Life, liberty and the pursuit of returns: There’s an ETF for that

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This ETF uses human and economic freedom metrics in deciding where to invest.

Like many Americans, Perth Tolle has watched the recent protests in Hong Kong with dismay. Tolle, who divided her childhood between Texas and mainland China, spent a year in Hong Kong after college. That year, she made friends with a Chinese woman, a relationship that helped Tolle realize just how lucky she’d been to spend so much of her childhood in a free country.

“Eventually the idea came to me: I want to invest in free countries,” she said. “It’s freedom that allows the emerging markets of yesterday to become the developed markets of today.” Like most ETFs, this one FRDM, -1.13% tracks an index. It’s called Life + Liberty Freedom 100 Emerging Markets Index, and Tolle developed it using data from a few sources, including the Fraser Institute, the Cato Institute and the Germany-based Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. Its benchmark is the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Life + Liberty is also similar to other ETFs in that it “rebalances” every so often — in this case, once a year — based on what’s going on in the world. With so much history, it’s possible to evaluate how earlier assessments of freedom have played out over time, Porčnik pointed out. “It’s striking how accurate they were in their assessment of these relationships — what leads to what, what kind of impact freedom has on the well-being of the people — per capita income but also child mortality, literacy rates, and so on. Our index confirms what was said decades ago,” she said.

In contrast, Bouri said, “an impact investor would be looking at, how do I positively invest in things that contribute to a sustainable impact in the future?” Of course, in impact investing, perhaps more than in most corners of the financial markets, the details become exceedingly devilish. “The question to be asked is, what is the positive and measurable impact they want to achieve?” Bouri said.

 

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