Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds

Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by siliconc0w on Monday May 27, 2019 @07:18PM (#20025966)

It'd be nice if it were easy to buy a Vanguard ETF but modified to either avoid specific companies or set to create incentives for certain types of companies. Like a company could get an outsized weight if it has a more diverse executive team or compensated them less than %N00 of the average worker. Just to give passive investors some sort of tool to nudge companies into better behavior (as defined by their aggregate preferences).

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by twblalock on Monday May 27, 2019 @07:21PM (#20025986)

There are some ETFs that focus on "ethical" and "socially responsible" companies. I don't think Vanguard has any. DSI seems to be the biggest one.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by awithrow on Monday May 27, 2019 @10:42PM (#20026805)

Vanguard just launched VEIGX https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/overview/... as their environmental, social, and governance index fund.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by twblalock on Monday May 27, 2019 @11:29PM (#20026992)

Thanks, I didn't know that.

It's interesting that this is an actively managed fund. There are actually a few indices for this kind of thing but apparently Vanguard is not using them: https://www.msci.com/esg-indexes

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by webninja on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @09:05AM (#20039624)

ESGV as an ETF of this.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by dmoy on Monday May 27, 2019 @09:44PM (#20026550)

> I don't think Vanguard has any.

VFTSX

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by eppp on Monday May 27, 2019 @10:20PM (#20026708)

Closed to new investors.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by dmoy on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @08:06PM (#20035681)

"Closed" like all their investor funds which were replaced by the cheaper admiral funds. You wouldn't say vtsmx is closed, it's just replaced by vtsax. Same deal here.

It's not actually closed. Just buy the admiral version instead, same thing but cheaper.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by emckay on Monday May 27, 2019 @09:20PM (#20026445)

I quit my job a couple weeks ago to start a company that does exactly this. If anyone is interested in learning more, feel free to reach out at [hn-username]@greengovernance.org.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by boardwaalk on Monday May 27, 2019 @07:42PM (#20026070)

I've thought the same, specifically for green energy. The "logical" way would be to allocate some money to one of the green mutual funds -- but those are typical pretty high ER. And I'm not sure be desire to try to be green-ish overcomes that. A customizable ETF/mutual fund would awesome. But I wonder what the hurdles are technically/legally...

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by deepeedubs on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @08:25AM (#20029336)

Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF (VSGX) Vanguard Social Index Admiral shares (VFTAX)

All are open. The old Social Index Investor shares are closed.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by thatoneuser on Monday May 27, 2019 @08:15PM (#20026199)

Like the idea in general, but I do not agree that diverse executive teams should be incentivized. That's discriminatory.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by DontGiveTwoFlux on Monday May 27, 2019 @08:42PM (#20026299)

Let the market decide.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by jsnider3 on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @12:03PM (#20031436)

Incentivizing things is how the market decides.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by paxys on Monday May 27, 2019 @08:26PM (#20026236)

Why do you feel that is discriminatory?

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by intopieces on Monday May 27, 2019 @09:20PM (#20026444)

I'm not the user you are responding to, but the general view of people who make this comment is that it discriminates against people are who are well-represented on the boards of financial and technology firms.

Which is true, because all forms of hiring are discrimination. Business discriminate against people who don't have the qualifications that they believe will positively impact their business.

If the user you responded to has reason to believe that a certain company has hired certain individuals who are not qualified to do the job they were hired for, I encourage her to say that. But it's not enough to say the practice is blanket good or bad. There are just too many variables to account for.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by rosege on Monday May 27, 2019 @11:03PM (#20026891)

I believe the discrimination that thatoneuser is objecting to is discrimination based on things that someone has no control over such as gender and skin color. This is typically whats used as the basis when people say they want to increase diversity. I would guess that thatoneuser does not have an issue with discrimination and diversity based on what someone can change such as their education and experience.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by thatoneuser on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @02:22PM (#20043601)

This seems pretty accurate to what I had in mind

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by thatoneuser on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @02:26PM (#20043634)

Qualifications are fine. That's merit based hiring. Saying you don't have the right genitals or your skin isn't the right color and thus you don't deserve the job is wrong. Assuming that's what op meant by adversity as I rarely hear adversity referring to learned skills.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by thatoneuser on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @02:24PM (#20043616)

Because it's promoting hiring practices that rely on using gender/race/whatever to decide who deserves a position. Diversity (of intrinsic characteristic) has no intrinsic value, it's an ideology and an unethical one at that.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by runamok on Monday May 27, 2019 @09:41PM (#20026532)

Not an index fund but Motif let's you buy a basket of securities with different "themes". I have always thought investing in companies based on the ratio of worker salaries to C level salaries would be very interesting.

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by mruts on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @01:43PM (#20032474)

Why do you think there’s alpha there?

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Re:Half of US stock fund assets are now invested in index funds by aantix on Monday May 27, 2019 @09:58PM (#20026602)

Vanguard’s target date funds automatically rebalance to ensure they keep the same asset allocations.

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