All Comes Down To Performance
But ultimately, investors want to know about performance, and year to date, they’re side by side. Investing in virtue through BIBL has delivered returns of 18.5%, while investing in vice through ACT has returned 18%. Both thematic ETFs have underperformed the broad market as represented by SPY’s (SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust) 21.4% returns this year.
Since inception in late 2017, however, BIBL has significantly outperformed ACT, returning 14.4% versus 2.20%—both still underperforming SPY in the same period.
Looking at the past 12 months for yet another picture of performance, BIBL is up 4% versus ACT’s loss of 2.41% during that time.
Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com
We have seen similar performance between ACT and BIBL this year after a pattern of underperformance by ACT, and both of them against the broad market. Slicing up the broad market into vice and virtue portfolios in these instances is lagging in returns.
Drew Voros can be reached at [email protected]