Has the ESG fraud bubble finally burst?
More than two years ago, long before Elon Musk joined the growing anti-ESG bandwagon, we were the first to slam ESG as nothing but the latest Wall Street scam meant to fast-track gains for all those hypocrites who pretended to care about the environment but really had found a quick and efficient way of parting fools from their money (see from Feb 2020 “Behold The “Green” Scam” and from April 2020 “The Fraud That Is ESG Strikes Again: Six Of Top 10 ESG Funds Underperform The S&P500“). [bold, links added]
Well, it appears that after years of forced capital allocations, the party is over and the bubble has burst. As Bloomberg writes, this year’s weak performance by US stocks has forced many investors to recalibrate their portfolios.
And they’re fleeing “do-good” scam strategies.
After more than three years of inflows, investors are now pulling cash out of US equity exchange-traded funds with higher environmental, social, and governance standards.
May saw $2 billion of outflows from ESG equity funds, according to data from Bloomberg Intelligence — the biggest monthly cash pullback ever.
“There’s no way to know for certain why the outflows were so extreme,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart, who noted that the funds had started from a high-asset base after years of inflows. “But also ESG ETFs may be finding that people care a lot more about them in bull markets.”
Do-good investing boomed during the pandemic, with more than $68 billion flowing into ESG equity funds in the past two years. Many believed that this momentum would continue into 2022.
But the spike in oil prices since Russia invaded Ukraine has lifted fossil-fuel shares, driving the S&P 500 Energy Index to gain 59% this year even as the benchmark overall has dropped 14%.
This has made do-good investing more of a sacrifice. RBC Wealth Management recently surveyed over 900 of its US-based clients and 49% said that performance and returns were a higher priority than ESG impact, up from 42% last year.
“The story has been told that you don’t have to give up returns in order to do ESG, but everyone assumed that you would get the same exact return profile as a traditional benchmark, which is absolutely not true because traditional benchmarks are not looking at ESG factors,” said Kent McClanahan, vice president of responsible investing at RBC Wealth Management.
He added that social and environmental policy can take time to implement, so investors should focus more on longer-term payoffs.
“You would think that now more than ever, people will be looking to ESG investing given what we are seeing in the energy markets and the need not be so dependent on certain countries such as Russia and their energy and their oil and gas,” said Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index.
That might be one reason that at least 20 ESG-focused funds have launched in the US this year, netting almost $3.2 billion of inflows in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Yet RBC clients also expressed skepticism about the ESG label. Though nearly two-thirds said that socially responsible investing is the way of the future, 74% of those surveyed said many companies provide misleading information about their ESG initiatives.
This is an issue that could eventually be addressed through a Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal for new restrictions to ensure ESG funds accurately describe their investments.
Ivy Jack, head of equities at Northstar Asset Management, said that this year’s performance has exposed the fact that some investors were caught up in ESG as a fad and misinformed.
“If you really want to understand if someone is serious about ESG, I would first ask them to look at their portfolio and ask them to explain why all the companies are in there and how those companies relate to their values,” Jack said. “To the extent that someone can’t do that for you, well that’s a red flag.”
See John Authers latest “ESG Is Alive and Well. Just Call It Protectionism” for another take on ESG.
h/t Rúnar O.
Read more at ZeroHedge
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Dr Mark van Rijmenam, 08.06.2022, Vol. 172 – “How to reach new consumer markets using third-party data for ESG initiatives. 3 ways to enhance ESG performance through step-by-step demonstrations and success stories shared by experts – how to increase supply chain efficiencies, reach new consumer markets, and maintain compliance” I don’t agree with this this potentially destructive ESG
It is mathematically impossible to apply ESG standards for investments without suffering lower returns. Let’s say ten companies are chosen out of a hundred only based on financial performance. Now apply ESG and move three companies into the top ten and remove three better performing companies. The financial performance of the portfolio has just been degraded.
The same is true with affirmative action. Let’s say the best ten applicants out of two hundred are selected. Now using affirmative action criteria move five applicants into the top ten and remove five better qualified applicants. The quality of those being hired has been degraded. Companies with strong affirmative action receive higher ESG scores which impacts the quality of the companies selected on that criteria.