could let you delegate your vote to follow some other groups direction - such as: cast my vote according to instructions of the Anti-ESG Activist Association (or whatever group shares your goals and values).

https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12774

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Vanguard and Blackrock seem to be reacting to the pressure from the Republican states over their woke proxy voting.

Edit. Discussion at Bogleheads

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=389551

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46

See the article for the list of companies

Anti-Twitter Advertisers Have Been Under-Performing The Market For Months: Here Is Your Chance To Short Them

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47

The bank project failed.

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48

I could not get to the story but where did they go to try to find funding? Did they go to the woke Wall Street firms they are trying to replace?

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49

Sounds like a fair bit of incompetence

The com­pany raised about $50 mil­lion from an A-list group of in­vestors last year. In July, Glo­riFi an­nounced a deal to merge with DHC Ac­qui­si­tion Corp., a spe­cial-pur­pose ac­qui­si­tion com­pany. The deal val­ued Glo­riFi at about $1.7 bil­lion and re­quired the com­pany to raise at least $60 mil­lion in ad­di­tional cash.

The com­pa­ny’s fate be­came clear on Fri­day, when fund­ing that it hoped would carry it through the first quar­ter fell through, Cathy Landtroop, the com­pa­ny’s chief mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer, said in an email to em­ploy­ees.

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50

If you have left a company, the lesson is to pull the money from their 401(k) plan and transfer it to your IRA.

Under the previous regulations implemented by former President Donald Trump in 2020, companies were required to base their investments on financial gains for their employees. Only if two investment opportunities were “economically indistinguishable” could companies then look to other factors while making their decision.

Under the new rules, corporations must still fulfill their duties of putting employees’ financial interests first, however they will be allowed to consider factors aside from whether their investments will generate returns

According to the DOL, the rule takes effect in sixty days, and will “empower plan fiduciaries to safeguard the savings of America’s workers by clarifying that fiduciaries may consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when they make investment decisions and when they exercise shareholder rights, including voting on shareholder resolutions and board nominations.”

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51

Sounds like a good idea

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52

I normally like the post millennial, but that is a terrible article. The DOL rule that the article links to doesn’t say one word about companies investing the funds inside 401(k) plans. Regarding 401(k)s, it only talks about what companies can do “when constructing a menu of prudent investment options.” That’s because, as everyone on here I assume knows, 401(k) plan investments are self directed by the individual plan participants. Your employer can’t direct your 401(k) investments beyond whatever they choose as the default. And they could already, before this rule, make the default investment a ‘green’ fund. If you work for a company that changes their menu of 401(k) investment options in response to this rule and now ONLY allows ‘green’ funds in you 401(k), you probably already knew way before that happened that you were working for a super-woke company. Get out if that bothers you.

This rule has way more of an effect on workers that have retirement funds in a traditional defined benefit pension plan where the company gets to direct the investments, not a 401(k) plan. And you can’t take those funds with you when you leave, so your only option is to check beforehand if a company you are about to work for does this (but it is unlikely an issue since so few companies offer pension plans anymore). The best course of action for someone concerned about this is to get in touch with their employee representative that is on the retirement investment committee and make sure that person is on board with voting down any attempt to redirect pension funds into woke investments.

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53

I disagree. I think many people take the default investment option in the 401(k). There is no requirement that other investment options are also not woke. Also, some companies offer their stock as an investment option in the 401(k). In general, it is a good practice to roll over any investments in a company 401(k) to your IRA if you can do so without incurring a penalty. In your IRA you should choose non-woke options of course, And certainly rollover your 401k after you leave the company.

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This rule didn’t make it so that the default investment could be “green.” That was already allowed under previous rules. Nor does the article say anything about the default investment.

I reiterate, if you work for a company where ALL of your 401(k) investment menu is “green,” and you are upset about that, you have bigger problems than your 401(k) menu. Most of the woke Fortune 500 don’t even do that. The only ones doing that are ones that aren’t just big companies going woke, they are companies whose business model is wokeness. Why would someone who doesn’t want “green” investments be working at one of those companies?

The rules prohibit company stock from being the default investment.

That’s good advice in general. This new rule didn’t really make it more important, that’s all I’m saying.

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55

+1 been meaning to do that since I have a bunch of 401k and fees I’m sure. Any good IRA bonus opps?

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Look at the E*TRADE bonuses. In the past, they have paid them when I transferred IRAs.

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57

Darn, Already on on etrade promo tier here Offer Disclaimers

any others?

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Schwab will match E*TRADE and other bonuses if you ask them.

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59

Meed does not think this is significant but I and this article disagree

How can you protect yourself from being required to invest in ESG funds? First , tell your employer, pension fund manager, or other fiduciary responsible for your retirement accounts that you are not interested in ESG investing. The Biden rule does not require ESG investments; it only allows fiduciaries to offer them.

Second , the new Biden rule permits employers to make an ESG fund the default option for employees enrolled in 401(k) accounts. That means that employees who normally do not voluntarily elect specific 401(k) investments could soon have their hard-earned money automatically invested in an ESG fund. Many workers won’t even notice the change. If you want to avoid this from happening in the coming years, be sure to submit your own 401(k) elections.

Third , if your employer or pension manager severely limits your options so that ESG investing is hard to avoid when contributing to a 401(k), consider other investment opportunities that would put you in greater control of your money. An individual retirement account, commonly known as an IRA, could be a better option, for example.

Biden’s latest regulatory change is designed to funnel more money, potentially trillions of dollars, toward causes he and other progressives support. If you don’t want to see your money spent to advance ESG efforts, you need to start preparing now.

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I never said it wasn’t significant, I said that the Post Millennial article wasn’t good. This one from Fox is much better.

I have no idea if you should worry about your employer offering ONLY ESG investments in your 401(k). If I had to guess, I would say very few employers would do that. But this article makes the point, if you don’t want to be forced into ESG investments, tell your employer. I agree with that 100%. Note above when I said to get in touch with your employee representative on your pension’s investment committee? This is essentially the same advice, but for the committee/person that decides on the 401(k) investment menu. So I agree with this advice.

I disagree. I think this was permitted under the old rules. But it doesn’t really matter. Anyone too lazy to change their 401(k) investment from the default fund that their company selects for them gets no sympathy from me.

This is only good advice as long as you aren’t leaving 401(k) match money and other tax savings on the table. If you miss out on a match, or would otherwise contribute more if you had gone through your company’s 401(k), but didn’t specifically because you only had ‘green’ funds to invest in, I think you are harming yourself financially in the long run more than you are sticking it to the green new dealers.

There isn’t really much you can do if you are low on the totem pole and you work for a company that wants to strut its ‘green’ bonafides, but that’s not really the point of the article. The point is to make the sort of people that don’t like the green new deal mad about something Biden did.

I’m not happy about the new rule, but I’m realistic. I work for a progressive organization and I don’t predict that my company will be getting rid of the Vanguard S&P 500 or the Target Retirement Date funds on my 401(k) investment menu anytime soon. Let’s say they add a few ESG options. Will they really get that many more woke points if they get rid of the most popular fund options? Will that really help employee recruitment in a time of labor shortages? No. So they probably won’t. I just don’t see this being a big issue.

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61

RedBalloon, a conservative-leaning job services company, has taken the lead in promoting an employee bill of rights to protect employees from woke ideology in the workplace.

The company hosts a job board that connects like-minded employees to companies across the country, with a shared focus on productivity and innovation versus having the “correct” ideology of the moment.

Across the country, thousands of conservative Americans have reported work discrimination because of their privately held beliefs.

Some have even lost their jobs due to pressure from activist colleagues or politically correct employers, Andrew Crapuchettes, the founder and CEO of Red Balloon, told The Epoch Times.

A few months ago, RedBalloon released what it calls The Employee Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, a pledge to not discriminate against employees’ personal beliefs in the

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