The Problem with Index Investing and Target Date Funds

Given the choice between food or poison, the choice is straightforward (I hope). However in modern investing, most people aren’t given the choice whether to invest in for example, a food distributor or a dangerous pesticide producer. That doesn’t seem right.

For the past several decades, investment companies have smartly packaged every single public company into what is commonly known as an index fund. These funds hold thousands of different companies across a large variety of industries including tobacco and guns. Meanwhile, target date funds also have grown in popularity for their “set it and forget it” approach to retirement and are mostly comprised of these index funds. Your 401(k) is probably invested in a target date fund. Index funds and target date funds invest in companies because they can, not because they should. Well what if you don’t want to support all these industries and companies?

 
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We live in a time where you can go into Sweetgreen (or any fast casual place for that matter) and you have the option to build your own, exactly to your taste preferences. Why can’t we do the same with our investments? I personally don’t want to be supporting gun manufacturers or tobacco producers, but unfortunately I would be if I owned index or target date funds.

This is where Good Capital comes in. We give you a choice in what you invest in. We have done countless hours of research in building our investment portfolio. In addition to traditional analytics, we also consider environmental, social and governance factors, thereby weeding out companies and industries that are known to be harmful while investing in companies that have a positive impact on society. On top of all of that, we take your values into consideration and we are left with clean, conscious investing.

Up next, how Good Capital invests in good. Check our our other posts here.