by Sound Financial & WealthShield

Are you a 5 Talent guy/gal or will your Ox get stoned? Weird question, huh?

Consider that God is so serious about our investments that Jesus complimented those that doubled their money. And He is equally as serious about the quality of our assets, that if they hurt people those should be destroyed, i.e. the Ox gets stoned to death. Jesus once told His disciples to be street-wise as snakes and yet innocent as doves. He gives us no wiggle room in between. He expects wisdom, creativity, and growth. We should not hide our money in the name of safety. And He expects innocence, we cannot present Him profits earned from activities that harmed people or the environment. Therefore, we should invest shrewdly, reach for great returns, and do good work in the process.*

The issue at hand is: can we invest in stocks of good companies that do not harm people and still capture investment results competing with common indexes? Our friends at WealthShield built a stock index demonstrating the possibility of returns to answer this question.

Given the data, we believe the answer is yes.

In our research we compared this Biblically Responsible Strategy to the S&P 500 Total Return Index. This is a hypothetical scenario meant to demonstrate the possibilities of investments like these. We wanted to be as accurate as possible in our testing, therefore we included both wealth and asset management fees, attempting to demonstrate as complete of an investment picture as possible. In short these are the results; for every $100 invested in the Index upon its first historical data point (April 7th, 2000), a hypothetical investor would have $328.17 in total return on April 7, 2020, this is after advisory and asset management fees were paid. This is an annualized return of 6.12%. This compares to only $251.77 in the S&P 500 total return over that same timeframe which is an annualized return of 4.73%. We believe this answers the question, can we invest in Biblically responsible companies and earn a greater return? Yes, we believe the data demonstrates that this Index has the potential to compete with and even exceed the S&P 500 Total Return. And as Believers, we believe this helps us in our quest to invest in companies that do good work, while not harming people or the environment which is exactly what God’s word instructs us to do.

This is a link to the full article demonstrating this Index: FAITH-BASED INVESTING INDEX

—

(1) The BRI Strategy Total Return Index is hypothetical in the back tested years (April 7, 2000- April 7, 2020). Hypothetical performance results are intended for informational purposes only to show historical performance had the model portfolios been used over the relevant period of time without any limitations or restrictions. There is no guarantee that the hypothetical results can be replicated. Hypothetical performance is presented net of Sound’s anticipated management fee of 1.44% per year from the inception date listed to present and includes the reinvestment of all income. Actual performance results will vary from this example.

(2) Matthew 25: 19-23

(3) Exodus 21: 28-29

(4) Matthew 25: 24-28

(5) Proverbs 16:8

(6) *The views and opinions of scripture are the views and opinions of the author based on his interpretation of the cited biblical passages.

(7) https://www.soundfsg.com/uploads/docs/BRI-Index-Paper_v3.pdf

A Faith-based Investing Index